Mar 26, 2013, 10:20am PDT Updated: Mar 26, 2013, 10:53am PDT

Steve Jobs' Atari boss on nurturing startup creativity

Nolan Bushnell was Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' boss at computer game pioneer Atari and has written a book, "Finding the Next Steve Jobs."

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Cromwell Schubarth: Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal; Email | Twitter | Google

Nolan Bushnell has founded more than 20 startups in his long career, although he is best known for two of them — computer game pioneer Atari and family entertainment restaurant Chuck E. Cheese.
He is also famously the man who hired 19-year-old Steve Jobs at Atari long before Apple was founded.
Earlier on Tuesday, I shared the first of three Q&A’s excerpted from a conversation I had with Bushnell about his new book, “Finding the Next Steve Jobs.” In it he offers a series of guidelines called Pongs (after his first computer game hit).
Here are the “Pongs” that Bushnell thinks are critical to startup success.
Why did you call the different guidelines in your book Pongs?
First of all, I really like the onomatopoeia of it. It's sort of goes back to my earliest big hit game and I wanted a word that wasn't “rule” because one of my Pongs is that are no rules, that you really have to look at a whole bunch of things and make your company work by having good judgment. A lot of times the inflexibility of rules puts you into situations where you are really blocking off creativity. So I had to make up a word and thought I’d use that.
You have had a lot of startup experience. I read that you started 20 companies.
Maybe even a couple more than that. And I’ve got business plans that are marinating right now for another five or six, so....
So which of the Pongs from your book do you think are most important for startups to consider?
I really think the most important thing any start up needs to do is to be willing to just do it. There are a lot of people who plan...and plan...and plan...and think....and find all kinds of obstacles. But they don't take the critical steps of just actually doing it. So action is the most important characteristic of an entrepreneur.

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Cromwell Schubarth is the Senior Technology Reporter at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1823.

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