Supercell ft Ilkka Paananen - How an Early Pivot Led to ‘Clash of Clans’ and ‘Brawl Stars’

"Crucible Moments" features Roelof Botha interviewing Ilkka Paananen, the CEO of Supercell, about the company's history and key decisions. The podcast explores Supercell's early focus on mobile gaming, its success in markets where other gaming companies failed, and its strategies for reigniting growth. Ilkka discusses the company's culture of celebrating failures as experiments, the pivotal decision to pivot from Facebook to mobile gaming after killing their first game "Gunshine", and the importance of empowering small, independent teams. The podcast also touches on Supercell's expansion into East Asia, its partnerships with SoftBank and Tencent, and its recent efforts to revitalize existing games and launch new titles like Squadbusters, using a "Two Birds, Two Stones" strategy to foster innovation and scale up successful games.