Season 5, Episode 5: Atari (with Nolan Bushnell)

We’re joined by the legendary Nolan Bushnell, founder not only of Atari, but also the only person ever to hire Steve Jobs, the recipient of Sequoia Capital’s first-ever investment, and the creator of Chuck E. Cheese, the canonical GPS navigation arrow, and a little project that would go on to become Pixar. We cover it all in this special episode!

Sponsors:

Rippling: https://bit.ly/acquiredrippling
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig25
Odd Lots: https://bit.ly/acquiredoddlots
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsn

More Acquired!

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

• Spacewar!, the first video game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar! 
• The meaning of Atari: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atari
• Nolan’s current project, St. Noire:  https://www.amazon.com/St-Noire-Hosted-Cinematic-Exclusive/dp/B07P693BG1