How Chess.com Became the World’s Biggest Chess Community with CEO Erik Allebest
Chess.com reached 250M members and $200M revenue despite AI dominating chess for 30 years.
“it's a game that's more popular than ever despite computers outclassing humans at it for the last 30 years”
Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest recounts the platform's growth to 250M registered members and $200M annual revenue, driven by COVID, The Queen's Gambit, and short-form content virality. The AI angle is peripheral — chess is notable as the clearest historical case of AI surpassing humans, yet human interest in the game has only grown. The company is now applying chess's skill-rating model to poker, but there is no substantive AI industry signal here.