Gilman Louie (born 1960) is an American technology

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

who got his start as a

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

and then co-founded and ran the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

venture capital fund

In-Q-Tel In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in high-tech companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with ...

. With his company Nexa Corporation he designed and developed multiple computer games such as the

F-16 Fighting Falcon The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful ...

flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...

series. His company later merged with Spectrum Holobyte where he was

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

until its acquisition by

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of ...

, after which he became Chief Creative Officer and General Manager of its Games.com group. He has served on a number of boards of directors, including

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for ga ...

Niantic Niantic may refer to: * Niantic people, tribe of American Indians * Niantic, Inc., mobile app developer known for the mobile games ''Ingress'' and ''Pokémon Go'' Ships * ''Niantic'' (whaling vessel), relic of San Francisco Gold Rush *USS ''Nian ...

Total Entertainment Network Total Entertainment Network (TEN) was an online gaming service that existed from September 1996 until October 1999. T E Network, Inc., which created and operated the TEN service, was formed from the merger of Optigon Interactive and Outland in Ju ...

FASA Interactive Fasa ( fa, فسا, Fasā, also Romanized as Fassa) is a city and capital of Fasa County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2016 census, its population was 110,825, in 33,379 families. Fasa is the fourth most populous city of the province. The city date ...

Wickr Wickr is an American software company based in New York City. The company is best known for its instant messenger application of the same name. The Wickr instant messaging apps allow users to exchange end-to-end encrypted and content-expiring ...

, Aerospike, the

Chinese American International School Chinese American International School (CAIS) is an independent pre-Kindergarten through Grade 8 co-educational Chinese-English dual language immersion school located in San Francisco, California. CAIS offers a Chinese-English language immersion cu ...

Markle Foundation Markle Foundation is a New York-based private foundation established in 1927 by American industrialist / financier John Markle and his wife, Mary. Its focus is technology, health care, and national security. History Formally incorporated on Apr ...

, and

Digital Promise Digital Promise, also known as the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, is a non-profit organization originated by the U.S. Congress as part of the 2008 re-authorization of the Higher Education Opportuni ...

. He is chairman of the

Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who wo ...

and

Vricon Vricon was an American geospatial-intelligence data and software provider. It was a joint venture between Saab and DigitalGlobe and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia. Vricon's 3D geodata and 3D visualization uses stereophotogrammetry fo ...

Early life and education

Louie was born in San Francisco. He graduated in 1983 from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration. In 1997, he attended the then thirteen-week Advanced Management Program (AMP) and International Senior Management Program (ISMP) at

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

Career

Video games

He built a career in the

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstream. , ...

, founding a company in 1981 while still in college. He called it NEXA Corporation, based on a department at SFSU that was a combination of the humanities and the sciences. In 1986 his company merged with Spectrum Holobyte via a shell company called Sphere, Inc., with Louie as CEO, and then he became CEO of Spectrum Holobyte in 1992. In 1992 he acquired

MicroProse MicroProse is an American video game publisher and video game developer, developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the ''Civilization (series), Civilizatio ...

. His most prominent games were when he designed and developed the

series {1984–1998) and he licensed ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' (russian: link=no, Тетрис) is a puzzle video game created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. It has been published by several companies for multiple platforms, most prominently during a dispute over the approp ...

'' (1987), one of the world's most popular video games, from its developers in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, then updating it for an American market. His company was acquired by

Hasbro Interactive Hasbro Interactive was an American video game developer, video game production and video game publisher, publishing subsidiary of Hasbro, the large game and toy company. Several of its studios were closed in early 2001 and most of its properties ...

in 1998, where Louie served as Chief Creative Officer and general manager of the Games.com group.

Venture capital

In 1999 he co-founded and became the CEO of the non-profit Peleus (later In-Q-It and then

). It was a company created with $30 million in seed money from the US federal government, and intended to help enhance national security by connecting the

United States Intelligence Community United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...

with venture-backed entrepreneurial companies and making venture capital style investments in new technologies. As of 2021, Louie is a partner of Alsop Louie Partners, a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

fund focused on helping entrepreneurs start companies. Known investments of Alsop Louie Partners include

Niantic, Inc. Niantic, Inc. ( ) is an American software development company based in San Francisco. Niantic is best known for developing the augmented reality mobile games '' Ingress'' and ''Pokémon Go''. The company was formed as Niantic Labs in 2010 as a ...

