Episode
The King of Gaming: How Bobby Kotick Built and Sold Activision Blizzard for $69B
- Podcast
- Big Shot
- Published
- Apr 10, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 4995
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
Bobby Kotick built a $69 billion empire from scratch—and the story is even crazier than it sounds. In this episode of The Big Shot , we sit down with gaming’s ultimate entrepreneur. Bobby takes us from hustling snacks at baseball games to building one of the most iconic tech companies in the world: Activision Blizzard. Hear how he cold-called Nintendo, got investment from Steve Wynn on a private jet, took over a bankrupt video game company, and turned it into an empire that Microsoft bought for $69 billion. In this episode, you’ll hear about: Bobby’s early hustles: selling ashtrays, snacks, and party access in NYC Dropping out of college after Steve Jobs told him to Starting a dorm room company with Howard Marks Convincing Steve Wynn to invest $300K after a chance meeting Reviving Activision from bankruptcy using old IP and grit Why Pitfall and River Raid were billion-dollar blueprints How Activision became the first American Nintendo licensee The Apple boardroom showdown with John Sculley Turning Activision into a media empire: Call of Duty, Candy Crush, and Guitar Hero What it felt like selling the company to Microsoft for $69 billion His philosophy on leadership, loyalty, and building an enduring business — In This Episode We Cover: (00:00) Intro (03:19) Selling ashtrays at playdates: Bobby’s first hustles (06:39) Shadowing NYC real estate legends like Larry Silverstein (09:59) Dorm room hardware startup with Howard Marks (13:18) Inventing a typewriter-printer hack and launching via Byte magazine (16:38) Meeting Steve Jobs (19:58) Why Steve Jobs tells Bobby to drop out of school (23:17) Getting featured in Forbes and making his parents panic (26:37) The wild story of meeting Steve Wynn at a Texas cowboy gala (29:57) The legendary $300K check in the basement of a cas…