One of Newsweek’s “50 Men that Changed America”, Nolan Bushnell is the quintessential technology pioneer, entrepreneur, scientist, and engineer. Often cited as the Father of the Video Game Industry, he is best known as the co-founder of Atari Corporation and the founder of Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre. Today his design credo – that games should be “easy to learn and difficult to master” – is inspiring a new generation of developers. Nolan was the first and only person to hire Steve Jobs (at Atari), which he details in his and co-author Gene Stone’s 2013 book, Finding the Next Steve Jobs, published by Simon and Schuster. In October 2023 he released his second book, Shaping the Future of Education, which he co-wrote with Dr. Leah Hanes, and which was published by Greenleaf Book Group Press.

Over the past four decades, it’s astounding what Nolan has created as a prolific entrepreneur, founding more than 20 companies, including: Atari; Chuck E. Cheese; Catalyst Technologies, the first tech incubator in Silicon Valley; Etak, the first car navigation system whose mapping is still the basis for car navigation systems today; Androbot, a personal robotics company; ByVideo, the first online ordering system, which allowed customers to order and pay for products from kiosks; uWink, the first touchscreen ordering, entertainment and check out system at restaurant tables; X2, a game company focused on powerful new tech for games for Amazon’s Echo; and Modal VR, an end-to-end virtual reality platform that delivers large-scale and fully wireless immersion for multiple users at once.

Nolan is credited with pioneering many of the workplace innovations that have made Silicon Valley a long-standing magnet for creative talent.

Today he is Chairman of ExoDexa Holdings, Inc., a gamified education company focused on engaging and efficient learning. He also sits on several Boards focused on games, robotics and other advanced tech. In 2019 Nolan released a multimedia murder mystery game titled St. Noire, made for Amazon’s Echo powered by Alexa that won the “Best Innovation” award at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show.

Nolan has also consulted with many of the world’s biggest corporations, including IBM, Cisco Systems, US Digital Communications, and many more. He’s been featured hundreds of times in the media, including in Forbes, Bloomberg, Fast Company, WIRED, the Economist, Yahoo, NPR, CNET, CNBC, and many more. He has won numerous awards around the world, including a BAFTA, and has been featured in many documentaries, including CNN’s “The Eighties” Series, produced by Tom Hanks, and in “Game On” on The History Channel. Nolan was given a cameo in the major 2013 film “Jobs” starring Ashton Kutcher, a tip of the hat to Nolan for his role in hiring Steve Jobs for his first and only job ever at Atari. A biopic about Nolan, tentatively titled “Atari”, with Leonardo DiCaprio as Executive Producer, is also in the works.