Atari’s founder was a burly entrepreneur named Nolan Bushnell, who was a charismatic visionary with a nice touch of showmanship in him—in other words, another role model waiting to be emulated. After he became famous, he liked driving around in a Rolls, smoking dope, and holding staff meetings in a hot tub. As Jobs would learn to do, he was able to turn charm into a cunning force, to cajole and intimidate and distort reality with the power of his personality. His chief engineer was Al Alcorn, beefy and jovial and a bit more grounded, the house grown-up trying to implement the vision and curb the enthusiasms of Bushnell. Their big hit thus far was a video game called Pong, in which two players tried to volley a blip on a screen with two movable lines that acted as paddles. (If you’re under thirty, ask your parents.)When Jobs arrived in the Atari lobby wearing sandals and demanding a job, Alcorn was the one who was summoned. “I was told, ‘We’ve got a hippie kid in the lobby. He says he’s not going to leave until we hire him. Should we call the cops or let him in?’ I said bring him on in!” “In retrospect, it was weird to hire a dropout from Reed,” Alcorn recalled. “But I saw something in him. He was very intelligent, enthusiastic, excited about tech.” (Chapter 4 Atari and India: Atari)
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雅達利電腦遊戲公司的創始人叫諾蘭·布什內爾，他是一個身材魁梧的企業家，一個魅力四射表現力十足的夢想家。換句話說，又是一個人們會競相模仿的偶像。出名之後，他喜歡開著一輛勞斯萊斯四處轉悠，吸毒成癮，喜歡在按摩浴缸裡開員工會議。他身上有一種能力喬布斯後來學到了，那就是能把魅力變成巧妙的說服力，利用人格的力量，哄騙、脅迫和扭曲的手段都用上，改變事實。他手下的總工程師叫阿爾·奧爾康，身材健壯，天性活潑，更加腳踏實地。他是雅達利大家庭的家長，努力實現著布什內爾的願景，同時又剋制著他的熱情。他們的經典之作是街機電子遊戲《乒乓》（又名跳跳彈子檯），這個遊戲規則很簡單：兩個玩家利用兩條移動的游標當球拍，互相擊打螢幕上的圓點。（要是你沒到30歲，那回家問問父母這個遊戲是怎麼玩的。）當腳穿涼鞋的'喬布斯初次來到雅達利找工作的時候，奧爾康也得到了通知。“他們跟我說，大廳裡有個嬉皮男孩來找工作，不僱他他就賴著不走了。叫警察還是讓他進來？我說把他帶進來吧。”他後來回憶道：“現在回頭想想，僱個裡德學院的退學生真的還蠻奇怪的，不過我在他身上看到了一些東西，他很聰明，對科技有熱情有幹勁。”
