James Dumoulin, the host of The School of Hard Knocks, goes around interviewing millionaires and billionaires. He recently had a chat with GTA parent company boss, Strauss Zelnick, who shared his two cents on what it takes to be rich.
Zelnick is one of the most influential CEOs in the video game industry, thanks to the GTA franchise, which has sold over 230 million copies. In the interview, the Take-Two Interactive CEO maintains that GTA 6 will launch on November 19th. Take-Two made $6.7 billion in the last business year and expects to make over $8 billion this year.
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Zelnick, who is a Harvard graduate, has been in the video game business for 19 years. One thing he thinks you don’t learn from Harvard is never to compromise on your integrity because it is the only thing you have.
“I have flaws,” he said. “There was a time I acted in a way that wasn’t consistent with my views about integrity in business, and it hurt me really badly, and I learned a powerful lesson. Never do that.”
Zelnick stressed that anything worth doing is hard and takes time. While the notion of overnight success is a common parlance, the GTA parent company boss said that the only overnight success you will find is somebody else’s.
His views about hard work and success are not far from the experience of the GTA franchise. It started as a controversial, unassuming series before becoming the darling of the video game industry at the turn of the millennium.
Zelnick believes people should think of what they truly want, not what someone wants for them, and go for it. “Chase your passion” is advice that you will commonly hear, but the Take-Two boss said it is terrible advice.
“I think that’s terrible advice half the time,” he said. “People should chase the intersection of what they’re good at and what they like to do, with emphasis on what you’re good at. Do that thing and the world will probably open up to you”.
Do you agree with Zelnick on his views about chasing your passion? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
