Olivia: Most business memoirs tell you to find a great mentor. This one teaches you how to learn more from a terrible boss. Jackson: Whoa, that’s a hot take. So the most valuable lessons come from the people you can't stand working for? I’m listening. Olivia: It’s exactly that kind of unconventional wisdom that fills the pages of Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo by Reggie Fils-Aimé. Jackson: Right, and this isn't just any executive. Reggie was the son of Haitian immigrants, the first American and the only person of Haitian descent to become president of Nintendo of America. His story is a masterclass in what happens when an outsider gets inside. Olivia: Exactly. And that outsider perspective is where this whole story begins. It’s the source code for his entire career. He argues that success isn't just about being in the right place at the right time. It's about having the preparation and the guts to capitalize on opportunities that others don't even see. Jackson: It’s that old line, luck is preparation meeting opportunity. But it sounds like he adds a third ingredient: courage. Olivia: That's the perfect word for it. And that courage was forged long before he ever saw a corporate boardroom. It started in the Bronx.

Olivia: When you think of the Bronx in the 1960s and 70s, what comes to mind? For Reggie, it was a world of low-income housing, poverty, and limited opportunities. But it was also a crucible that forged two of his core principles. Jackson: Okay, I’m guessing one of them is "be tough." Olivia: Close, but it's more nuanced. The first principle was "Life is hard, so you need to find strength within yourself to succeed." But the second is the one that really defined him: "Doing what is right, no matter the consequences." He learned this from his family, especially his mother. Jackson: That sounds great on paper, but how does a kid learn that in a way that actually sticks? Olivia: Through a story that is just incredible. One Sunday morning, a young Reggie and his brother were walking to the corner store, the bodega, to buy a newspaper. On the way, two older teenagers robbed them, taking the little money they had. Jackson: Oh man, that’s awful. A classic story of a tough neighborhood. Olivia: But here’s where the story turns. They go home, crying, and tell their mother. And what does she do? She doesn't call the police. She doesn't lock the doors. She grabs her sons by the hand, marches them back to the bodega, and has them point out the teenagers who robbed them. Jackson: Hold on, she confronts them? With her kids? That’s incredibly risky. Olivia: She chases them down the street and corners them in front of another tenement building. She starts yelling, and a group of five men come out. They see what’s happening, and one of the men grabs the teenagers and forces them to return the stolen money. His mother took the money, grabbed her sons' hands, and walked away without looking back. Jackson: Wow. That’s a lesson you don't forget. It’s not just about standing up for yourself, it’s about the conviction that you are right and that the world should bend to that, not the other way around. Olivia: Precisely. It’s not aggression; it’s principled conviction. He saw firsthand that confronting injustice, even when you're scared, can work. This idea—that you should act on your beliefs regardless of the consequences—became a cornerstone of his leadership style. Jackson: I can see how that would be a superpower. But I can also see how that could get you fired in a corporate environment. "Doing what's right" can be a pretty gray area when shareholder value is on the line. Olivia: And that’s the tension that defines his entire career. He had to learn how to channel that raw conviction. Another story from his childhood, "The Blood on the Stairs," where his family discovers a man was stabbed in their building, became the final push for them to save up and move to a better neighborhood. The lesson there was that opportunity isn't just handed to you; you have to fight for it, work for it, and sometimes make huge sacrifices. Jackson: So you have this foundation of fierce integrity and a relentless drive for opportunity. It’s a powerful combination, but it sounds like a lonely one for a first-generation kid heading off to Cornell and then into the corporate world. Olivia: It was. And that's where he had to learn a new skill: how to pivot. His journey through the corporate world wasn't a straight line to the top; it was more like a series of boss battles and tricky side quests.

Jackson: Okay, so he gets into the corporate world at a place like Procter & Gamble. That's about as buttoned-up as it gets. How does his "Bronx conviction" play out there? Olivia: It gets him into trouble, and it gets him noticed. There's a fantastic story from when he was working on the Crisco brand. He had a strong relationship with the ad agency and knew the business inside and out. He saw a huge opportunity to launch a new ad campaign for the holidays, but he had a limited budget. Jackson: Let me guess, he did it anyway. Olivia: He did it anyway. He gave the agency the go-ahead to start the campaign early, essentially spending money he wasn't authorized to spend. It caused a huge profitability problem for the quarter, and his bosses were furious. They even threatened to fire the ad agency. Jackson: So his conviction backfired. He got punished for doing what he thought was right for the business. Olivia: Here's the twist. He took full responsibility. He wrote a one-page memo—a P&G tradition—stating that he owned the decision entirely. And then, the holiday quarter results came in. Crisco had its best performance in years, delivering profits nobody had seen before. The campaign was a massive success. Jackson: So he was vindicated! Olivia: Yes and no. The business result was great, but he had damaged his career internally. He learned a crucial lesson: conviction isn't enough. You have to enroll others in your vision. You can't just be a lone disruptor; you have to build alliances. Jackson: That’s a key distinction. It’s not just about being right; it’s about bringing people along with you. The book gets some criticism from readers who say the business lessons are a bit "Business 101." But in my experience, in high-ego corporate cultures, truly owning a mistake like that is disruptive. It's not common sense; it's a rare skill. Olivia: It absolutely is. And he got to practice it again at Pizza Hut with the "Bigfoot Pizza" debacle. This was a product designed to compete with Little Caesars on price. It was huge, it was cheap, and it used lower-quality ingredients. Jackson: I feel like I know where this is going. Olivia: Six months after launch, market research showed that not only did people think Bigfoot Pizza was inferior, but its poor quality was dragging down the perception of the entire Pizza Hut brand. The core product was being damaged. Jackson: And Reggie had championed this product. So what did he do? Olivia: He did the opposite of the Crisco situation. He went to leadership with the data, admitted the strategy was a mistake, and argued that they needed to kill the product to protect the long-term health of the brand, even though it was making money in the short term. Jackson: And they did it. So he learned to pivot. He learned that sometimes the most courageous decision is to admit you were wrong and change course. Olivia: Exactly. He learned to balance that fiery conviction with data and humility. He learned from good bosses, and as the hook suggested, he learned even more from bad ones, like a toxic boss at Guinness who told him he was "too positive." That experience taught him the importance of cultural fit and when to walk away. Each of these experiences was like a level-up. Jackson: It’s like he was collecting all the necessary skills: conviction from his childhood, marketing discipline from P&G, the humility to pivot from Pizza Hut. He was building a character sheet for the ultimate boss battle. Olivia: And that boss battle was waiting for him in Kyoto, Japan. Because when Nintendo came calling, the company was on the ropes, and they needed someone who wasn't afraid to disrupt the game.

