The part that had me scratching my head was this. Atari went from founding in 1972 to $40M in revenue in 1974, and Bushnell sold the company for $28M in 1976, and revenue was $120M the next year.
Why did Bushnell sell for so cheap? I realize that revenue is not the same as profits, but with a growth ramp like that, I'd expect it to sell for more than $28M.
This assumes he was then motivated by money or still thrilled about that industry. He probably had his hands full with Chuck E Cheese.
PS: Him (or someone closely resembling him) gave a talk to my high school AP physics class c. 1994 about starting businesses. The school had a computer lab full of IBM PS/2 Model 25 and 30, and a derelict pile of PCjrs. The computers where absolute trash, but the teacher let it be completely unstructured. I think it had token ring and Novell 2. Most lacked HDDs so it was BYOF. I had a mentor for one year, a lady programmer from IBM Almaden.
Why did Bushnell sell for so cheap? I realize that revenue is not the same as profits, but with a growth ramp like that, I'd expect it to sell for more than $28M.