This was a terrible move.
Accusations were bright against him without merit and without evidence. No woman employee of Atari has ever made an accusation of impropriety against him, and every single woman who has spoken up about him has done so in defense and said that they were like family. Nolan Bushnell employed more women than just about any tech company out there way before diversity was a standard corporate goal. All of the women he employs who have spoken up have said he was a great boss and they never felt uncomfortable around him.
The 80s were a different environment and the culture of drugs and openness wouldn't fly today, but in order for sexual harassment to have occurred there has to have actually been an aggreived party. There is none. Atari employees were close friends, they married each other and had babies. It was an unorthodox company and run in an unorthodox way but there is no shred of evidence that any employee was made to feel unsafe or coerced into anything.
What the people going after Bushnell are doing is in fact infantilising these women pioneers in tech and taking away their own agency, reducing then to victims of crimes they say never happened.
Bushnell is a pioneer, he did more for women in tech than most, all the women who worked for him loved him like family and trusted him, you will not find a single negative word against him from any.
The accusations against him are baseless and spurious, based on out of context passages from decades old books, not bothering to find a single aggreived party, because apparently these women's opinions and experiences don't matter, they are props in a culture war to take down somebody, anybody to feel better about yourself in Twitter and further your political career.
Yes, I'm mad that people are trying to tear down Bushnell's good name but I'm actually more angry at the treatment of Atari's women employees whose words and experiences are completely ignored because they do not fit the narrative.
