Talk:The Golden Choice Awards/@comment-3209316-20110815002502

"Tajiri was born on August 28, 1965 in Tokyo to a Nissan car salesman and a housewife.[2] Tajiri grew up in Machida, Tokyo, which at the time still maintained a rural atmosphere.[3] As a child, Tajiri enjoyed insect collecting as a hobby; this childhood activity would prove an inspiration for his later video game work.[4] In fact, other children called him "Dr. Bug",[3] and he wanted to have a profession as an entomologist.[2] As the urban areas of Japan spread and more was paved over, many of the places for hunting bugs were lost. Tajiri wanted his games to allow children to have the feeling of catching and collecting creatures as he had.[4] The character of Ash Ketchum (Satoshi in Japan), is largely a version of Tajiri as a child.[3]

Tajiri became fascinated with arcade games as a teenager, though his parents thought him a delinquent for it.[2] He particularly enjoyed playing Taito's Space Invaders, which drew him into other video games.[3] His interest eventually evolved into attempting to plan his own games. He took his Famicom apart to see how it worked, and ended up winning a contest for a video game idea sponsored by Sega.[3]

Because of his fascination with video games, Tajiri frequently cut classes; as a result, he nearly did not graduate. His father attempted to get him a job at The Tokyo Electric Power Company, but Tajiri refused the job[2] and managed to take make-up classes for his high school diploma.[5] Tajiri did not attend college, but instead went to two-year technical school at Tokyo National College of Technology, where he studied electronics.[2] Tajiri has also been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.[6][7]" -Wikipedia

"I worked at Time Warner/AOL Time Warner/TimeWarner from 1994 to 2007, and then went back to them at 2010." -Satoshi Tajiri