A Fireside Chat with the Former CEO of Riot Games

Across the entire gaming industry, Riot Games stands out as an extraordinary company.

In 2009, the company entered the Western market—where selling physical copies was still the norm—with a free-to-play game. For nearly a decade afterward, it focused exclusively on this single title, turning *League of Legends* into one of the most played PC games in history.It was later acquired in full by Tencent but has maintained operational independence. Beyond *League of Legends*, it has created cross-genre masterpieces such as *Teamfight Tactics* and *Valorant*, and even sent the animated series *Arcane* to the Emmy Awards stage.

Over the course of this company’s nearly 20-year history, Nicolo Laurent has spent 15 years there, serving as CEO for 7 of those years.

He wasn’t a founder, but he was involved in nearly every key milestone as Riot grew from zero to one, and then to 100. One of his most significant contributions was building a global distribution system for Riot from the ground up.

In 2008, while working as a business development manager at the European game publisher Goa.com, he personally secured the European publishing contract for *League of Legends*.A year later, he joined Riot, but his first task was to convince the two founders to cancel that contract and instead build Riot’s own European publishing team—this was in 2009, when the aftershocks of the financial crisis had not yet subsided and the company’s cash flow was tight.

At the time, this decision seemed counterintuitive. Back then, Western game companies expanding overseas almost always chose to partner with major local publishers; building their own operations meant starting from scratch—assembling teams, handling localization, and managing esports—in every country they entered. But Nicolo and the two founders took the opposite approach.

He started in Ireland and built up a European team, then poached Jin—who was older, better paid, and more experienced than him—from Blizzard to lead the entire Asian operation, bringing *League of Legends* into South Korea, which was then the world’s most mature online gaming market.Over the course of several years, Riot’s overseas subsidiaries expanded into China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, each led by a “Country Manager” with more seniority than him.

“Hire people who are better than you” was also a key point he repeatedly emphasized during this conversation.

In 2017, he became CEO of Riot Games. At the time, Riot was still a “one-game company,” and people jokingly referred to it as “Riot Game” (without the plural “s”). Nicolo’s core mission was to add that “s” to Riot Games.

During his tenure, Riot successively launched *Teamfight Tactics**Valorant*, *League of Legends: Wild Rift*, and *Legends of Runeterra*, established the Riot Forge publishing division, and won an Emmy Award for the animated series *Arcane*, successfully breaking into mainstream pop culture with its IP.

By the time he left Riot a few years ago and returned to France to launch the LJK Fund (Leeroy Jenkins Kapital), Riot had evolved from a “one-game company” into a true multi-product, multi-sector entertainment group.

Among gaming executives in Europe and the United States, he is one of the few who has actually gained in-depth operational experience in the Asian market. He was involved in the localization decisions for *League of Legends* in South Korea and China, and once staged a “comedic skit” with the team at the South Korean office—deliberately saying silly things in public to provoke employees into challenging him, all to break the cultural norm that “employees don’t challenge their boss.”

This firsthand experience has given him a more concrete understanding of “globalization” than his peers—so concrete, in fact, that he candidly admits: “Cross-cultural collaboration is really tough. I’m still making mistakes.”

This candor set the tone for the conversation.

In May 2026, Nicolo accepted an invitation to an online fireside chat hosted by the Chinese in Games community. Amid the gaming industry’s current “layoff season and AI-driven transformation,” a group of students and young professionals with a Chinese background posed a series of questions to him:How to break into the industry, how to transition from an individual contributor to a leader, how to build trust in cross-cultural teams, how to assess someone’s long-term potential, what to focus on in the AI era, and how to resolve creative differences across regions.

On the other end of the line is Bo Mei, host of Chinese in Games—a former senior manager at Riot,who was personally interviewed by Nicolo and hired by Riot 12 years ago. After leaving Riot, she co-founded IGDA Chinese in Games, now one of the largest communities for Chinese game industry professionals worldwide. Recently, she has also begun sharing her insights on game globalization and cross-border collaboration on Chinese social media (search for “第九波 BO” on Xiaohongshu).

This reunion, which took place a decade later, gave the conversation the feel of looking back after a full cycle had come to an end.

The following is the transcript of this fireside chat. Game Teahouse has been authorized to compile and publish this content, which has been edited.

01

Starting Point: Never Spend 60 Years Doing Work You Don’t Love

Bo: Nicolo, many people in the community know you through the major projects you’ve worked on professionally. But I’d like to take a more personal approach—beyond what everyone already knows about you, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Nicolo: I’ve spent my entire career in the gaming industry and have only worked for two companies—I spent 15 years at Riot Games.In the early years, I helped the company grow, and later became CEO, working hard to add that “s” to Riot Games because we had only one game for a long time. Before that, I worked at a European publishing company called Goa.com, which was a subsidiary of France Telecom.

