# The King of Gaming: How Bobby Kotick Built and Sold Activision Blizzard for $69B

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-shot-6247527/the-king-of-gaming-how-bobby-kotick-built-and-sold-activision-blizzard-for-69b
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-shot-6247527/the-king-of-gaming-how-bobby-kotick-built-and-sold-activision-blizzard-for-69b.md
Podcast: [Big Shot](https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-shot-6247527)
Published: 2025-04-10T13:16:25+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/big-shot-show/episodes/The-King-of-Gaming-How-Bobby-Kotick-Built-and-Sold-Activision-Blizzard-for-69B-e3139hp
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/dbe3e564/podcast/play/100819961/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-3-4%2F397804471-44100-2-f091dd7c3e048.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/big-shot-6247527/episodes/the-king-of-gaming-how-bobby-kotick-built-and-sold-activision-blizzard-for-69b
Duration seconds: 4995

## Resource

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…

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