Chess.com started in 2007 and grew steadily in the years following. The platform exploded in popularity during the pandemic, to the point that their servers struggled with the traffic. It was a great problem to have. Chess.com was instrumental in helping to elevate chess to its current height of mainstream popularity.

But how did Chess.com come to be, and how was the platform created?

Our guest today is Jay Severson who co-founded Chess.com and was its CTO. He joins the podcast to talk about the origins of the site, its development, scaling the platform, and what he’s working on today.

This episode is hosted by Lee Atchison. Lee Atchison is a software architect, author, and thought leader on cloud computing and application modernization. His best-selling book, Architecting for Scale (O’Reilly Media), is an essential resource for technical teams looking to maintain high availability and manage risk in their cloud environments.

Lee is the host of his podcast, Modern Digital Business, an engaging and informative podcast produced for people looking to build and grow their digital business with the help of modern applications and processes developed for today’s fast-moving business environment. Listen at mdb.fm. Follow Lee at softwarearchitectureinsights.com, and see all his content at leeatchison.com.