Word: tramiel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Tramiel went further. He installed Sons Sam, Gary and Leonard in key management posts and sent out pink slips to some 70% of Atari's remaining U.S. work force of 1,100, leaving a skeleton crew of no more than 300 engineers, financial and marketing people and clerks. Atari's manufacturing facilities will be shifted and consolidated. One center in El Paso will be moved to Sunnyvale, and Atari's software production will be relocated to Taiwan...
...company's remaining executives quickly realized that Tramiel would not run the company by committee. Tramiel, says an associate, demands "full, complete, undisputed authority." The new chairman's blitz would make Atari "leaner and meaner," said Vice President Bruce Entin. "The guy was in command. He was kind of like a general...
...Polish immigrant and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Tramiel has amassed a fortune estimated at $100 million. He did it mainly by nurturing a typewriter business he founded 26 years ago into giant Commodore International (1983 sales: $1 billion). He left the company abruptly and unexpectedly in January, apparently because he had trouble sharing power with other Commodore executives. In the following months, he took the time to tour Sri Lanka and Hong Kong and think about his future...
...Tramiel became aware that Atari was up for sale seven weeks ago and began talks with Warner Chairman Steven Ross. After arduous bargaining in Manhattan, Tramiel's son Gary and Warner representatives closed their deal at 15:30 a.m. on Monday of last week. By that time, Tramiel was flying to California in a private jet and was at Atari headquarters...
...That Tramiel would choose to buy control of Atari is ironic. As Commodore's boss, he had helped run Atari into the ground by slashing prices on his company's own popular home computers, the Commodore 64 and VIC 20. The strategy frustrated Atari's attempts to get into the home-computer market and diversify away from fast-failing video games...