I wrote this in another thread:
| | | quote | Originally posted by IMSA GT:
It truly is a sad day. Jack and I go back about 20 years and he was one of my closest clients. He LOVED to place bets with me regarding all of the new game consoles that were emerging. Many times we bet lunch and dinner or his favorite, pink slips on which would be the bigger seller of the upcoming gaming consoles. I remember that I won and he handed me his pink slip but his wife looked very sad......and yes, I handed it back to him........like I would REALLY take his Testarossa from him. He loved to talk about his relations with Atari and really enjoyed sharing all of his stories regarding the upstart Apple and both of his Commodore computers. He could talk your ear off with his electronic knowledge and was a great person. I will miss him and it feels like an era in my life has ended.  |
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With that said, there was a TON of information that hidden from the general public regarding Atari. I currently work with a person who was one of their first security officers back when they had all of their offices in Sunnyvale. Atari was such a corrupt company that had most of it's money embezzled into the upper management bank accounts. The business took off so fast that NO ONE was prepared and they did not have single person with the knowledge to handle the cash-flow and the basic business practices to make it a successful "billion dollar" company. To give you an example, there was no inventory control early on. Down the street from Atari was/is a strip club called the Brass Rail. It is a shithole of a bar/club. This is the area in relation to where Atari was:
The square was the Atari offices and manufacturing. The letter "A" is the Brass Rail
The employees stole about 30 of the Atari 2600 units and were selling them on the bartop with a paper napkin price tag BEFORE they were even released or advertised to the public. They also had tons of money laundering as well as the executives thought that the company was perfect. Having Jack and his sons come in was a failure before he even acquired the company. No one wanted to listen to change and most of the employees basically gave Atari the finger because they had never been exposed to real business practices and rules so when he came aboard, it was a shocker and yes, I'm sure his kids didn't help matters but the company was destined to fail regardless of who took over. No one wanted to listen and follow the new rules of business practice that the Tramiels brought onboard.
