Gilman Louie

Through his company Nexa Corporation, Louie designed and developed multiple computer games such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon flight simulator series. His company later merged with Spectrum Holobyte where he was CEO until its acquisition by Hasbro, after which he became Chief Creative Officer and General Manager of its Games.com group. He has been on a number of boards of directors, including Wizards of the Coast, Niantic, Total Entertainment Network, FASA Interactive, Wickr, Aerospike, the Chinese American International School, Markle Foundation, Digital Promise, and Maxar Technologies. He is chairman of the Federation of American Scientists and Vricon. He is a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

• Name — Gilman Louie • Born — 1960 • Birthplace — San Francisco, California, U.S. • Education — San Francisco State University (BSBA) • Occupation — Venture capitalist, former video game designer • Known for — CEO of Spectrum Holobyte, co-founder and CEO of In-Q-Tel

Louie was born in San Francisco. He graduated in 1983 from San Francisco State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration. In 1997, he attended the then thirteen-week Advanced Management Program (AMP) and International Senior Management Program (ISMP) at Harvard Business School.

Louie built a career in the video game industry, founding a company in 1981 while still in college. He called it NEXA Corporation, based on a department at SFSU that was a combination of the humanities and the sciences. In 1986 his company merged with Spectrum Holobyte via a shell company called Sphere, Inc., with Louie as CEO, and then he became CEO of Spectrum Holobyte in 1992. In 1992 he acquired MicroProse. He designed and developed the F-16 Fighting Falcon flight simulator series (1984–1998). He was also chairman of Spectrum HoloByte when it published Tetris (1987), based on a disputed license. His company was acquired by Hasbro Interactive in 1998, where Louie served as Chief Creative Officer and general manager of the Games.com group.

In 1999 Louie co-founded and became the CEO of the non-profit Peleus (later In-Q-It and then In-Q-Tel). The company was created with $30 million in seed money from the US federal government, and was intended to help enhance national security by connecting the United States Intelligence Community with venture-backed entrepreneurial companies and by making venture capital style investments in new technologies. As of 2021, Louie is a partner of Alsop Louie Partners, a venture capital fund focused on helping entrepreneurs start companies. Known investments of Alsop Louie Partners include Niantic, Inc., Wickr, Cleversafe, Ribbit, Zephyr Technologies, Gridspeak, Netwitness, and LookingGlass Cyber Solutions.

Louie has been on a number of boards of directors, including Wizards of the Coast, Total Entertainment Network, Direct Language, FASA Interactive, Netwitness, Motive Medical, Wickr, Gridspeak, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), Zephyr Technologies, the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation, Aerospike, GreatSchools and the Chinese American International School in San Francisco. He is on the board of the Markle Foundation, Greatschools.org and Digital Promise. Louie is chairman of the Federation of American Scientists and the Mandarin Institute. In September 2015, he was elected chairman of a US-based 3D Geospatial Mapping company, Vricon.

Video games designed, programmed and/or produced: • Falcon 4.0 (1998), MicroProse • Falcon Gold (1994), Spectrum HoloByte • Falcon 3.0: MiG-29 (1993), Spectrum HoloByte • Falcon 3.0: Hornet (1993), Spectrum HoloByte • Falcon 3.0: Operation Fighting Tiger (1992), Spectrum HoloByte • Falcon 3.0 (1991), Spectrum HoloByte • Crisis in the Kremlin (1991), Spectrum HoloByte • Super Tetris (1991), Spectrum HoloByte • Stunt Driver (1990), Spectrum HoloByte • Tank: The M1A1 Abrams Battle Tank Simulation (1989), Spectrum HoloByte • Falcon A.T. (1989), Spectrum HoloByte • Vette! (1989), Spectrum HoloByte • L.A. Crackdown (1988), Epyx • Falcon (1987), Spectrum HoloByte • The World's Greatest Football Game (1985) Epyx • Captain Cosmo (1984), ASCII Corporation • F-16 Fighting Falcon (1984), ASCII Corporation, Sega • Starship Simulator (1984), ASCII Corporation • Delta Squadron (1983), Nexa Corporation • Starship Commander (1981), Voyager Software • Battle Trek (1981), Voyager Software