Net Minds

Description: In Silicon Valley legend Nolan Bushnell's first book, he explains how to find and hire employees who have the potential to be the next Steve Jobs.

Nolan Bushnell founded the groundbreaking gaming company Atari in 1972, and two years later hired Steve Jobs, as well as many other creatives over the course of his five decades in business. Here Bushnell explains how to find, hire, and nurture the people who could turn your company into the next Atari or the next Apple. Bushnell's advice is constantly counter-intuitive, surprising, and atypical. When looking for employees, ignore credentials. Hire the obnoxious (in limited numbers). Demand a list of favorite books. Ask unanswerable questions. Comb through tweets.

Just because you've hired creatives doesn't mean you'll keep them. Once you have them, isolate them. Celebrate their failures. Encourage ADHD. Ply them with toys. Encourage them to make decisions by throwing dice. Invent haphazard holidays. Let them sleep.

The business world is changing faster than ever, and every day your company faces new complications and difficulties. The only way to resolve these issues is to have a staff of wildly creative people who live as much in the future as the present, who thrive on being different, and whose ideas will guarantee that your company will prosper when other companies fail.