Episode 477- Interview with Greg Foertsch

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://shows.acast.com/vicegamingsnewpodcast/episodes/episode-477-interview-with-greg-foertsch
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Iā€™m sure Foertsch is great but the start of the interview is hilarious: Rob asking how he got his start and Firaxis, and him revealing that he got a job as an intern at Microprose straight out of college and then got a job at Firaxis by knowing everyone and having a perfunctory interview asking, ā€œyou want the job?ā€ Itā€™s wild how accessible the industry was not that long ago and how insanely competitive it is now.

EDIT: I said ā€œaccessibleā€ here but should have put something like ā€œhow easy the industry was to get into if you were in the right place, at the right timeā€ with the caveats about privilege laid out below.

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I mean, it was accessible if you were a white, straight dude living in California, or in this case Maryland. Less so for literally anyone else.

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You are totally right, and I didnā€™t phrase my point clearly. Thatā€™s what I meant. That this guy could just walk in because of the privileged position he was already in. Again, not a judgment of Foertsch specifically, but just an observation that people who got these jobs in the '90s were not necessarily the most qualified or best fits, but were simply present, and ā€˜being presentā€™ is obviously tied up in other privileges.

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For sure. It still blows my mind that Steve Jobs was able to walk into Atari, absolutely reeking from not showering and barefoot, and was still able to get a job. He was then able to leave on sabbatical to India and come back to his technician job. I canā€™t even fathom such privilege.

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