Nolan Bushnell shares his journey from selling strawberries to creating Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, emphasizing his innovative mindset and focus on education through gaming. The episode explores his early entrepreneurial ventures, the impact of parenting on education and his transition from arcade games to education. Bushnell discusses the creation of Pong, gamifying education, and the challenges of updating curriculum to embrace entrepreneurship.

Nolan Bushnell, creator of Pong, Atari, and Chuck E. Cheese, discusses the happy accidents that set the video game industry in motion. They delve into the origins of Chuck E. Cheese and its mascot, the birth of Atari, licensing challenges, and the involvement of Steve Jobs. They also touch on their focus on education and game-based learning.

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:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Huntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressStatsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24More Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCLinks:Spacewar!, the first video game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar! The meaning of Atari: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atariNolan’s current project, St. Noire:  https://www.amazon.com/St-Noire-Hosted-Cinematic-Exclusive/dp/B07P693BG1