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Putting the Pieces in Play for the Rise of Chess

Season 2 | Episode 2 | September 20, 2023
Tanzeen Syed

Tanzeen Syed

Managing Director and Head of Consumer Internet and Technology

Erik Allebest

Erik Allebest

Co-Founder and CEO of Chess.com

General Atlantic’s Head of Consumer Internet and Technology, Tanzeen Syed, speaks with Erik Allebest, Co-Founder and CEO of Chess.com, about how a personal passion from a young age developed his mission-driven journey to build one of the world’s largest platforms for playing, learning and watching chess, which now has over 100 million members.

In This Episode

  • Learn how Erik’s love of chess and passion for sharing the game with others led to the creation of Chess.com. Erik discusses some of the unconventional, strategic decisions he made throughout the journey to build Chess.com into the global platform it is today.
  • Hear about Chess.com’s commitment to developing products that add value for chess players of all levels and maintaining the integrity of the game.
  • Erik’s decision to partner with an outside investor and how he approached evaluating potential partners.
  • How Erik and Chess.com Co-Founder Jay Severson navigated pivotal moments and seized the moment of the global increase of the popularity of chess.

“It made us make decisions that were very different from most startups at the time. We didn’t even consider ourselves a startup because we didn’t fit the mold of what a startup was… in many ways, we didn’t even feel like we were starting a business… We were building this thing that we wanted and that was all it really was.”

– Erik Allebest, Co-Founder and CEO of Chess.com