Arnold Greenberg (Coleco)

Arnold Greenberg is an American businessman best known as the CEO of Coleco in the 1970s and 1980s. He began his career in law but joined Coleco, a family toy business, in 1966. He worked aggressively to gain a large share of the video game market while maintaining Coleco's position as a manufacturer of other toys. Greenberg's drive to develop and market the Adam Computer in 1982 and 1983 eventually led the company into bankruptcy.

Arnold Greenberg was born in the United States to Russian immigrant parents. His father, Maurice Greenberg, started Coleco.

Arnold Greenberg entered law and practiced until 1966. He then joined Coleco, where he quickly came to dominate the company as its driving force and chief of marketing while his brother, Leonard Greenberg, provided engineering and manufacturing know-how. At this time, Coleco's main business was plastic above-ground swimming pools. Greenberg quickly acquired Eagle Toys, a maker of tabletop sports games, to diversify the company's offerings.

Greenberg eventually became CEO of Coleco. In 1975, he decided to move Coleco into the video game business. The company developed the Telstar video game console, a home tennis game. This sold well, leading Coleco to the head of the market. Greenberg aggressively developed new games and hired talent from rival companies, keeping Coleco competitive through the 1970s.

Near the end of the decade, Greenberg decided to develop a home console that could play a variety of arcade-quality games. In 1981, Coleco began producing tabletop versions of arcade titles. The home ColecoVision console was released the following year. Greenberg also moved into third-party game development for systems from rivals Atari and Intellivision. His biggest coup was winning the license to Donkey Kong from Nintendo, although this eventually got him embroiled in a court case.

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