Alexey Pajitnov
Alexey Pajitnov (Russian: Алексей Леонидович Пажитнов, regularly Aleksei Leonidovich Pazhitnov,
born April 16, 1955) created Tetris with Vadim Gerasimov and Dmitry Pavlovsky. Under his employment contract with the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he received a regular paycheque 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), Pajitnov works for Microsoft, designing games for MSN Zone and Xbox Live Arcade.