Sam Glassenberg

If making and playing video games for a living is the dream, Sam Glassenberg is actually living the dream. Sam is the CEO of Funtactix, the leading independent publisher of video games based on Hollywood films. Sam began his career at LucasArts flying spaceships for Star Wars games and went on to manage Microsoft's cutting-edge DirectX graphics group. Frustrated by Israel's lack of a game development ecosystem, he spent much time in Tel Aviv helping Israeli gaming startups and eventually joined one.

Despite living in Seattle, the Bay Area, New York, Tel Aviv and Chicago in that time, Sam has always stayed connected to the Jewish community in those cities. He has also given ELI Talks on using unorthodox business models for Jewish ventures. He and his family currently belong to Kol Sasson Congregation in Skokie, where he recently planned a 180-person Shavuot retreat.

Age:

33

Primary gig:

CEO of Funtactix/FTX Games

On the side:

Hobbies: Applying video game technology to other industries (like healthcare) building award-winning surgical simulators using game technology, finding new business models for social-good ventures, 3D printing (including 3D printed Judaica), animation, computational genomics

Relationship status:

Married

Celebrity doppelganger/who would play you in a movie:

Jason Lee? People say Ben Affleck but I don’t see it.

If time and money were limitless, I would:

Launch 30 companies. Build an insanely fun and engaging game with Jewish themes to get my daughters excited about Jewish history and culture. Super high production value. Something they’d actually prefer to Pokemon, Disney infinity, and Minecraft.

Me in 10 years:

Building video games that are indiscernible from reality.