Technology has allowed me to reach my fans directly. Social media: it has been a complete revolution of how to interact, promote and share things.
I was skating with friends in my neighborhood, and then eventually I was invited to go to the skate park with one of them. When I saw people flying all around - literally flying in and out of bowls - that is when I knew I wanted to do it. I wanted to figure out how I could get there and how I could fly.
The pro skaters I know are responsible members of society. Many of them are fathers, homeowners, world travelers and successful entrepreneurs. Their hairdos and tattoos are simply part of our culture, even when they raise eyebrows during PTA meetings.
In ramp skating, there's this guy Alex Perelson who's really coming into his own and doing some amazing new stuff we haven't seen before. Just different types of spin.
I love the fact that there is now a skate park in almost every city, but it will always have a rebellious/underground edge to it because it is based on individuality.
You just have to adapt, and you have to realize where people are going to actually play their games. It used to just be Nintendo and PlayStation, and now it's all kind of devices. So you've got to learn to adapt what you know from the technology into those areas... I've been wanting to do a mobile game for a long time.
I was a lot more cultured than the other kids in my high school. Because I traveled, I understood different cultures and had a more worldly view. Most of the people I went to high school with had never been outside of California.
If you have a game with your name on it, you have to learn how to play.
When I landed the first 900 at the XGames, it was just - it was a personal achievement. It was something that I have strived for for years and years and years, and in a lot of ways had given up on it. But I just didn't think of the resonance that would have.
I love snowboarding, but I would never want to do it competitively or at a professional level. Snowboarding is a spawn of skating, and skating is my passion.
Any time skating was featured in a video game, I ate it up. So around 1997-98, I was shopping this video game idea. I was weighing my options when I went to Activision, but when I saw what they were working on, I said, 'This is exactly what I'd love to be involved with,' and following that gut reaction was hugely successful.
When people start talking about venture capital and finances and how to create this and do that, a lot of it, I swear, it's like sitting in an escrow meeting when all you want to do is buy a house, and you're signing 50 pieces of paper, but you have no idea what they're talking about.
There are endorsements I regret taking when I was younger and didn't know any better. But I didn't have options then. People weren't knocking on my door.
When I started skating, it was such a small community. You didn't aspire to be rich or famous or make a career out of it because that wasn't something anyone had done yet.
If you look at the success of snowboarding in the Winter Games and how that's brought a more youthful edge to the Olympics in general, they don't have that with the Summer Games. They don't have anything that's drawing in a younger viewership.
There's a stigma to skating. People think of it as a kid's sport. People kept telling me I couldn't possibly make a living out of it. Then they said I couldn't keep it up in my 30s. And here I am in my 40s, and I'm still improving my skills.
