The Failure Pledge

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Nolan Bushnell

Nolan Bushnell
Photo by Tech Cocktail. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

What failed

Removed as chief executive and chairman of the company he founded. Then his own second act, a pizza and arcade chain, filed for bankruptcy on a fifty-eight million dollar loss. Then a consumer robotics company. Then a restaurant chain that consumed seven years and twenty-four million dollars before every location closed. Then a string of others.

What happened next

More companies. He never rebuilt anything approaching the first one, and kept starting things into his eighties.

The point

This is the entry that refuses the standard shape. His failures did not resolve into a bigger win. They just kept being followed by the next attempt. The point of permission to fail is not that the sequel pays off — it is that you get to keep making things.

The sequence

3 documented failures, shown with the successes in between. Every entry carries its own source — the wins are part of the record, and leaving them out is how these stories get distorted.

  1. 1972

    Founds the company that creates the video game industry.

    successNolan Bushnell (Wikipedia)

  2. 1976

    Sells it for twenty-eight million dollars, taking fifteen million personally.

    successNolan Bushnell (Wikipedia)

  3. 1979

    Removed as chief executive and chairman of the company he founded. Sources disagree on whether this was late 1978 or early 1979.

    disputedNolan Bushnell (Wikipedia)

  4. 1983

    A consumer robotics company launches and does not last.

    failureTopo (robot) (Wikipedia)

  5. 1984

    His second act files for bankruptcy, reporting a fifty-eight million dollar loss.

    failureChuck E. Cheese (Wikipedia)

  6. 2000s

    A restaurant venture burns seven years and twenty-four million dollars. Every location closes.

    failureNolan Bushnell (Wikipedia)

  7. 2012

    Founds an education software company. Still starting things.

    successNolan Bushnell (Wikipedia)

Sources

  • Nolan Bushnell (Wikipedia)
    Both Warner Communications and Bushnell commonly recognized he was no longer a good leader for the company, removing him as CEO and Chairman in early 1979.

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