Nolan Bushnell, the Atari founder who famously nurtured Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, has published a new book, Finding the Next Steve Jobs. An excerpt from an interview Eric Johnson just did with him at All Things D:

“Question:

Just how close were you to Steve after his brief involvement with Atari?

Nolan Bushnell: 

We’d talk on the phone infrequently, but he’d come up to [my house in] Woodside about once a month, usually on a Saturday or Sunday morning, and we’d go up on the hill and talk. Occasionally, I’d go down to his place, but a lot of the time it was him coming up to my place.

Question:

Why are we even looking for the ‘next Steve Jobs?’

Nolan Bushnell:

Steve took a failing computer company — and they probably would have never brought him back if they weren’t at the end of their rope — and turned it into the highest-market-cap company in the world. People were always aware that innovative solutions are good for your company. I think this just underscored it in a really powerful way. It wasn’t just through cutting costs or innovative marketing. Though Steve was a pretty good marketer.

Question:

But that was when he returned to Apple in 1997. Most of the time when people talk about the ‘next Steve Jobs,’ they’re using that phrase to refer to entrepreneurs who are still early on in their careers. So, are those people really that hard up for work?

Nolan Bushnell:

I believe there are Steve Jobses all around us. Really, what is happening is that they’re being edited out of importance. Right now, Google is doing some great things, but Hewlett-Packard is trying to commit suicide. Every company needs to have askunkworks, to try things that have a high probability of failing. You try to minimize failure, but at the same time, if you’re not willing to try things that are inherently risky, you’re not going to make progress.”