Robert Smith

And he started in the early 70s a venture capital firm called Sequoia.

Yeah, like one of the, you know, maybe two or three biggest, most important VC firms.

But at this time, it was Valentine and he went to visit Atari.

He smelled the weed smoke.

He said it was enough to knock you to your knees.

At some point, he took a meeting in the hot tub.

And so he's like, yes, it's obviously super sketchy.

But also, he was like, oh, these guys are onto something.

This could be a way to get the computer into the house, this giant transformative thing.

And so he offers Bushnell this interesting deal.

He says, I'm not going to give you money to start with, but I will help you.

I will help you, you know, find a partner, essentially, so that you can get to the next level.

And if you don't screw it up, then I'll give you money.

And, you know, the key thing Valentine wants to help Atari with at this point is how do you get this little stoner video game company connected with a big national retailer to distribute their first consumer product across the country?

So they're working on this together and Toys R Us turns them down.

Radio Shack turns them down.

Oh, they're waiting for the big Tandy computer they're going to sell years later.

Shout out the TRS-80.

They go to the New York Toy Fair.

Nobody's interested.