Steve Jobs offered him a deal that could have made him the world's first trillionaire — but he said no; who is Nolan Bushnell?

In Silicon Valley, fortunes are made and sometimes lost with a single decision. Few stories illustrate this better than that of Nolan Bushnell , the visionary who co-founded Atari and is often called the “father of video games .” In the mid-1970s, Bushnell hired a young Steve Jobs at Atari, mentoring him in his early career. Later, Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak pitched Bushnell an opportunity: invest $50,000 for a one-third stake in their fledgling company, Apple . Bushnell turned it down. That choice, which seemed trivial at the time, cost him the chance to join the wealthiest ranks of history. Today, that stake would be worth close to $1 trillion, making Bushnell the world’s first trillionaire .

Steve Jobs’ offer and Bushnell’s decision
Jobs’ time at Atari exposed him to the world of electronics and games, and it was here that he developed a bond with Bushnell. When Jobs and Wozniak began work on their own personal computer venture, they turned to Bushnell for early backing. The offer was simple: $50,000 for one-third of Apple. Bushnell declined, citing his commitments to Atari and skepticism about the risk. He later admitted in interviews that he thought it was too much money for an untested idea. In hindsight, that modest sum would have yielded a fortune larger than any billionaire’s wealth today, surpassing Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and even entire national economies.


Apple’s rise without Bushnell
Bushnell’s rejection did not slow Jobs and Wozniak. Apple went on to become a revolutionary force in personal computing , smartphones, and digital music, now valued at around $2.8 trillion. Without Bushnell’s involvement, Jobs and Wozniak retained more control, which allowed them to steer Apple according to their uncompromising vision. Interestingly, Bushnell’s “no” may have helped Apple remain uniquely independent in its early years. He later reflected that while he missed out on unimaginable wealth, he never regretted prioritizing his own projects such as Atari and later Chuck E. Cheese, both of which shaped popular culture in different ways.


The trillion-dollar “what-if”
Bushnell’s missed opportunity is often cited alongside other legendary near-misses in tech. Ronald Wayne, Apple’s third cofounder, sold his 10% stake for just $800, a stake now worth more than $280 billion. Yahoo once turned down Google for $1 million, and Blockbuster refused to buy Netflix for $50 million. These stories highlight how early-stage ventures often appear risky, even to insiders. For Bushnell, the rejection meant losing out on becoming the world’s first trillionaire. Yet his legacy as a pioneer of gaming and as an early mentor to Jobs remains intact. In many ways, his influence shaped Silicon Valley’s culture, even if he chose not to ride the Apple wave.