16-Year-Old Becomes CEO Of Own Video Game Company

David Eisman is 16 years old and yet, he is already the CEO of his own video game company Pixelman Productions. He and his team are currently developing a game called “Mirka,” and he was able to do this without financial backing from anyone.

The advent of the internet age has changed the landscape of generating wealth, allowing young entrepreneurs to become billionaires despite humble beginnings. The indie video game industry is just one of many sectors that are seeing young developers becoming instant millionaires, as is the case with the creator of the immensely popular “Flappy Bird” which earned a peak of $50,000 a day.

Eisman is just one of many young minds that are now capitalizing on the resources available to them, but he himself admitted to the Business Insider that he wasn’t much of a programmer. Instead, he recruited talented individuals and formed a team with those who responded.

Team members will be paid based on shares of the revenue, which essentially means that in the meantime, they will be working for free. Eisman said that this was not that unexpected though.

"You’d be surprised at how many people are willing to work on video game projects for free," he said.

The more surprising part about this story however, is that Eisman’s father is hedge fund manager Steve Eisman. If that name sounds familiar, Steve Eisman is actually the person behind Steve Carrell’s character in the movie “The Big Short.” Yet, aside from advice on how to deal with potential employees, how to run a business, dealing with finances, and the occasional legal issue, David Eisman did not receive anything else from his father.

A loan of a million dollars or two would have made creating a video game much easier for David, but his company will instead do a kickstarter campaign to make “Mirka.”