Career switch puts alumnus in the driver’s seat for games on Google Play

When Google offered Jamil Moledina a job in 2014 leading games strategy on Google Play, the company’s default Android store, the tech whiz thought twice before accepting. Moledina had recently created his own startup, and having been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, he wasn’t initially keen to return to a large company. However, the opportunity to help build up the game industry was too tantalizing to pass up.

“That’s what really motivates me,” he said. “I’m not really that concerned with selling a startup for a lot of money or being the person that makes the great game. I just want there to be great new and innovative games and an opportunity for this business to continue to grow. At Google, I get to make that happen.”

As the games strategic lead for Google Play, Moledina’s charter is to advance the developers and titles that are most meaningful to players and developers, and to Google.

Besides managing strategy for key partners, his team curates the games portfolio for new Google platforms, such as Android TV and Daydream, the high-performance mobile virtual reality platform out later this year.

Paradoxically, Moledina won the top job at Google Play not because his own startup, Wormhole Games, succeeded, but because it hadn’t.

“Our first game at Wormhole was the critically acclaimed ‘Tank Nation.’ It modernized classic play and players loved it but unfortunately production took so long we didn’t have enough resources to get the full game out and retain them,” he said. “It was a bittersweet moment to have a great game that people knew and loved and to have to wind down the company.”

While visiting Bay Area tech companies in an effort to help his employees find new jobs, Moledina told Apple and Google they could do a better job supporting games like “Tank Nation.” To his surprise, Google agreed and responded with a job offer, inviting him to do just that.

“It’s easy to focus on large companies without necessarily remembering that smaller companies need extra help,” Moledina said. “Now, through Google Play, I can help innovation from any size developer get the visibility they need.”

Youthful inspiration

The only child of successful coffee importers, Moledina was born in Mombasa, Kenya, spending his formative years there and in England, before his parents, who are of Indian descent, moved to Los Angeles in 1983, when he was 10 years old.

Growing up without siblings, Moledina sought companionship in books, soon acquiring a taste for science fiction.

“My uncle gave me his copies of Dune and Foundation,” he said. “And of course I grew up with Star Wars and Star Trek.”

When Nintendo and Sega released their video game systems, he developed the other passion that shaped his future career: gaming.

Jamil Moledina as an 8 year-old on the beach in Mombasa, Kenya. Photo courtesy of Jamil Moledina.

Moledina describes himself at that time as “a skinny little brown boy with a very strong British accent,” who was “a bit of an outsider” at his L.A. high school.

“I didn’t have the world’s best high school experience so I was eager to leave,” he admits. USC, with its early admissions program, came to the rescue, offering him a partial scholarship.

After earning his B.A. in international relations and East Asian area studies in 1994, Moledina obtained a law degree from Boston University School of Law and started working at a San Francisco law firm.

However, he noticed that his clients were having more fun than partners at his firm. He began thinking seriously about whether law was right for him.

“I decided to switch gears and pay attention to my earliest ideas about what I enjoyed: science-fiction, writing, and video games. So I started writing a sci-fi novel and looking for a writing job in the game industry.”

Moledina initially found job satisfaction as editor-in-chief of Game Developer — the leading game industry magazine, before he was appointed executive director of the Game Developers Conference — the world’s largest annual gathering of video game developers.

There, he secured highly influential keynote speakers such as Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of “Mario Brothers” and “Donkey Kong” and lead creative force at Nintendo; Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s late CEO; and Ronald Moore, creator of the new Battlestar Galactica television series.

Moledina drew on his USC Dornsife education to work successfully with such highly creative people.

“There’s a natural gathering of creative people at USC Dornsife that’s incredibly helpful. Not only does it nurture one’s own creativity and ability to develop ideas into compelling stories, but it also enables one to develop a momentum of teamwork and a network that’s really effective in later life.”

He also pays tribute to Steven Lamy, vice dean of academic programs and professor of international relations, for having a profound and far-reaching influence on his career.

“Professor Lamy had this amazing way of calmly and endearingly unwinding preconceptions and helping people see different points of view in a way that allowed those at the far end of the spectrum to understand the thought processes and motivations of people on the other. The type of thinking that Professor Lamy encouraged helped me a lot, both with law school and with my career at Google.”

After five years with GDC, Moledina joined Electronic Arts (EA) where, keen to help independent developers access digital distribution, he pioneered a successful program that allowed them to simultaneously ship on Microsoft X-Box and Sony PlayStation.

It was at his next stop, Funzio, that he acquired the resources to fulfill the long-held dream of creating his own company after the mobile start-up was acquired by Japanese gaming giant Gree for $210 million.

Freedom to dream

Of his exotic childhood, Moledina retains fond memories of safari adventures and idyllic white sand beaches.

“I remember how my childhood in Kenya was so carefree. Having that freedom to dream is important to the creative process,” he said. “It’s when my mind is clear that really amazing things come to it.”

Moledina channeled that creativity in his 2010 science fiction novel, Tearing the Sky (Kalyphon Press), about a college student who discovers that the universe is collapsing. He is now writing a screenplay he describes as ‘The Social Network meets Contact.’ Titled Origami, it’s a science fiction thriller about an engineer at a San Francisco startup who accidentally discovers how to travel faster than light, and a tech billionaire who tries to steal the secret.

“I love writing,” he said. “I always think, ‘What would Isaac Asimov write if he were alive today in our modern world that truly is science fictional?’”