Society
Allebest says Chess.com only realised in 2024 growth was “sticking around”
No Priors Podcast
Building a $200M Bootstrapped Chess Empire with Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest
What was said
"But then in 2023, we had another crazy wave where all these kids started playing in schools because of short form content and the Mittensbot and the cheating scandal and all these other things in 2023 and we just spiked again. And then when we came down again, we were so much higher and we maintained this baseline. And so kind of in 2024, we're like, "Oh my gosh, like this thing is actually sticking around.""
Allebest describes successive demand surges for online chess — first during Covid-19 and The Queen’s Gambit, then again in 2023, which he links to short-form content, the ‘Mittens’ bot, and a high-profile cheating controversy. He says it was only in 2024 that the company concluded the higher activity level had become a stable baseline rather than a temporary spike.
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- Programme
- No Priors Podcast
- Episode
- Building a $200M Bootstrapped Chess Empire with Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest
- Clip time
- 10:15
- Original source
- Watch the source segment →
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