#229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game
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
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Bing
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Bing Gordon on Lessons From Serving On Amazon & Zynga's Board, Why The Best Investors Are Good Listeners and Sceptical Optimists & The Most Important Value Add A VC Can Provide
Bing Gordon is a Partner and Chief Product Officer @ Kleiner Perkins, one of the world's most prestigious venture funds with prior investments in the likes of Google, Amazon, Twitter, Square and Airbnb just to name a few. At Kleiner Bing has either worked with or invested in the likes of Spotify, Zynga, Amazon, Twitter and Magic Leap, just to name a few. Bing also serves on the boards of Zynga, Zazzle, N3twork and until March this year, Amazon. Prior to Kleiner, Bing had been a long-time executive at Electronic Arts, beginning with EA's founding in 1982 with initial funding from Kleiner Perkins. He was chief creative officer at EA from 1998 to 2008 and previously headed EA marketing and product development.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Bing made the move from Chief Creative Officer at EA to Partner @ Kleiner Perkins?
2.) What were Bing's biggest lessons from sitting on the boards of Amazon and Zynga and working with Jeff Bezos and Mark Pincus? What is the most important value-add that a VC should bring? What question must all new board members ask themselves?
3.) Why does Bing believe there are two types of investors in VC? How does Bing determine whether it is right to fix losers or ride winners? How does Bing look to balance between being the cheerleader or critical analyst to the CEO?
4.) What are the signs of truly great and productive board meetings? From Bing's vast experience, which VCs does Bing most like to sit on a board with and why? Which board meeting sticks out in Bing's memory as being of particular significance and why?
5.) What mentality do all great investors have when entering deals? What are the two commonalities of people that are largely right in their choices? How important a role does valuation play for Bing when evaluation potential opportunities?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Bing's Fave Book: Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)
Bing's Most Recent Investment: N3twork
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Bing on Twitter here!
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