{"podcast":{"title":"Big Shot","slug":"big-shot-6247527","podcast_index_feed_id":6247527,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/dbe3e564/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://bigshot.show","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/production/podcast_uploaded_nologo/36791457/36791457-1678042683199-a685533b9321b.jpg","author":"Big Shot","episode_count":40,"summary":"If the walls of Kosher delis could speak, they would (schm)ooze invaluable wisdom and endless laughs. Harley Finkelstein (Shopify) and David Segal (DAVIDsTEA) are Jewish entrepreneurs influenced by the greats who came before them. But, they realized no one was archiving the best behind-the-scenes stories ever told. Before time was up, they set out on a passion project to preserve the memories, mishaps, and wins of the people who have seen it all. Big Shot tells the stories of the people that shaped an entire generation.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-12T02:17:07.115182+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-shot-6247527"},"episode":{"title":"The King of Gaming: How Bobby Kotick Built and Sold Activision Blizzard for $69B","slug":"the-king-of-gaming-how-bobby-kotick-built-and-sold-activision-blizzard-for-69b","published_at":"2025-04-10T13:16:25+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-shot-6247527/the-king-of-gaming-how-bobby-kotick-built-and-sold-activision-blizzard-for-69b","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-shot-6247527","url":"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_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/dbe3e564/podcast/play/100819961/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-3-4%2F397804471-44100-2-f091dd7c3e048.mp3","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…","meta_description":"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 gami…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4995,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/big-shot-6247527/episodes/the-king-of-gaming-how-bobby-kotick-built-and-sold-activision-blizzard-for-69b/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-shot-6247527/the-king-of-gaming-how-bobby-kotick-built-and-sold-activision-blizzard-for-69b.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}