Bobby Kotick

Origins and early life

Robert A. Kotick grew up in Roslyn, on Long Island in New York State.

Work and career

He speaks of his Jewish identity through what has been aimed at him: 'The hatred has turned into a lot of antisemitism,' he told Variety in 2023. 'When you look at images of me on the internet, there are these antisemitic undertones. My kids have gotten death threats.' That is the sourced statement this card rests on — his own account, not a biographer's. He dropped out of Michigan on Steve Jobs's advice after Elaine and Steve Wynn put $300,000 into his first company, and in December 1990 bought a quarter of the almost-bankrupt Mediagenic, renamed it Activision, and spent thirty-three years rebuilding it: Call of Duty, the $5.9 billion King acquisition in 2016, and a $68.7 billion sale to Microsoft.

He co-founded the Call of Duty Endowment in 2009, which places veterans in work. The record is not only that. In July 2021 California's DFEH sued Activision Blizzard over workplace misconduct and discrimination; Kotick was not named in the suit, but employees walked out and demanded he go, and that October he asked the board to cut his pay to the state minimum. In November 2021 the Wall Street Journal asserted he had known of allegations, had protected an employee who harassed, and had once threatened an assistant on a voicemail; he apologised and that dispute was settled out of court.

In January 2024 the state agency withdrew its claims, stating in the filed settlement that no court or independent investigation had substantiated that harassment at the company was systemic or widespread, or that the board 'including its Chief Executive Officer, Robert Kotick, acted improperly'. He retired in December 2023.