Robert Smith

He's talking about it later in an interview.

He said, quote, I was just pulling it out of my butt.

And Bushnell says, okay.

And they have a few months to do it.

Now Bushnell really does need that capital, but he also has a huge order from the biggest retailer in the world, much easier to get funding.

And Valentine, Sequoia, comes through with the money.

Atari becomes Sequoia's first ever investment.

And Sears now does the Sears thing that we talked about on the Sears show, right?

They help this little company figure out how to scale really quickly, right?

They get Bushnell set up with the Sears Bank, which is cool in a nerdy finance way.

They create this bonded warehouse so that now when Atari makes this one home pong game, they don't have to wait to get money for it.

They can get 80% of the value of it right as soon as it goes into the warehouse.

Clearly, a roller rink's not going to work to make 150,000 home video game consoles.

So they get a, you know, a kind of real factory with a conveyor belt, where Bushnell loves to ride around in a box on the conveyor belt.

The guy loved to play, right?

He loved to play, which is essential.

Actually, one day, some Sears execs in suits show up, and Bushnell is, in fact, riding on the conveyor belt in a box.

They're like, okay, whatever, just keep making the games.

And they do.

Atari that year shipped over 150,000 units.