Age, Biography and Wiki

Ray Kassar was born on 2 January, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York, is an American business executive. Discover Ray Kassar's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is he in this year and how he spends money? Also learn how he earned most of networth at the age of 89 years old?

Popular As N/A
Occupation Executive
Age 89 years old
Zodiac Sign Capricorn
Born 2 January 1928
Birthday 2 January
Birthplace Brooklyn, New York
Date of death 10 December, 2017
Died Place Vero Beach, Florida
Nationality United States

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 2 January. He is a member of famous President with the age 89 years old group.

Ray Kassar Height, Weight & Measurements

At 89 years old, Ray Kassar height not available right now. We will update Ray Kassar's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

Physical Status
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Dating & Relationship status

He is currently single. He is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.

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Ray Kassar Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Ray Kassar worth at the age of 89 years old? Ray Kassar’s income source is mostly from being a successful President. He is from United States. We have estimated Ray Kassar's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
House Not Available
Cars Not Available
Source of Income President

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Timeline

1928

Raymond Edward Kassar (January 2, 1928 – December 10, 2017) was president, and later CEO, of Atari Inc. from 1978 to 1983.

He had previously been executive vice-president of Burlington Industries, the world's largest textile company at the time, and president of its Burlington House division.

1948

Ray Kassar began working for Burlington Industries in 1948.

He later became the executive vice-president of Burlington Industries, the world's largest textile company at the time, and president of its Burlington House division.

A member of the Board of Directors, Kassar had spent 26 years at Burlington.

He left the company to start his own textile company that manufactured cotton shirts in Egypt and marketed them under the "Kassar" label.

1977

During the Kassar years, Atari Inc.'s sales grew from $75 million in 1977 to over $2.2 billion just three years later.

Though Atari enjoyed some of its greatest success during this period, the stifling atmosphere and lack of royalties or recognition to the individual game designers angered employees, many of whom quit.

During this period, nearly all members of the original Atari Inc. staff, including Al Alcorn, quit or were fired.

Atari Inc.'s upper management also suffered severe turnover rates.

Many blamed Ray Kassar's autocratic management style, but Kassar was not held accountable.

One of the most notable turnovers was when four programmers were unsatisfied with their paychecks.

They felt they were making a very paltry salary for someone who actually designed the games that made the company millions of dollars.

They wanted a small commission, but when they asked Kassar about that, David Crane recalls that Kassar responded, "You are no more important to that game than the guy on the assembly line who puts it together."

Crane and three others resigned from Atari and formed their own company: Activision, which became the first ever third party developer.

1978

Ray Kassar was hired in February 1978 as president of Atari's consumer division by Warner Communications, who at the time owned Atari.

By this time, rifts had begun to develop between the original Atari Inc. staff (most of whom had engineering backgrounds) and the new hires brought in by Warner (who, like Kassar, mostly had business backgrounds).

In November 1978, when Atari Inc. co-founder Nolan Bushnell was fired after a dispute with Warner over the future of Atari Inc., Kassar became CEO.

Kassar's twenty-five years at Burlington Industries had given him a taste for order, organization, and efficiency and his efforts to revamp Atari along similar lines provoked substantial animosity.

Atari Inc. began to promote games all year around instead of just at the Christmas season.

1979

Kassar became unaffectionately known to many at Atari Inc. as the "sock king" and the "towel czar" (due to his previous years in the textile industry) after he once referred to Atari programmers as "high-strung prima donnas" in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News in 1979.

1981

In 1981, the highly popular and successful game Yars' Revenge was released for the Atari 2600.

Howard Scott Warshaw, the game's designer, got the names "Yar" and "Razak" by jokingly spelling "Ray Kassar" backwards.

Warshaw claimed that the game was "Ray's revenge on Activision".

1982

In 1982, Kassar donated a sum of money to Brown University, his alma mater.

In recognition, the university named a university building the "Edward W. Kassar House" after his father.

The Kassar House is currently home to the university's mathematics department.

Contrary to popular belief, Kassar was not responsible for the deal to make the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game from the blockbuster movie.

Steve Ross, CEO of Atari's parent company Warner Communications, was the one who was in talks with Steven Spielberg and Universal Pictures.

Kassar's response to Ross's query of how he liked the idea of making an E.T. based video game was, "I think it's a dumb idea. We've never really made an action game out of a movie."

Ultimately though, the decision was not Kassar's to make and it went through, and it was reported that Atari Inc. had paid US$20–25 million for the rights—an abnormally high figure for video game licensing at the time.

The game was not only poorly received and sold poorly, but demand had been widely overestimated.

In December 1982, Kassar had sold 5,000 shares of stock in Warner Communications only 23 minutes before a much lower than expected fourth quarter earnings report would cause Warner stock to drop nearly 40% in value in the following days.

The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Kassar and then Atari Inc. vice-president Dennis Groth of trading stock with illegal insider knowledge.

Kassar settled, returning his profits without acknowledging guilt or innocence.

The shares that Kassar sold actually constituted only a small amount of his total holdings in the company, and the SEC later cleared him of any wrongdoing.

1983

In July 1983, Kassar was fired due to continuing massive losses at Atari.

Upon Ray Kassar's resignation, James J. Morgan, formerly of Philip Morris, replaced him as CEO of Atari Inc. in September 1983.

He was a collector and private investor and sat on the Board of the American Hospital of Paris Foundation.

2000

From December 2, 2000 until February 11, 2001 a series of photographs culled from Kassar's significant personal collection were on display at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.