Marty Payson, Warner, Office of the President

Hi, everyone, and welcome to another in the long-standing series of interviews being published for Antic, the Atari 8-bit Computer Podcast. I’m Randy Kindig and this interview is a follow-up to the recent interview that we published with Manny Gerard of Warner Communications, the company that bought Atari in 1976. This time the interview is with Marty Payson, also of Warner Communications. Marty began with Warner in 1970, became executive vice president and general counsel in 1982, and in 1987 became a member of the Office of the President for Warner. He was with Warner during the Atari days, up to 1984 when it was sold to the Tramiels, and was still involved with Atari for some time after that, as you will hear. Marty was not as intimately involved with Atari as was Manny Gerard, but nonetheless I hope you find his perspective from the Warner side interesting.

This interview was conducted on August 17, 2015.

Teaser Quotes

“The problem with it was, it was uncontrolled growth. And, I’m not pointing a finger at either Atari or Warner. I think it was a combination of both.”

“It began a point that Warner was going to have to take control of Atari. It was out of control.”

Links

1987 Los Angeles Times Article on the Appointment of Marty to the Warner Office of the President

1992 Los Angeles Times Article on the Resignation of Marty