2026-10-17
100 Product Managers Who Changed the World · #32: Ken Kutaragi
The 'Father of the PlayStation' and former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. In 1988, fascinated by his daughter's Famicom, he secretly designed the legendary SPC700 audio chip for Sony's rival Nintendo; after Nintendo humiliated Sony at the 1991 Chicago CES by tearing up their CD-ROM partnership on stage, Kutaragi defied Sony's aristocratic anti-toy executives ('Do we just stand down?!'), bet everything on real-time 3D polygons and $1 CD-ROMs, and built the 500-million-unit PlayStation empire. Ranked #32 among the 100 PMs who changed the world, with an overall score of 90.30 (displayed as 90) — vision 94, originality 93, scale 90, taste 88, business 88, insight 86.