I have four kids, so things are always lively at home. I’ve lived all over the world—I grew up in France, but I started working abroad at a young age, living in South Korea, Hong Kong, Dublin, Ireland, and Los Angeles during my time at Riot. Last year, I returned to France, semi-retired, and started investing.I still play a lot of games—maybe even twice as much as I did when I was working.

Bo: So let’s go back to the beginning. How did you get into the gaming industry?

Nicolo: When I was about seven or eight years old, I hardly ever saw my dad—he was always away on business trips or working. One day I asked him, “Dad, when will you stop working?” He said, “When I retire.” I asked what retirement was, and he said, “When I turn 60.”

I remember clearly standing in the courtyard at that moment. I thought to myself: I absolutely refuse to spend 60 years doing a job I don’t love. I was already a huge gaming enthusiast back then, so I decided I had to get into the gaming industry. Work takes up most of your life, so it’s best to do something you love.

But I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do—art? Design? Engineering? Later, someone gave me this advice: “Choose an industry you love, and pair it with a job you’re good at.” When I was 13 or 14, I didn’t know if I’d make a good accountant or HR professional—who knows?But looking back at gaming, I realized: I was clearly better at RTS games than my friends. Others played *Warcraft III* and *Age of Empires* too, but I was noticeably better than everyone else. So I thought, maybe “business + gaming” is the path I should take.

I went to business school, and my first internship was at Goa.com. They later offered me an apprenticeship (part-time while I was studying), then a full-time position, and things just snowballed from there. So—if there’s something you want to do, whether it’s gaming or something else, start as early as possible. The sooner, the better.

Bo: Many of the people in the audience today are students about to graduate or young professionals just starting their careers. To take this a step further: in the early stages of their careers, besides doing their assigned work well, what else should they focus on?

Nicolo: First, find a job that aligns with your future career goals. I have a lot of friends who say, “I’ll start out in consulting or accounting to make more money, and then move into the gaming industry later”—that’s a waste of time. Professional skills accumulate over time, just like compound interest.

When I was 25 or 26 at Goa.com, the company trusted me to negotiate multi-million-dollar contracts because I’d been there for several years. It wasn’t because I was smarter than anyone else, but because they knew me. As a result, I was a step ahead of my peers. Then one day, I met Marc and Brandon, the two founders of Riot.Every big-name executive—all those 50-year-old bigwigs who didn’t play games—had told them “no.” Then they met me and thought: Wait a minute, this guy plays games, understands what we’re doing, has lived in Korea, knows free-to-play, and has negotiated several publishing deals.Wow. They were impressed by me—not because I was smarter than anyone else, but simply because I was a step ahead of my peers. Don’t delay (DBA: don’t delay, just act); get started as soon as possible.

Second, once you have a job, strive to be the kind of person others want to have around.Marc Merrill often says there are two types of people in the world: energy drainers and energy givers. For example, Bo is an energy drainer. When my calendar reminds me of a meeting with Bo, I think to myself, “Oh no, what is he going to complain about now?” and I really don’t want to go.An energy-giving Bo is like this: I always look forward to our meetings. He’ll tell me about the cool projects he’s completed, and I can share my problems with him—he’ll say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” That’s what it means to be full of energy. You need to be that kind of person. You can do this at every level, starting from your very first internship.

Bo: I really relate to both of these points—getting involved early on and being someone who “gives energy.” That’s the core of the leadership you demonstrated early in your career.

02

On Hiring: Stop Delegating—Start Elevating

Bo: When did leadership truly become a turning point in your role?

Nicolo: Let me give you a little background. I signed the publishing deal for *League of Legends* while I was at Goa.com—I was the one who convinced Marc and Brandon to let us publish LoL. Later, just as they were nearing the end of development, I was about to leave the company, and they said, “You have to join us now.”

After joining Riot, they told me to find a global publisher, and fast—we needed money. But I told them, “I suggest we cancel the publishing deal and self-publish.”——It was a huge risk; we had no money and no revenue, and this was during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. I thought Brandon was going to fire me on the spot, but he said, “You know what? Let’s give it a try.”

So I canceled the contract and thought to myself, “Oh no, now I have to put together a team.” I built a European team for Riot and hired about ten people. It was relatively easy—I’d lived in Ireland before and hired a lot of old colleagues. But I soon realized: we were doing great in Europe, but it was taking up all my time.If I wanted to launch in Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and China, this approach wouldn’t scale. I couldn’t just hire people to do the work while I acted as the “little boss.” I needed to hire a “little boss” in each location.

