Hiroshi Yamauchi

Who was Hiroshi Yamauchi?

Hiroshi Yamauchi was a Japanese businessman. He was the third president of Nintendo, joining the company in 1949 until stepping down on May 31, 2002, to be succeeded by Satoru Iwata. Yamauchi is credited with transforming Nintendo from a small hanafuda card-making company in Japan to a multi-billion dollar video game company. He also became the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners baseball team in 1992; the current CEO of the Mariners is former Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln.

As of April 2013, Forbes estimated Yamauchi’s net worth at $2.1 billion; he was the 13th richest person in Japan and the 491st richest in the world. In 2008, Yamauchi was Japan’s wealthiest person with a fortune at that time estimated at $7.8 billion. At the time of his death, Yamauchi was the largest shareholder at Nintendo.