Bobby Kotick

Businessman and entrepreneur Robert A. Kotick, known as Bobby Kotick, has a net worth of approximately $2 billion, earned from his success as CEO of the video game publisher Activision and Activision Blizzard. He is currently president, CEO and director of the merged video game publisher Activision Blizzard and is one of the most recognizable executives in the video game industry. Kotick's career began at Apple back in the 1980s creating software. In fact, it was the (recently departed) founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, whom Kotick gives the credit for convincing him to drop out of college and pursue his ambitions in the world of computer software. His first business venture was in 1987, when he attempted to acquire the computer company Commodore International. His idea was to remove the disk drive and keyboard from the Commodore hardware and sell the rest as a home gaming console. Unfortunately he was unable to convince the people in charge at Commodore that this was a good idea, and the company ended up failing when this could have been a move to keep them relevant well into the future. He Then wnet on to purchase 25% of Activision in 1990 and became CEO the next year. Over 20 years in charge, he built one of the most successful video game publishers. He was also engineered the merger between Activision and Blizzard Entertainment, another top video game publisher. Activision Blizzard is know owned by French conglomerate Vivendi. He has also served on the board of directors of Yahoo!. With Activision Blizzard, Kotick is often a controversial figure in the video game world, being seen as not caring about the video game playing consumers and more about the bottom line for corporate profits. Still, it's hard to argue with success, and Kotick is one of the most successful people to ever be in the business of video games. Robert A. Kotick (born 1963), also known as Bobby Kotick, is the CEO, president, and a director of Activision Blizzard. On February 16, 2012 he was elected a director of The Coca-Cola Company, a job he now performs in conjunction with his role at Activision Blizzard. Kotick began his career in 1983 while he was still in college at the University of Michigan, when he began creating software for the Apple II with financial backing from Steve Wynn. Kotick credits Steve Jobs for advising him to drop out of college to pursue his entrepreneurial interests in the software business. In 1987, he tried to acquire Commodore International. He planned to remove the keyboard and disk drive from the Amiga 500 and turn it into the first 16 bit video game system. He was unsuccessful in persuading Commodore's then Chairman Irving Gould to sell control of the company. He subsequently purchased a controlling stake in Leisure Concepts, Nintendo's licensing agent, which was renamed 4Kids Entertainment. Kotick and his partner Brian Kelly bought a 25% stake in Activision in December 1990, and became CEO in February 1991. Kotick also served as a founder of International Consumer Technologies and president from 1986 to January 1995. In 1995, International Consumer Technologies became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision. Kotick was also a Yahoo! board member from March 2003 to August 2008, and is currently a board member for the Center for Early Education, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Tony Hawk Foundation. At Activision, Kotick set out to build "an institutional quality, well managed company with a focus on the independent developer." In a June 14, 2010 interview with gaming blog Kotaku, Kotick stated, "...[P]art of the whole philosophy of Activision was whether you're owned outright or not, if you're a studio you have control of your destiny, you could make decisions about who to hire, flexibility on what products to make, how to make them, schedules appro.