Why Markus "Notch" Persson Sold Minecraft and Became A Billionaire | Forbes

[Music] we're here in Stockholm with markus persson you sold your company recently to Microsoft but you haven't really been talking about it so what happened there I wasn't working on minecraft Alomar's I had him for a long time but I still was kind of responsible for its as I made it there was the main shareholder of mojang and I'm this big thing happen with the ulay incident with people fought over changed the rules and like yeah which had always been in place but what actually happened was that some people brought it up like so we're not allowed to do this and that always that no so he looked it over and actually made a little more lenient but people still get very upset with like me personally even though I wasn't even working with anymore just take it like I don't know if I want to put up with this anymore and then I saw that this is phil fish video this is a do to documentary about a guy called phil fish only talks about how like internet personalities and like famous people people aren't really they're not talking to that actual person when the talkative parts of the pub talking about the idea of that person how does disconnect when you respond personally to stuff that it's not really intended to be personal and i can't just figure like i'd probably maybe I don't have to put up with this so just when that happened and that everyone's giving me something like crap online and it's but no there's no birthday so yes tweeted kind of jokingly like you who wants to buy the company right when a couple of days late to call the CEO came by and said we got a bunch of offers like were you serious yeah and I fought about it for a while and said yeah maybe it's time how do you run your minecraft company have you sold out to the evil corporations yet no we hope not to but how long do you think be able to do that before you kind of get absorbed by the Borg I think that depends on how long we can can I keep the fun mood going that we have it's very stressful I didn't really got to me I didn't want to work on the project anymore as I wanted to just write prototypes or new games and stuff that this this stuff I actually get happy from doing and I felt like still like I needed to be responsible for it because I was still like that main owner of the company and there was me or developed a game and people were like looking up to me and for me was very important to make sure that I was like a clean break like it wasn't like trying to like get some investor and trying to grow to comprehend do it like a big exit was more about killing it quick and easy and just get it done with so why Microsoft they were the fastest and the most realistic offer and you had a prior work yeah exactly because we had an Xbox version so going back to this idea of you as a symbol does this mean you're gonna disassociate with not you know that's a very popular online personality that you have but do you separate yourself from that in any way well that's hard to do because it's kind of like yeah that's kinda like an item to do that I use myself right that's the difference between like me hanging out with friends and me like that's more public version like online or whatever so I don't think that's gonna be a difference and it seems like because when I first when we announced a soon we got announced it was like I was completely certain was gonna have to like shut down my Twitter because I thought people will be so upset so it's kind of a little bit ready to give up on that personality but it turns out people weren't that bad about it or maybe just the relief relief for me of having like actually sold made it easier to deal with so I didn't have to do that break and so these days the commentaries that you troll you it seems like you you hit back in them now sometimes sometimes usually I use the mute button which is really efficient because they don't even know that be blocked is just mute but sometimes I would reply because it doesn't really get to me about bad as register we're here rubber brain I know you temporary office and you're moving in a month but what are you and Jacob doing here all us they've playing games mostly rubber rain is more to have some place to go to sound like a date today kind of office to go to him I feel like we have to kind of calm thanks for your day-to-day life I have been working on like your prototype trying to learn your languages but it's not really the intent that I'm going to finish the game maybe I will at some point and then it's good to have like come to set up for it and it's it's fun to have like the idea when you're working on stuff like it's supposed to become something but not feel like pressuring it has to so you could possibly never release the game again yeah that would be fine with that it was a long time when I was freaking out like how do I follow up a Minecraft it was really hard to deal with like yeah because it's the entire like big like cultural phenomenon you can manufacture that maybe now that of analyze that I understand some of why minecraft work but that only means I know how minecraft work back in time and the context was made in right it doesn't mean I know how to do it again I mean I've been playing games forever I'll be programmers this was eight so obviously have some kind of experience in it and I kind of I can understand kind of what's fun gameplay but I didn't mean to make like a big success to claim that I know the secret sauce would be kind of false is there a formula that I wasn't following for me I was trying to make a game nowadays it seems like you're traveling a lot maybe throwing some parties I know you were during the parties even before the sale but is that something you're gonna continue doing I'm making up for lost time we're also just programming throughout the twenties before that allow I realized this fun to go party it's not the same way to spend money but it's fun I figured like when I was younger we didn't have a lot of money at all if I ever get rich or not everyone a boring rich people doesn't spend money right I'll try to compensate for give it to charity as well so feel better what we're salsa it feels like cheating cater we'll see what I do with charity I still have to figure it out right now I'm just you know buying houses in LA and partying and how's the house going it's going great I've been it once for a couple of weeks it but it's just really nice I was a little bit scared it wouldn't feel like a home at first but it did so my face ago on vacation that the weather is kind of better than Sweden [Music]

Channel: Forbes

Views: 1,793,684

Keywords: Forbes, Forbes Media, Forbes Magazine, Forbes Digital, Business, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Investing, Personal Finance, Video, Gaming, Billionaire, Markus Persson, Minecraft

Id: 75hlBwHtM3o

Length: 6min 13sec (373 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 03 2015