Markus Persson

Markus Alexej Persson, more commonly known under the alias Notch, is the original creator of Minecraft and one of the founders of Mojang Studios. He is no longer involved in the game since his departure from Mojang in 2014.

Persson started programming at the age of seven, using his father's Commodore 128. He produced his first game (a text-adventure) at the age of eight, with the help of type-in programs. In 2005 he started working as a game developer for King.com,[2] which he left in 2009 to work as a programmer at Jalbum. He is also one of the founders of Wurm Online.[3][4][5] After Minecraft sales grew, he moved from full-time to part-time at Jalbum and then eventually left to focus full-time on Minecraft in June 2010; many of the original Mojang employees (including former CEO Carl Manneh) were also ex-Jalbum employees. After the full release of Minecraft (1.0.0), Persson transferred creative authority of the game's development to Jens Bergensten,[6] afterwards continuing to help out with Minecraft while also working on a new project.[7]

Persson engaged Ez during a vacation in Indonesia,[8][9] and married her on August 13, 2011. The two separated on August 15, 2012.[10] Her brother, Kristoffer, is one of the artists whose paintings appear in the game.