Magnus Carlsen's Chess Empire

A story about how Magnus Carlsen, the world's #1 chess player, built a business empire at a young age.

"Magnus is the number one chess player in the world, but the cool thing about him is that unlike many athletes, he's managed to build a business empire. While most celebrities and athletes focus on getting paid in the moment, they struggle to build equity in a product or brand.

He was a GM (Grandmaster) by age 14, and now at just 31, he's built Play Magnus, a publicly traded company. It has 250 employees, 4 million registered users, and a market cap of $115 million. They offer a $14/month membership. The company started around 2019-2020 with $8 million in revenue, but last quarter alone they did $5 million, so they're trending towards $20 million annual revenue.

What's interesting is that there's actually two companies - Play Magnus and Magnus Chess. He owns 9% of Play Magnus and has a substantial stake in Magnus Chess, which I think is like a streaming platform. He still competes in chess and sometimes streams on Twitch. He's managed to build substantial wealth through equity while still being relatively young."