EGD 062: Kristian Segerstrale, Super Evil Megacorp
Kristian Segerstrale is the CEO Super Evil Megacorp, a games company based out of San Francisco. Kristian is a legend in gaming. He started his first games company Macrospace twenty years ago, which IPOed as Glu Mobile a few year later. Later he sold his second company Playfish to EA in 2009. We talk about being an entrepreneur in gaming, and how Kristian’s beliefs have evolved over the years, in what it takes to succeed in gaming.
Topics that we cover include:
- Early days at Macrospace, were there moments of realization and epiphany regarding mobile games? That this market is going to be huge one day?
- Before forming Playfish, how did the idea shape up? How did you get the conviction to pursue the idea of Playfish?
- When you invested into Supercell, what got you excited? Facebook was already saturated, so did you bet on the team, or on their idea, their approach?
- We got Facebook canvas games and smartphone App Stores in the span of a few year. Radical changes in the industry. Do you think that similar paradigm shifts will happen again any time soon?
- You are the CEO of a notable games company, with lots of people in the company, building games. But it is an immense undertaking. Something where you want to give everything to it. Who or what has been helpful for you in navigating this effort of being a CEO?
- How has your approach to leadership changed in the last five years? What have you noticed?
Watch Kristian’s talk from 2011 by going here.
