Crazy, ambitious lunatic

That's how Jeff Katzenberg describes Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who has been receiving a ton of press for engineering a merger with Vivendi's videogame unit. Actually, Kotick was a pretty astute engineer from way back. Consider this opening from Peter Beller's cover story in the Feb. 2 edition of Forbes:

Robert Kotick's mother dates his compulsive capitalism to toddlerhood, when young Bobby sold her ashtray to a friend who had come over for a playdate. He netted $3. After that the moneymaking ideas never stopped pouring out. By junior high Kotick had his own business cards and ran an array of ventures: delivering sandwiches, restringing tennis rackets, selling wallets. He first made the pages of FORBES at the age of 20, after he started a software company to take on Apple Computer.

Activision Blizzard, as the Santa Monica company is now called, owns Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and many others. All this from a guy who once thought videogames were a waste of time.

Kotick, now 45, traces his ascent to the lessons he learned as a teenage hustler trying to escape the tedium of suburban Long Island, New York. He happily recalls his most profitable high school business venture, renting out Manhattan nightspots like Studio 54 on off nights and throwing parties for underage kids. The hardworking Kotick found the hedonism of his customers--his fellow teenagers--befuddling. "I could never understand how you could spend hundreds of dollars buying cocaine or pot. I worked too hard for my money. I saved it. I still have it," he says. Instead he spent his spare time hanging outside with the bouncers taking head counts and dreaming up wholesome cross-selling opportunities, such as bringing in ice cream carts to the clubs. He left for college confident in his ability to understand his customers, whether or not he shared any of their passion for his products.