When Nolan Bushnell turned down his employee's offer for a large stake in his new technology company he did not realise he just passed up the opportunity to become "uber, uber, uber rich".

Mr Bushnell founded Atari, his employee was Steve Jobs and that company was Apple.

But while most people would give a limb to go back in time to the 1970s to invest in what is now the world's biggest company, Mr Bushnell told ABC News Breakfast he had no regrets.

"I could have owned a third of Apple Computer for $50,000," he said.

"I've got a wonderful family, I've got a great wife, my life is wonderful I'm not sure that if I had have been uber, uber, uber rich that I'd have had all of that."

Sorry, this video has expired The godfather of video games speaks to ABC News Breakfast

Mr Bushnell instead focuses on the many positives from his career, like being renowned as the godfather of video games.

He founded Atari in the early 70s, the company started out developing coin-operated arcade games for bars.

Its first big hit was Pong, an early incarnation of arcade tennis.

But it was technological development and the release of the Atari Pong, a dedicated Pong console which allowed gamers to play on their televisions, that truly revolutionised the industry.

"We were able to get more and more transistors on a single chip and the wafers were very cheap to make and so all of a sudden things exploded," he said.

Atari's version of Pong was a hit, hundreds of thousands of consoles were sold. Its success is credited as the birth of home gaming.

It was during this time that Mr Jobs joined the company as a technician.

"He was a difficult person," Mr Bushnell said.

"Often he was the smartest person in the world and he would tell everybody that."

Mr Jobs helped develop the hugely successful game Breakout for Atari with his colleague and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Mr Bushnell said despite Mr Jobs's quirk, the pair developed a strong friendship.

The Atari founder is in Melbourne to speak at the Creative Innovation Asia Pacific conference.

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