The Next Yamauchi Running Nintendo

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Hiroshi Yamauchi was 21 years old when he took over the family business at Nintendo. His father had walked out on him and the family, so there was this missing generation here. Hiroshi has no training but develops into a leader who has an unbelievable eye. He fires every single manager in Nintendo, just decapitates everybody.

You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn’t they buy the Seattle Mariners at some point? We thought we knew it too. And then we started researching and were blown away.

The lovable Disney-like Nintendo that we know today is a 130 year-old a playing card company (i.e. gambling), forged in the shadowy world of the Yakuza and shaped by a four-generation cycle of bitter family betrayal. And its unlikely transformation into a global multi-billion dollar media monopoly was led by an iron-fisted patriarch who — amazingly — never played a video game in his life! Get ready for one of our favorite stories Acquired has ever told — we couldn’t make this one up if we tried!

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