Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick’s Insights on Life & Gaming
Strauss Zelnick is unstoppable. As Chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, he’s led the company into a new era of success, acquiring Zynga in the second largest transaction in the history of the gaming space. As gaming continues to dominate our culture, Mr. Zelnick stands uniquely positioned to bring quality content and connection to the online world. We had the pleasure of hosting him on KindredCast, where he shares his insights on personal growth, business, and the evolving gaming industry.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from this conversation:
What Drives Strauss Zelnick?
In the past, he was driven by insecurity. Strauss describes how his childhood was initially the driving force behind his ambition, saying:
“I had a very tragic and difficult childhood, and I thought that if I were successful enough in every possible way, then bad things would never happen to me again. And that initially was my motivation. I think the good news is that’s stopped being most of my motivation sometime ago. And of course, it’s easier to realize you’re ambitions when you’re focused on other people, not what’s inside of you. But initially, probably came from a relatively dark place. And more recently, within the last couple of decades, it’s come from a more positive place.”
How does Strauss balance his time between family/Take-Two/ZMC?
Strauss cites his passion for what he does as the key to his success. That gives him the ability to handle numerous tasks and projects at the same time:
“Well, I really like what I do and I’m a person who likes doing different things at any given time. So I had a double major in college, I went to two graduate schools simultaneously and I’ve been running multi-divisional companies ever since I started running businesses, which was three years out of school. And in many instances, I had to beat the division head along with the CEO of the company overall. So I’m accustomed to doing a bunch of different things at any given time. And I actually think I’m my best when I have a diverse array of challenges facing me. I’m not very good if I have to deal with a singular issue by itself and nothing else for long periods of time.”
How does he define success?
Success feels different for everyone. He defines success as understanding one’s goal and working towards achieving it:
“Well, professional success is pretty easy to define. We’re dealing with for-profit enterprises. And so you would define success traditionally in terms of growth and creation of value for all the constituents, which includes emphatically the customers of the enterprises, right? Your primary constituent. If you don’t create value for them, which is to say, provide a good or service, add a value that’s greater than what you charge for it. If you don’t start there, you have no reason to be in business. If you don’t provide value for your colleagues who actually serve your customers, they won’t be around to provide those services. You must serve them. And then ultimately you need to create a return on capital for the people who invested. That to me is the definition of value. It’s not as simple as creating shareholder value. You have to create value across the entire ecosystem to have a sustainable enterprise that can grow and function.”
Next 10 years for Strauss’ career?
“Well, I’m not sure I know what it looks like. I think I have a point of view on what I would like it to look like. And we have talked about this a lot. I’m a big believer that success feels different for everyone. The traditional ideas of success don’t fit most people. The American dream doesn’t fit most people…What I found is the more ambitious the goal, the less likely I’ll actually achieve it. However, by owning what I want, I’m moving in the right direction. And generally speaking, I figure I’ll get closer to the goal of wanting it and working towards it than if I hadn’t bothered to spend time thinking about it at all. For a lot of people, it’s terrifying to establish that because you actually have to choose. My view is to choose, then write it down on your device that you carry around with you every day. It’s your goal for 10 years from now, 20 years from now, or five years from now, you can always change it. You’re not beholden to anyone else, but an unwillingness to own the ambition, pretty much guarantees that you’re going to meander.”
How does he do it all?
“I just keep trying. The truth is its commitment. But it’s [the] commitment that I love. I’m always allergic to people saying, well, you just have to dig deeper and be resilient. Just anytime people have conversations like this, and you’re reading about them, usually read about some person who says, well, I get up at 3:30 in the morning, and then I train for four hours and I have four blueberries and then I hang out with my family for three hours. And then I read, I read a spiritual text, then I help homeless children, I roll into the office at 11:30, work for an hour and a half, create massive amounts of value across the 17 enterprises that I run. And then I go and I go have a run and then stay up all night partying with my friends.
And the punchline is I’m incredibly awesome and you can never possibly be as awesome unless you’re just so incredibly disciplined the way I am. And of course, you won’t be. So I don’t like any of that. I don’t like any part of that. None of that describes me. I think that we don’t have the ability to be all things to all people at all times and you have to choose. And you have to set priorities. And I think my friend, Kevin Ryan says, you can have three or four priorities at any given time. And mine, I stretch it to four. So mine are my family and my friends, my work, mentoring and charitable work, and fitness. Those are my priorities. And that means there are lots of other things that I like to do that don’t enter that list.”
To hear the full conversation, you can watch it here on YouTube or listen wherever podcasts are found. Also, subscribe to our newsletter, Take a Break with Kindred Media, for all of the latest in media, tech, gaming and more.
