I really wish articles like these would spend more time on how the poor immigrant went from 0 to first 10 million, then from 10m to 1bio (of course I realize the author only has what his subject would tell him - so it's only a wish).

Here we have 'In the early 1980s they moved on to consumer electronics, repackaging Nintendo's GameBoy forerunner, the Game & Watch, pulling in $21 million in sales the first year. That fad passed after a couple of years but left Larian with an appetite for the toy business. When a struggling inventor in 1996 brought him a design for a talking doll already passed over by Mattel and others, Larian pounced. Singing Bouncy Baby was the surprise runaway hit of 1997.'

So by '96 he was in position to talk to with inventors and bring their ideas to be 'runaway hits' (which I understand is largely about marketing). To me (personally) the path from nothing to someone who can bring runaway toy to market is more interesting than how they build the business beyond that point.