Atari co-founder believes company would still be relevant today if they hadn't sold to Warner

[Shawn Knight]

During a recent Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell opened up about his personal life and professional career. If there's one takeaway from the informal Q&A session, it's that hindsight is 20/20.

Bushnell admitted that selling Atari to Warner Communications in 1976 was a huge mistake that destroyed the company's culture within two years of the sale. He also believes that Atari would still be relevant today if the sale hadn't taken place.

One Redditor asked if he was sad about turning down an opportunity to own a one-third stake in Apple, referencing when Steve Jobs approached Bushnell in 1976 for $50,000 in exchange for partial ownership. His answer was, of course, yes.

The former Atari boss also fielded a question regarding whether or not he had seen the New Mexico landfill where Atari dumped hoards of unsold E.T. games. Bushnell said he hadn't seen it yet in person but helped the people who did the movie, watched it and wished he had been there.

Looking to the future, Bushnell said he thinks robots and entertainment will be very important. He's also interested in businesses that will come about as a result of autonomous vehicles and last but not least, Bushnell believes the intersection between computers and biology will be important.

Feel free to check out the entire AMA session for more on Bushnell's time at Atari as well his founding of Chuck E. Cheese.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/57850-atari-co-founder-believes-company-would-still-be-relevant-today-if-they-hadnt-sold-to-warner.html

 

[wastedkill]

A third stake in apple... how much would that have netted him now...

 

[RustyTech]

A third stake in apple... how much would that have netted him now...

Billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of Billions of Dollars!!!

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

A third stake in apple... how much would that have netted him now...

He may not have still owned them even if he had bought them back then. Apple was a side player in the PC industry until the iPod in about 2003. They completely blew the opportunity to own the PC market of the late 90's because Jobs didn't want anyone besides Apple making Apple PCs. A few years later IBM PCs took over, Windows was born, and Apple fired Jobs. They didn't begin to recover until the cute and colorful iMac years later.

Apple's worth was flat all the way up to about 2003 2004. But if he had stuck around, 33% of Apple is worth about $200 billion today.

 

[Mandark57]

If only

 

[chip igmo]

The benefit of hindsight. the what ifs. full of many possibilities.
had he purchased a third of apple and is still there when apple fired jobs, would he be for the firing or keeping jobs?
apple, the forbidden fruit, why are you hated yet longed for?

I previously thought Atari was a Japanese game hardware company. I need to read some more tech history so I'll get more accurate facts.

 

[trgz]

"Atari would still be relevant today if the sale hadn't taken place" - Master of the Bleedin' Obvious

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Atari could've done a lot worse, imagine if they had sold out to Facebook if it had existed then?...

 

[Guest]

Why would they be relevant? Thousands of game studios went under between now and then. If you can't consistently produce hits then you die. Not selling to Warner doesn't mean they would have produced great games.

 

[SNGX1275]

Apple was a side player in the PC industry until the iPod in about 2003. They completely blew the opportunity to own the PC market of the late 90's because Jobs didn't want anyone besides Apple making Apple PCs. A few years later IBM PCs took over, Windows was born, and Apple fired Jobs. They didn't begin to recover until the cute and colorful iMac years later.

Apple's worth was flat all the way up to about 2003 2004. But if he had stuck around, 33% of Apple is worth about $200 billion today.

While all of what you said might be true, I think your conclusions are all wrong. Jobs pushed the Macintosh line really hard and it cost him his job because the rest of the board wanted to continue with the success of the Apple II. Jobs left Apple in 85? In about 93? John Sculley? (going off memory here, so could be wrong) allowed Macintosh clones. Later that was shut down. Jobs had nothing to do with Apple not using other vendors (although I'm sure he disapproved), but my point is, being effectively ousted from the company in 85 after pushing the GUI based OS, Jobs really had nothing to do with Apple not being on top of the 'personal computer' landscape through ANY time in the 90s. That was all on someone(s) else's head.