February 10, 2025

#229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game

1 hour 51 minutes

Guest: Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision Blizzard; and Bing Gordon, Advisor at Kleiner Perkins

In 2020, when President Trump signed the executive order that would ban TikTok in the U.S., Bobby Kotick called his old friend Steven Mnuchin. The former Secretary of the Treasury told him that, if TikTok’s U.S. operations were to be sold to an American company, Microsoft would be the only bidder.

A couple calls later, he reached ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming, who said he’d rather sell to Bobby than Microsoft. Concerned about his ability to get the deal done solo, Bobby called Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and offered to make a joint bid.

Nadella declined, but added, “ if the deal doesn't get done, we should sit down and talk about us buying Activision.” TikTok currently remains Chinese-owned, but three years later, Microsoft paid $75 billion for Activision Blizzard.

Chapters:

(01:16) - Forming Activision Blizzard

(04:19) - Good acquisitions

(09:21) - Electronic Arts and “Schedule C”

(15:08) - Nintendo and Mediagenic

(21:19) - Steve Wynn

(29:24) - Wynn cashes out

(35:14) - Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater

(40:38) - Blizzard’s many sales

(44:44) - World of Warcraft and Call of Duty

(47:59) - Jurassic Park

(50:40) - Chris Metzen

(55:06) - David Geffen

(58:11) - New competitors

(01:02:25) - The harassment lawsuits

(01:06:53) - Trying to buy TikTok

(01:08:51) - Hardware design

(01:12:52) - Polymarket, Donald Trump, and TikTok

(01:15:19) - The Call of Duty Endowment

(01:18:31) - Brian Stann and Hire Heroes USA

(01:21:49) - Steve Jobs and Pixar

(01:29:41) - The first Macintosh

(01:31:29) - The Wii demo

(01:33:42) - Nintendo 64, PlayStation and VR

(01:37:35) - The hardest year

(01:40:17) - Working with Brian Kelly

(01:41:26) - Satya Nadella and Microsoft

(01:44:39) - Xbox Game Pass

(01:49:35) - What “grit” means to Bobby

Mentioned in this episode: Vivendi, Bruce Hack and Arnaud de Puyfontaine, EA, Call of Duty, Bizarre Creations, Atari, Apple II, Commodore 64, Jean-Louis Gassée, Apple Lisa, Howard Lincoln, Philips, Magnavox Odyssey, Sutter Hill Ventures, Infocom and Zork, Toys-R-Us, Howard Hughes, E. Parry Thomas, Sun Valley, Thom Weisel, William Morris Endeavor, Guitar Hero, Davidson & Associates, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, World of Warcraft, Medal of Honor, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Chris Roberts, Overwatch, Tencent, Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In, Lina Khan, Samsung, Elon Musk, James L. Jones, UFC, E. Floyd Kvamme, Toy Story 2, Procter & Gamble, Ron Doornik, John Lasseter, Xerox PARC, Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, Goldeneye 007, James Bond, Barbara Broccoli, Oculus, Apple Vision Pro, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Sam Altman, Mustafa Suleyman, Spotify, Candy Crush Saga, Disney, Phil Spencer, Clarence Avant and Motown Records.

Links:

Connect with Bobby