Paul Budnitz is the President, founder, and creative force behind Kidrobot, the world’s premier designer of art toys and fashion apparel.
He also works as an Executive Producer on several projects for San Francisco digital animation company W!ldbrain.
Paul started professionally coding safety analysis software by the time he reached high school, and created video games for the Commodore 64 home computer. After swearing he would “never touch another computer again,” Paul went to Yale University where he studied photography, sculpture and film. As his energies became increasingly devoted to moving images he became aware of gaps in existing technology, and started hacking his own hardware system to edit films.
That combination of entrepreneurial spirit, a keen aesthetic sense, an encyclopedic love of global pop culture, and well-developed talent for hacking would characterize all of his future ventures.
Paul’s career took an unexpected turn in 2002 when he came across images of new vinyl toys that were coming out of Japan and China. These toys included vinyl toys based on cereal box characters, and remixed GI-Joes turned into stylized B-boys. He immediately recognized the quirky intricate toys as art pieces. He then sold his $8 million MiniDisc player business (Minidisco.com) and founded Kidrobot, moving his new company to New York City.
Paul brought in dozens of world-famous fine artists, graffiti artists and illustrators to create these toys and eventually, clothing projects. Kidrobot currently sells clothing to high-end retailers worldwide and produces roughly 60 new toy projects each year. Its toys are sold in thousands of stores worldwide.