The next example is South Korea. At the time, South Korea was a highly advanced online gaming market—like a “crystal ball” for the future.I thought to myself: I have to hire people who are better than me. So I poached the person who was then in charge of all of Asia at Blizzard. Riot was a small company back then, with only one game, and nobody knew who we were. And the person I poached was the one responsible for all of Asia at Blizzard—Blizzard was one of the most prestigious companies around at the time.

This was a real shift in my mindset. In Europe, I hired people with less experience than me, but in other regions, I had to hire top executives. It was tough, but I finally managed to recruit him. From that day on, I told myself, “Stop hiring people just to delegate work to them; hire people who are better than you.”

Bo: That must be Jin Oh (former President of Riot Games, currently Chief Global Publishing Officer at Krafton). I ended up working for him later on, and I’ve also worked for you. That phrase you mentioned—“not delegate, but elevate”—is something I’ve heard many times while working on your team. I really relate to that.

Nicolo: I’d like to interject here for those early in their careers. I’ve seen this pattern play out far too often: you start out as an entry-level employee, and when your boss assigns you tasks, you find them boring; a few years later, you become a manager, and your reaction is: “I want to do the cool stuff and delegate the boring tasks to my team.”Many people follow this path. It’s the worst way to scale.

After setting up operations in Europe and South Korea, I went on to establish nearly all of Riot’s overseas subsidiaries over the course of several years. We called them “Country Managers,” which is equivalent to a CEO for each country. Every one of them earned a higher salary than I did, was older than me, and had more experience than I did. That is the true meaning behind my statement, “Hire people who are better than me.”

Bo: Now that you’ve transitioned from an IC to a leader of multiple teams, what has been the biggest shift in your approach to “people,” “decision-making,” and “accountability”?

Nicolo: The change is enormous. When it comes to decision-making: as a manager, most of your decisions revolve around tasks, products, and marketing plans. But when you become a leader with significant responsibility, most of your decisions are about people—hiring the right people, letting go of the wrong ones, and putting the right people in the right positions.

For example: As CEO, when the marketing team presented their launch plan for *Valorant* to me, I wasn’t evaluating the plan itself—I was evaluating the team. Were they asking the right questions? Were they motivated to impress me, or to impress the players? Did this leader hire the right people?I’m not evaluating the marketing plan; I’m evaluating the people. Because if you hire the best people and empower them, they’ll do a much better job than if you made all the decisions yourself.

On relationships with others: As a leader, if you hire people who are better than you, you can’t micromanage their work. What you need to do is inspire them. Be more like a coach.

On accountability: The bar has been raised significantly. I like to tell a story about Steve Jobs. He said to someone who had just been promoted to VP, “You’re a VP now—no excuses.” When the VP asked what he meant, he replied:If I asked you to come in every morning to clean my office—and you were a janitor—and the next day I found it hadn’t been cleaned, and you said, ‘I couldn’t clean it because security changed the locks’—well, if you’re a janitor, that’s fine; that’s a good excuse. But if you’re a VP, I don’t care—you have to find a solution yourself. No excuses.”

That’s the mindset. As you move up the ranks—with a positive attitude, no excuses, and a focus on getting things done—the bar for accountability will rise.

03

On Culture: Lead by Example, Not Just on Slides

Bo: Many people haven’t yet been given a formal leadership title. How can they start developing their leadership skills early in their careers?

Nicolo: For me, leadership comes down to three things: courage, integrity, and effective communication. You can practice these even if you’re not in a leadership role.

Courage is actually the hardest thing of all—it’s the courage to speak the truth even when it hurts someone’s feelings, and the courage to admit your own failures. During interviews, I often ask, “What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?” Ninety-five percent of people give me hollow, generic answers like, “I’m too much of a perfectionist.”I tell them that won’t do—I want to hear about a time you truly messed up. Or they’ll talk about a mistake someone else made and say, “My biggest problem was not stopping them.” I say no, I’m asking about your own shortcomings. If you lack the courage to admit your failures and weaknesses, or if you can’t allow yourself to be vulnerable, then there’s a problem, because leadership requires a great deal of intellectual honesty.

Here’s how to practice: Be tactful and diplomatic—don’t be the kind of jerk who’s always making snide remarks. For example, imagine a meeting where everyone is beating around the bush and there’s an obvious “elephant in the room” that no one is addressing. Be the one to say, “I think the real issue is this.”

