Alexey Pajitnov

Alexey Pazhitnov (1956–) created Tetris with Vadim Gerasimov and Dmitry Pavlovsky. Under his employment contract with the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he received a regular paycheck instead of royalties (similar to "work made for hire" under modern copyright law). He and Henk Rogers went on to found The Tetris Company in 1996.

As of 1996 to the present (2006), Pazhitnov works for Microsoft, designing games for MSN Zone and Xbox Live Arcade.