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Lessin's Lessons: The Inventor of Tetris

Sam Lessin · April 2026 · for the boys · ~8 min

The story of Tetris — told as if you ARE the man who invented it. You are Alexey Pajitnov, a Russian computer scientist working in a state lab in Moscow in the 1980s. You build a little game on a tiny computer, where falling blocks have to fit together. You give it to your friends. They can't stop playing. The game escapes the lab, escapes Moscow, escapes the Soviet Union — and ends up on every Game Boy on Earth. But because you made it on a government computer, you don't own it. For ten years you make zero dollars from the most popular video game on the planet. Then, finally, you get it back.

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