Integrity: Most people understand this to mean “don’t lie, don’t steal.” That’s just the basics. True integrity means doing what’s best for the company and for our customers. At Riot, we say “player first.” I often ask leaders: “Should we partner with others on this initiative, or handle it ourselves?” On a few occasions, a leader has said, “We should partner.” When I dug deeper, I discovered that he advocated for a partnership because he was good at collaborating and had business development contacts, but he wasn’t skilled at building a team. So what he was indirectly pushing for wasn’t what was best for the company or the players—it was what was best for his own career.

Communication: Of course it can be practiced. Listening is also part of communication. When I first became CEO, I divided the company’s senior leadership into groups and spent half a day with each one.I said, “I’m the new CEO, and I want to figure out how to take Riot to the next level. I want to hear from you.” I set aside an entire afternoon for each group, and for the first two hours, I didn’t say a word. Because you have to listen, and if you’re in a higher position, they’ll quiet down.

Bo: Courage is what resonates with me the most. This actually answers my earlier question—to truly “hire people who are better than you,” you need more than just ability; first and foremost, you need courage. Otherwise, you won’t be able to put the company’s interests above your own, because you’ll be afraid.

So, taking it a step further—you’ve managed people from all over the world and have become quite adept at it. What have you learned about building trust across cultures?

Nicolo: I agree with that to some extent. Looking at my resume, I probably have more experience than a lot of people, but to be honest, it’s really tough. I’m still making a lot of mistakes.

To build trust between two teams, they need to share the same values and work styles. Across different cultures, these sometimes align and sometimes don’t. The most striking example is Riot’s “challenge convention”: to innovate, you have to challenge the status quo; otherwise, you’ll just end up making a game that’s exactly like every other game out there.France—challenging conventions and authority is fine; we go on strike in the streets every day—it’s in our DNA. But in Asia, it’s a bit different.

Let’s continue with the story about South Korea. South Korea has a very hierarchical structure, and employees do not challenge their bosses.

Nicolo: So you can’t just tell Koreans to “challenge the status quo” by writing it in a PowerPoint presentation or posting it on a door—that goes against their nature.

How do we do this? We have to lead by example. Jin and I have been playing this “game” for many years. When I visit Korea, I tell him, “Jin, every time I come to Korea, I never check your work. I’ll deliberately say something stupid, and you have to call me out in front of your team.” It’s pretty fun.I speak out loud—sometimes saying smart things, sometimes saying silly things—and he’ll casually say, “That’s Nicolo for you, look.” I’ll say, “Yeah, I’m being silly, Jin.” That way, he can show the team that it’s okay to challenge the boss.

You don’t need to turn Koreans into Americans or French people into Chinese. But when it comes to the core values you believe are crucial to the business, you need to get involved and lead by example—not just list them on a slide.

Bo: So for someone like me—who was born in China, has worked in the U.S. for over a decade, and hopes to pursue a more global career—what advice do you have?

Nicolo: The most helpful thing is to live abroad. You can read books and travel, but ultimately, you learn so much more by “living in a place”—because you make friends and have coworkers. There are nuances that you can grasp intellectually, but you can only truly understand them in your heart by actually living there.

It doesn’t matter which country specifically—just like learning multiple languages, once you know two, your brain is ready to learn a third and a fourth. The same goes for culture: once you live somewhere else and realize, “I thought this was obvious, but they think about it completely differently,” your mindset opens up.

If that’s not possible, try working at an international company—for example, a friend who works at Google in France is exposed to both American and French cultures. If that doesn’t work, read the book *The Culture Map* by Erin Meyer. It was written over a decade ago, so I’m not sure how accurate it is now—cultures evolve—but the key point is to understand that “things can be different.”

To illustrate that cultural differences go beyond language, here’s an example: In the U.S., we often make decisions in meetings—we have everyone prepare in advance, engage in vigorous debate, and reach a conclusion. In China, however, meetings are typically just a formality to shake hands and confirm decisions that have already been made. With you and other teams, we often go through multiple rounds of decision-making, but the final meeting serves as a “forcing function” to ensure everyone is on the same page beforehand. If you don’t understand this, it might seem “very strange.”

Bo: I’d like to add one more thing: show empathy. My daughter recently learned what’s called the “Golden Rule” at school—treat others the way you want to be treated.

04

On Potential: When assessing a person, look at whether they look inward or outward when they fail

Bo: You’ve worked with teams and leaders from both an operational and an investment perspective. When assessing long-term potential, what is the most important quality?

