Return to New York

When the young couple returned after nearly one month the feeling of homesickness was finally lessened. Even though the New York of the 70s was not the most beautiful, home is always the best place to be at.

After leaving the airport exhausted from the long journey Simon returned Sarah safely to her family. Before parting after being together for nearly 30 days, they agreed to have a dinner party at Simon's home in 3 days, on March 2nd. They would invite their parents, siblings and their spouses and cook for them by themselves. Sarah really wanted to show of her Italian cuisine. When they visited Bologna, she learned many dishes from local Nonnas that both she and Simon really enjoyed.

After parting with his girlfriend Simon didn't immediately return home, because he left a large amount of work at Atari uncompleted. Even though he could communicate with Dennis and Tanja everyday by phone there was still a huge amount of paperwork left for him.

Atari is still a young company and there are many promotions and procedures that can only be completed under a lawyer's supervision and with Simon's own signature on paper. Therefore, after sleeping on the plane for many hours the young entrepreneur spent his first day at home in his office in Staten Island while signing all the documents, he missed in the last 30 days.

Not only did he need to finish all the paperwork, but his subordinates also used the opportunity while he was in the headquarters building to get as many suggestions, inspiration and most importantly, permissions, as possible.

Steve Wozniak mostly asked for inspiration and suggestions for the game development of Space Invaders. Simon was glad and passionate to respond. Overall, he was very satisfied with the development of the game and the improved skills of the technical department.

Less fun was the communication with the other departments. Whether it was the quality and hardware departments of Gunpei Yokoi, or the marketing department of Claire Peterson, or any other important department of the company. There was only thing everybody asked him to do, to expand. They all wanted to hire new people and poach talents for all different kind of reasons.

Simon used a relatively loose management of Atari but always firmly controlled financial power. So even though Atari had use amounts of liquid cash flow, all major investments or large activities of the Human Resource Department were strictly controlled by him or his lawyers. This caused all his subordinates for find all kinds of reasons in order to gain as much of the available investment amount as possible.

Unfortunately for most of them, Simon didn't want to increase manpower in most departments by a large scale for the time being. He only agreed to pretty much any suggestion Gunpei Yokoi presented, because the Hardware and Quality department were always his focus. They relied on reliable integrity and basic scientific research, which were extremely important in his eyes.

The equally important software department could be largely carried by him alone, so he wasn't all that worried about it, especially with the Woz by his side.

This led to the fact that many of his department managers developed a slight jealousy to the new Japanese manager that Simon hired personally in Japan. But Simon didn't really care about it all that much. Similar group dynamics develop in any large companies all the time and making sure the company can still run smoothly is the job of the CEO. 

Tanja and Dennis needed to manage those difficulties by themself to proof to him that they were capable of leading Atari forward, even when they slowly grew into a large multinational company.

After taking nearly two whole days to get Atari back in order and dealing with some long-distance calls regarding Red Bull and Lamborghini, Simon could finally focus on his upcoming dinner.

Sarah was taking care of the necessary preparations for the evening dinner, sending invitations to the family, buying the necessary ingredients and decorating Simon's apartment. On the morning of March 2nd, 1971, the young couple finally gathered together again. Both were visibly exhausted from the work and preparations of the last days.

Before getting into any work Simon pulled Sarah into his arms and just snuggled with her in front of the large-scale glass windows, simply looking at the New York skyline. He talked about many small things at his company and asked his girlfriend about the little things from the days they were separated. Both found a lot of comfort and tranquility in this moment.

At around 13:00 they started with the preparations and cooking. Sarah insisted on doing a Ragout Bolognese, which traditionally took around 5 whole hours to complete. Simon would do his famous Pasta a la Carbonara, which he learned during his stay in Rome a few years ago.

They would round up this meal with some antipasti and Tiramisu as a dessert. The dinner itself was not supposed to impress some strangers but should round up a homely family dinner. While their whole family was constantly busy with their careers, Simon wanted to have some days throughout the year where everybody could gather.

An hour before the arrival of their guests Sarah excused herself to get cleaned up and dressed. Even if you are careful, after spending 5 hours in the kitchen you are no longer fit to greet guests in a good condition.

Simon did some last preparations and jumped into the shower just 30 minutes before the arrival of their guests. All that was left was to finish some last touches when the guests arrived and were ready to eat.

At around 19:00 the guests arrived in packs. First were Simon's siblings, Caroline, and Alexander. Both were very happy to receive the invitation. Especially Caroline, as she was already thinking how to use this rare opportunity to talk with her little brother about the future of Red Bull and the upcoming financing.

Shortly after both of Simon's and Sarah's parents arrived too. At first everybody was still slightly polite to each other, but after some time together everybody slowly relaxed and got a lot more comfortable with each other. When the young couple was happy with the atmosphere, they excused themselves to the kitchen to finish the meal.