Cleversafe IBM Cloud Object Storage is a service offered by IBM for storing and accessing unstructured data. The object storage service can be deployed on-premise, as part of IBM Cloud Platform offerings, or in hybrid form. The offering can store any typ ...

Ribbit Ribbit may refer to: * Onomatopoeia for the sound that a frog makes. * Ribbit (Pillow Pal), a plush toy frog made by Ty, Inc. * Ribbit (telecommunications company), a telecommunications company based in Mountain View, California, acquired by BT Gr ...

, Zephyr Technologies, Gridspeak,

Netwitness NetWitness is a network security company that provides real-time network forensics automated threat detection, response, and analysis solutions. The company is based in Bedford, Massachusetts. In 2011, NetWitness was acquired by EMC Corporation a ...

, and LookingGlass Cyber Solutions.

Board activities

Louie has served on a number of boards of directors, including

, Direct Language,

, Netwitness, Motive Medical,

, Gridspeak, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA),University of California, Los Angeles, Thirty-Thirty Seminar Series, March 23, 2011
, Panelist Biography Zephyr Technologies, the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation, Aerospike, GreatSchools and the

in San Francisco. He serves on the board of the

and is on the boards of Greatschools.org and

. Louie is chairman of the

as well as the Mandarin Institute. In September 2015, he was elected Chairman of the Board for a US-based 3D Geospatial Mapping company called

Other activities

In 2018, Louie was appointed to the United States National Security Commission for Artificial Intelligence. Gilman served as vice chairman of the standing committee on Technology, Insight-Gauge, Evaluate and Review for the

United States National Academies The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...

. He also chaired the committee on Forecasting Future Disruptive Technologies for the United States National Academies that produced two reports. In 2009, representing his company Alsop Louie Partners, he sat as a member of the committee for ''The Symposium on Avoiding Technology Surprise for Tomorrow's Warfighter'' working alongside

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliza ...

. In May 2022, Louie was appointed to serve as a member of the

President's Intelligence Advisory Board The President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is an advisory body to the Executive Office of the President of the United States. According to its self-description, it "provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of ...

Credits

Video games designed, programmed and/or produced: * ''

Falcon 4.0 ''Falcon 4.0'' is a combat flight simulation video game developed by MicroProse and published by Hasbro Interactive in 1998. The game is based around a realistic simulation of the Block 50/52 F-16 Fighting Falcon jet fighter in a full-scale mod ...

'' (1998),

* '' Falcon Gold'' (1994), Spectrum HoloByte * '' Falcon 3.0: MiG-29'' (1993), Spectrum HoloByte * '' Falcon 3.0: Hornet'' (1993), Spectrum HoloByte * '' Falcon 3.0: Operation Fighting Tiger'' (1992), Spectrum HoloByte * ''

Falcon 3.0 ''Falcon 3.0'' is a combat flight simulator video game developed by Sphere Inc. and published by Spectrum HoloByte in 1991 as third official main entry in the ''Falcon'' series of the F-16 Fighting Falcon simulators. Gameplay ''Falcon 3.0'' was ...

'' (1991), Spectrum HoloByte * ''

Crisis in the Kremlin ''Crisis in the Kremlin'' is a 1991 strategy video game with managerial aspects in which the player acts as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 2017. The player assumes the role of the reformist Mikhail Go ...

'' (1991), Spectrum HoloByte * ''

Super Tetris ''Super Tetris'' is a 1991 puzzle video game published by Spectrum HoloByte. Gameplay ''Super Tetris'' is a game in which two players can play with each other in competitive, cooperative or head-to-head modes. Developed by Sphere, Inc. Added b ...

'' (1991), Spectrum HoloByte * ''

Stunt Driver A stunt is an unusual and difficult physical feat or an act requiring a special skill, performed for artistic purposes usually on television, theaters, or cinema. Stunts are a feature of many action films. Before computer generated imagery spec ...