Nicolo: During my many years at Riot, only Brandon, Marc, and I had the authority to approve hires. That’s why I interviewed you. I often pushed back. People would say, “Yes, he’s lacking in area A or B, but don’t worry—he has potential.” I’d ask, “What is potential?”

I have a very clear view on potential, and I still apply it to my investing today. There are three key factors: abstract thinking, motivation, and locus of control. The third one is the hardest.

Abstract Thinking: No matter the field, the higher you climb, the more abstract things become. Artists create concept art, while art directors define the visual vision for the entire game. Engineers write code, while CTOs think about architecture. Managers assign tasks to teams, while CEOs think about the organization and its culture. I’m always on the lookout for people with strong abstract thinking skills.

Motivation: This is relatively rare. Sometimes people are very smart and have strong abstract thinking skills, but they’re just lazy and want to take the easy way out. We have a colleague—I won’t name names—who is very smart, but he only wants to do routine work and has no desire to grow. That’s fine, but what you’re looking for are people who are genuinely eager to learn and full of energy.

Source of control: This is the hardest part. When a project fails, where does your mind go? Do you ask yourself, “What did I do wrong? Should I revise the marketing plan? Should I have spent more time on development?” These are examples of an internal source of control. Or do you think, “There’s competition,” or “My boss didn’t give me the budget”? These are examples of an external source of control.

People with an external locus of control don’t grow, because whenever a problem arises, they focus on the things they can’t control, complain, and make excuses. People who grow have a strong internal locus of control—when problems arise, they ask themselves, “What could I have done better?” Even if 99% of the problem is beyond their control, they focus on the things they can control.

If you think, “If only I had a bigger budget, more time, and a better team, I’d succeed”—well, maybe. But if someone else focuses on “What can I do better myself?”—who will be in a better, higher position ten years from now? It’s the latter.

That’s why I always ask, “Which projects have you failed at? Why?”—it quickly becomes clear whether they’re an internal or external source of control.

Bo: Basically, it’s about treating yourself as a product and constantly iterating—whether you succeed or fail, look back, look inward, and think about how to make “the next version of yourself” better.

So if you were just starting your career today, what would you focus on building in the first year or two? AI is changing workflows, and the job market is becoming more competitive.

Nicolo: I’m going all in on AI. This is a major technological shift that reminds me of the internet 25 years ago. AI may have an even more profound impact than the internet did.

When I was young, I embraced the internet earlier than anyone else—I started writing code and building websites when I was still a teenager. So when I began looking for an internship, that online game publisher naturally hired me because I was ahead of the curve with the new technology they were betting on. That has helped me throughout my entire career.

It’s the same with AI today. Yes, the job market is tough, but this is only temporary—it’s a correction following the frenzy of the past few years, and things will bounce back. I joined Riot in 2007 and 2008, right in the middle of the financial crisis, and things turned out just fine.

Plus, you have an advantage: if you’re in your early twenties, you have more time to learn AI and a sharper mind than someone like me. People like us, who’ve been working for 20 or 30 years, sometimes get grumpy and resistant to change.I see my kids learning much faster than I do. Use that advantage to focus on what you can control—dive headfirst into AI. If you master AI, your productivity will be ten times higher than those who don’t.

Bo: Compared to the tech industry, there are still relatively few areas where AI truly shines in the gaming industry—which means there are more opportunities to explore how AI can be integrated into game development, design, and other aspects.

One last question. When a team has differing opinions on player preferences, art, or creative direction, how can a leader build consensus without sacrificing local nuances?

Nicolo: Personally, I think this is the wrong question to ask. As a leader, let me stress this again: don’t make product decisions, and don’t make decisions based on personal taste—unless you’re a genius like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, but most people aren’t.

When we were developing the Korean website, the Korean team and the U.S. team had different visions for its visual design. Which one is right? Is the Korean style more substantial and information-dense? Or is the American style lighter and more minimalist? Let me reiterate: I don’t make product decisions; I make people decisions.

In this situation, you want to place decision-making and accountability as close as possible to where the pain points lie. People in the U.S., South Korea, and China have similar intelligence, but their feedback loops are very different. If a South Korean website isn’t performing well, who feels the pain? South Korean players and the South Korean team. So they’re more likely to fix it than a U.S. team.

So who should I delegate authority to? The Korean team—because they’re closer to the pain points and the feedback loop. Even if they make the wrong decision at first, they’re more likely to eventually correct it than a team that’s far removed from the problem.

So when faced with this kind of challenge, I usually frame it as a decision about people. If you hire the right people and give them problems that are close to their expertise, they’re far more likely to solve them than if you try to be a superhero and say, “I know this style works best—just do it.” That approach doesn’t scale.