2026-10-22
Gunpei Yokoi: 'Lateral Thinking With Withered Technology'—How a Factory Repairman Built the Game Boy and Beat Every High-Spec Rival
Ranked #36 in '100 Product Managers Who Changed the World': Gunpei Yokoi (OVR 89.35: Taste 93, Originality 92, Vision 90, Insight 90, Scale 87, Business 85). Hired to maintain playing-card machines at Nintendo, he was spotted building a spring-loaded toy during work hours, went on to invent the cross D-Pad and the 118.69M-selling Game Boy, and proved that cheap, mature parts reimagined for human joy will always crush bleeding-edge specs.