'' (1990), Spectrum HoloByte * '' Tank: The M1A1 Abrams Battle Tank Simulation'' (1989), Spectrum HoloByte * ''Falcon AT'' (1989), Spectrum HoloByte * ''

Vette! ''Vette!'' is a 1989 racing video game published by Spectrum Holobyte for MS-DOS compatible operating systems in 1989. Macintosh and NEC PC-9801 ports followed. The objective is to race a Chevrolet Corvette through the streets of San Francisco. ...

'' (1989), Spectrum HoloByte * ''L.A. Crackdown'' (1988),

Epyx Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before rena ...

* ''

Falcon Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, though closely related raptors did occur there in the Eocene. Adult falcons ...

'' (1987), Spectrum HoloByte * ''Captain Cosmo'' (1984),

ASCII Corporation was a Japanese publishing company based in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It became a subsidiary of Kadokawa Group Holdings in 2004, and merged with another Kadokawa subsidiary MediaWorks (publisher), MediaWorks on April 1, 2008, becoming ASCII Media Works. T ...

* ''

'' (1984), ASCII Corporation,

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

* ''World's Greatest Football'' (1984) Epyx * ''Starship Simulator'' (1984), ASCII Corporation * '' Delta Squadron'' (1983), Nexa Corporation * '' Starship Commander'' (1981), Voyager Software * '' Battle Trek'' (1981), Voyager Software

Awards

*1988

George Washington High School (San Francisco) George Washington High School is a public high school in Richmond District, San Francisco, California. In 2011, Washington High was ranked by '' Newsweek's'' Jay Mathews Challenge Index as the 497th best high school in the United States. History ...

Hall of Merit *1988 Excellence in Software Awards (

Codie award The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

s), Software and Information Industry Association (formerly the

Software Publishers Association The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

): Best Technical Achievement, Best Simulation, Best Action/Strategy Game for ''Falcon'' *1993 Asian Business League's Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year *1995

Hall of Fame *2002

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

Fifty *2004

Potomac Institute for Policy Studies The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is an independent, 501(c)(3), not-for-profit public policy research institute located in Arlington, Virginia. The institute was founded in , shortly after the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment ...

Navigator Award *2005 Federal 100 Award, Federal Computer Week *2006

National Geospatial Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national ...

medallion for outstanding service and support to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency while serving as CEO and President of In-Q-Tel *2006 CIA

Agency Seal Medallion The Agency Seal Medal (formerly Medallion) is awarded by the Central Intelligence Agency to non-Agency personnel, including U.S. Government employees and private citizens, who have made significant contributions to the Agency's intelligence effort ...

s (2) for his service to the intelligence community *2006 Director's Award by the Director of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

Porter Goss Porter Johnston Goss (; born November 26, 1938) is an American politician and government official who served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 until 2004, when he became the last Director of Central Intelligen ...

, for his service in creating In-Q-Tel and providing service to the intelligence community *2007 Order of the Silver Helmet,

Delta Sigma Pi Delta Sigma Pi () (officially the International Fraternity of Delta Sigma Pi, Inc.) is a coeducational professional business fraternity and one of the largest in the United States. Delta Sigma Pi was founded on November 7, 1907, at the School ...

*2008

Director of National Intelligence The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a senior, cabinet-level United States government official, required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to serve as executive head of the United States Intelligence Commu ...

Medallion for service towards establishing an environment of equality, diversity and inclusion within the Intelligence Community *2021 Tech Titans, by the

Washingtonian (magazine) ''Washingtonian'' is a monthly magazine distributed in the Washington, D.C. area. It was founded in 1965 by Laughlin Phillips and Robert J. Myers. The magazine describes itself as "The Magazine Washington Lives By". The magazine's core focuses are ...

for Cybersecurity *2021 Theodore Roosevelt Government Leadership Award by

Government Executive ''Government Executive'' is an American media publication based in Washington, D.C., that covers daily government business for civilians, federal bureaucrats, and military officials. ''Government Executive'' is part of GovExec, which is owned by ...

for significant, lasting achievements around emerging technologies and cybersecurity

References

External links

*
Markle.org

Fas.org

Nextgenerationproject.org
* - Lecture by Gilman Louie on the topic of starting a business, with conventional wisdom from the world of venture capital * Report of the National Commission for Review of the Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Communit

{{DEFAULTSORT:Louie, Gilman 1960 births American video game designers American entertainment industry businesspeople Living people MicroProse people American people of Chinese descent San Francisco State University alumni