Trip Hawkins | The Dot Eaters

Where we give you the famous “We See Farther” ad, heralding a new kind of video game company… Electronic Arts.

"We See Farther" magazine ad for Electronic Arts

One of the famous “We See Farther” ads

Founded by Trip Hawkins in 1982, the company is originally named Amazin’ Software. With the new name of Electronic Arts, Hawkin’s venture would revolutionize the industry with flashy packaging and bold advertising, lessons Hawkins probably learned at the knee of Steve Jobs as an early employee of Apple Computers. In a lot of ways, Hawkins is a lot like a video game version of Jobs, although not quite as lastingly successful.

To find out how one of the largest game companies operating today got its noble beginning, please check out our Electronic Arts article here.

Trip Hawkins was one of the founders of EA back in 1982, forming from his previous effort Amazin’ Software. EA truly helped form the computer game industry into a powerhouse, though transformational attitudes towards talent and marketing.

Hawkins was also very forthcoming with information when I contacted him while researching the EA article on The Dot Eaters. And for that, I’m truly appreciative. However, he has recently been dinged by the U.S. federal government for a tax bill of over 20 million dollars. Seems he took all that money from EA stock, hid it in various dodgy off-shore tax shelters, and then declared bankruptcy while still living it up.

Uncle Sam tends to get a bit miffed when you welch on him.

Here’s the story.

Category Archives: Trip Hawkins

Electronic Arts “We See Farther”

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