Jackson: Okay, this is the main event. The early 2000s gaming scene. Sony's PlayStation 2 is an absolute juggernaut. Microsoft has just crashed the party with the Xbox. And Nintendo... Nintendo is seen as the "kiddy" console, right? The GameCube is getting crushed. Olivia: Utterly crushed. They were seen as irrelevant to the core gaming audience. They were losing, and losing badly. The company needed a dramatic change. So they hire this guy from VH1, a marketing expert with a background in pizza and beer, to be their Executive VP of Sales and Marketing. Jackson: It’s such an unlikely choice. What did he do first? Olivia: He did his homework. He saw that Nintendo was trying to compete with Sony and Microsoft on their terms—graphics, power, specs—and failing. He knew they had to change the conversation entirely. And his first major opportunity to do that was the E3 press conference in 2004. Jackson: The legendary one. I've seen clips. It’s electric. Olivia: It is, but what's fascinating is the battle that happened behind the scenes to make that moment happen. Reggie and his team knew they had to come out swinging. They crafted an opening line for him that was aggressive, confident, and very, very American. Jackson: "My name is Reggie. I'm about kicking ass..." Olivia: "...I'm about taking names. And we're about making games." He had to present this line to the very traditional, very polite Japanese leadership team, including the global president, Satoru Iwata. Jackson: I cannot imagine how that went over. The cultural gap there is enormous. Olivia: Their initial reaction was silence and confusion. Mr. Iwata's translator asked, "Reggie, why are you so angry?" And Reggie had to explain that it wasn't anger; it was conviction. He argued that Nintendo had been too passive, that they needed to declare they were on a different path, that they were going to compete on their own terms. Jackson: And Iwata-san, a legend in his own right, actually bought it? Olivia: He did. He saw the logic. He said, "We are embarking on a very different path than our competitors... I support this opening line." It was a huge moment of trust. But the night before the show, his own American team got nervous, saying the line "I'm about making games" didn't fit him as a marketer. So in a last-minute huddle, they changed one word. Jackson: What was the change? Olivia: They changed it from "I'm about making games" to "We're about making games." A tiny change, but it shifted the focus from him to the entire company, the developers, the partners. It was perfect. Jackson: And the rest is history. The crowd went wild. The "Regginator" was born. But was it just a great performance, or did it signal a real strategic shift? Olivia: It was the public declaration of their new strategy. It was Nintendo's "Blue Ocean" moment—a term for creating uncontested market space. They were saying, "We're not going to fight you on graphics. We're going to create new ways to play." This led directly to the Nintendo DS with its touchscreen and the Nintendo Wii with its motion controls. They stopped targeting just hardcore gamers and went after families, grandparents—everyone. Jackson: So that one moment on stage, that one line, was the culmination of everything. The conviction he learned from his mother in the Bronx, the marketing savvy from P&G, the courage to pivot from Pizza Hut, and the ability to enroll others in a bold vision. It was all there. Olivia: It was all there. He wasn't just a marketing executive giving a speech. He was the living embodiment of the disruption he was promising.

Olivia: When you look at the whole arc of the book, it becomes clear that this isn't just another rags-to-riches story. It’s a powerful argument that your identity, your background, your "otherness," isn't something to be overcome or hidden. It's something to be wielded. Jackson: That’s a great way to put it. His outsider status wasn't a liability; it was his greatest asset. It allowed him to see what the insiders, the people who had been in the gaming industry forever, couldn't. He wasn't bound by the "way things have always been done." Olivia: Exactly. His journey shows that the skills forged in adversity—resilience, integrity, a different way of seeing the world—are the very things that allow you to disrupt a system. The book has received some criticism for not going deep on certain Nintendo failures, like the Wii U, and that's a fair point. But the core message isn't about a flawless career. Jackson: It's about a philosophy of leadership. It really makes you wonder, what parts of our own unconventional backgrounds are we ignoring? What’s the superpower we're not using because we think it doesn't fit the corporate mold or the expected path? Olivia: That is the question, isn't it? What part of your story are you afraid to own? Because as Reggie Fils-Aimé proves, that might just be the part that changes everything. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you ever turned a perceived disadvantage into a strength in your own life or career? Let us know. Jackson: This has been a fascinating look at a true industry icon. A reminder that sometimes, the person who changes the game is the one who never looked like they belonged in it in the first place. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.