Michael Morhaime - Blizzard Ceo

Michael "Mike" Morhaime (born November 3, 1967) is president and a co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment (founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse), a video game developer located in Irvine, California, owned by Activision Blizzard. He is also an alumnus of Triangle Fraternity and received his bachelor's degree in 1990 from UCLA.

In 2008, Morhaime was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for Blizzardâ€™s creation of World of Warcraft. Along with Don Daglow of Stormfront Studios and John Carmack of id Software, Morhaime is one of only three designers or producers to accept awards at the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards and at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Interactive Achievement Awards.

Morhaime plays poker and reached second place in edition 2006 of DICE's Celebrity Poker Tournament. In the last round, he faced Scott Fischman and Perry Friedman (World Series of Poker professionals), and Ray Muzyka, co-founder and CEO of video game developer Bioware. After a 45-minute game, Muzyka won, and Morhaime placed second overall in the tournament. Morhaime is Jewish. He graduated from Granada Hills High School in 1985. He is a member of ETC, a metal band formed of and by Blizzard Employees, where he plays bass guitar. His avatar is a male Troll, Mai'Kyl.

In 2008, Morhaime was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame. In 2012, Morhaime made a cameo appearance on The Guild, a web series about the lives of a gamers' online experiences with an MMORPG that draws references to World of Warcraft.

Awards

Morhaime received the national (US) Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Technology category in 2012. In 2015 Morhaime received the IGDA (Israeli Game Developers Association) Game Innovation Spotlight Award.