#229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game
Grit10 Feb 2025

#229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game

Guest: Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision Blizzard; and Bing Gordon, Advisor at Kleiner Perkins

In 2020, when President Trump signed the executive order that would ban TikTok in the U.S., Bobby Kotick called his old friend Steven Mnuchin. The former Secretary of the Treasury told him that, if TikTok’s U.S. operations were to be sold to an American company, Microsoft would be the only bidder.

A couple calls later, he reached ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming, who said he’d rather sell to Bobby than Microsoft. Concerned about his ability to get the deal done solo, Bobby called Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and offered to make a joint bid.

Nadella declined, but added, “ if the deal doesn't get done, we should sit down and talk about us buying Activision.” TikTok currently remains Chinese-owned, but three years later, Microsoft paid $75 billion for Activision Blizzard.

Chapters:

  • (01:16) - Forming Activision Blizzard
  • (04:19) - Good acquisitions
  • (09:21) - Electronic Arts and “Schedule C”
  • (15:08) - Nintendo and Mediagenic
  • (21:19) - Steve Wynn
  • (29:24) - Wynn cashes out
  • (35:14) - Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
  • (40:38) - Blizzard’s many sales
  • (44:44) - World of Warcraft and Call of Duty
  • (47:59) - Jurassic Park
  • (50:40) - Chris Metzen
  • (55:06) - David Geffen
  • (58:11) - New competitors
  • (01:02:25) - The harassment lawsuits
  • (01:06:53) - Trying to buy TikTok
  • (01:08:51) - Hardware design
  • (01:12:52) - Polymarket, Donald Trump, and TikTok
  • (01:15:19) - The Call of Duty Endowment
  • (01:18:31) - Brian Stann and Hire Heroes USA
  • (01:21:49) - Steve Jobs and Pixar
  • (01:29:41) - The first Macintosh
  • (01:31:29) - The Wii demo
  • (01:33:42) - Nintendo 64, PlayStation and VR
  • (01:37:35) - The hardest year
  • (01:40:17) - Working with Brian Kelly
  • (01:41:26) - Satya Nadella and Microsoft
  • (01:44:39) - Xbox Game Pass
  • (01:49:35) - What “grit” means to Bobby


Mentioned in this episode: Vivendi, Bruce Hack and Arnaud de Puyfontaine, EA, Call of Duty, Bizarre Creations, Atari, Apple II, Commodore 64, Jean-Louis Gassée, Apple Lisa, Howard Lincoln, Philips, Magnavox Odyssey, Sutter Hill Ventures, Infocom and Zork, Toys-R-Us, Howard Hughes, E. Parry Thomas, Sun Valley, Thom Weisel, William Morris Endeavor, Guitar Hero, Davidson & Associates, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, World of Warcraft, Medal of Honor, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Chris Roberts, Overwatch, Tencent, Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In, Lina Khan, Samsung, Elon Musk, James L. Jones, UFC, E. Floyd Kvamme, Toy Story 2, Procter & Gamble, Ron Doornik, John Lasseter, Xerox PARC, Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, Goldeneye 007, James Bond, Barbara Broccoli, Oculus, Apple Vision Pro, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Sam Altman, Mustafa Suleyman, Spotify, Candy Crush Saga, Disney, Phil Spencer, Clarence Avant and Motown Records.


Links:

Connect with Bobby

Connect with Bing

Connect with Joubin


Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Avsnitt(284)

CEO Incorta, Scott Jones: From Running Sales to Running a Company, and Everything in Between

CEO Incorta, Scott Jones: From Running Sales to Running a Company, and Everything in Between

Since the 1990s, Scott Jones has had a successful career working in sales at technology companies including SAP, Tableau, and Alteryx. In early 2021, Scott took a job that had never before appeared on...

13 Sep 202148min

Head of eSports at Activision Blizzard, Brandon Snow: Building 'Generational Fandom' of Professional Video Game Teams

Head of eSports at Activision Blizzard, Brandon Snow: Building 'Generational Fandom' of Professional Video Game Teams

Ever wonder how McDonald’s came up with its famous “I’m Lovin’ It” tagline? Brandon Snow knows all about it — in fact, he worked for the German advertising agency Heye & Partner when it pitched the wi...

6 Sep 202155min

Head of Revenue and BD at Asana, Oliver Jay: The Cutting Edge of Product-Led Growth

Head of Revenue and BD at Asana, Oliver Jay: The Cutting Edge of Product-Led Growth

When Oliver Jay worked for venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates in the late 2000s, he found that the most rewarding aspect for him was working with portfolio companies and watching the begin...

30 Aug 202146min

SVP Sales at Affirm, Eric Morse: Exploring The Partnership Between Engineering and Sales

SVP Sales at Affirm, Eric Morse: Exploring The Partnership Between Engineering and Sales

Eric Morse is unabashedly a “super nerd.”With a degree in physics from Duke University, Eric taught himself how to program and joined a consulting firm where he worked at implementing PeopleSoft, a hu...

23 Aug 202148min

CRO Front, LB Harvey: Moving Up-Market + Operational Excellence

CRO Front, LB Harvey: Moving Up-Market + Operational Excellence

Many successful LinkedIn alumni have been welcomed as guests on this podcast — and this week, the insightful LB Harvey will be joining those ranks.After starting her sales career as a Sales Executive ...

16 Aug 202145min

CRO/CSO Dialpad, Dan O’Connell: Taking Risks and Running a Company

CRO/CSO Dialpad, Dan O’Connell: Taking Risks and Running a Company

Dan O’Connell’s career is an impressive display of how hard work can catapult a person from the bottom of the sales hierarchy to the very top of business leadership.Having started as an account coordi...

9 Aug 202153min

CCO Figma, Amanda Kleha: The Strategies Behind Figma’s $10 Billion Valuation

CCO Figma, Amanda Kleha: The Strategies Behind Figma’s $10 Billion Valuation

When it comes to building a profitable business, Amanda Kleha has learned by doing. Amanda’s seven-year tenure in multiple senior marketing and sales positions at Zendesk saw the company make an IPO, ...

2 Aug 20211h 5min

CRO Okta, Steve Rowland: Identifying and Developing Future Business Leaders

CRO Okta, Steve Rowland: Identifying and Developing Future Business Leaders

When Steve Rowland studied at Texas A&M University to get his degree in engineering, he likely wouldn’t have expected that his career would shift into one of an extremely successful sales leader.Over ...

26 Juli 202147min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

framgangspodden
varvet
rss-svart-marknad
rss-jossan-nina
rss-borsens-finest
badfluence
svd-tech-brief
uppgang-och-fall
bathina-en-podcast
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
rss-dagen-med-di
lastbilspodden
tabberaset
avanzapodden
fill-or-kill
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
24fragor
kapitalet-en-podd-om-ekonomi
bilar-med-sladd
dynastin