I started making games in my parents basement in Maryland. The first one was a text adventure written in BASIC.
We built Unity because the tools to make games were terrible. We just wanted to make a game and ended up making the tools instead.
We started in Copenhagen because that is where we were. Nobody moves to Copenhagen to start a game engine company.
I am from Akron Ohio. I grew up with nothing. Everything I have I built. Nobody gave me a dollar I did not earn.
I started with scrap. People laughed. Scrap is how you learn that everything has value if you know how to find it.
I built this from a ski shop. With ten thousand pounds. Nobody helped me. I'm not complaining — that's just the context.
I was a ticket collector. People forget that. I never forget it. It keeps me grounded and it keeps me hungry.
My dad left me nothing because he wanted me to build it myself. Best investment decision he ever made, even though it wasn't for me.
East LA made me tough. It also made me grateful. I grew up fighting for everything. I want kids from East LA to know that coming from nothing is not a limitation — it is a fuel source.
I came from nothing. Literally selling things on the street to eat. Every day I remember that because it is the reason I never take anything for granted.
I came from a place where people had nothing. That memory never leaves. It is why I work the way I work.
I grew up without electricity, without running water. Today my company builds homes for millions of families. I understand what it means to have a home because I know what it means to not have one.
I bought a store with borrowed money and a lot of nerve. That is still the best business plan I ever wrote.
I grew up in Brooklyn. We didn't worry about what might go wrong. We worried about what we could build.
I borrowed the money, I built the platform, I wrote the odds. It was not a team effort in the beginning. It was just work.