Richard Tait, the longtime Seattle entrepreneur who co-founded the wildly well-liked board sport “Skull” after spending 10 years at Microsoft, has died. He was 58.
Tait handed away on Monday at his Bainbridge Island, Wash., dwelling from “continued pulmonary issues because of COVID-19,” based on a Fb publish by his household, shared with Startup.
Prepare dinner Household Funeral House of Bainbridge Island posted a quick obituary. Information of his demise was additionally shared in a notice to employees from Valor Fairness Companions Co-President Jonathan Shulkin. Tait had been a accomplice at Valor Siren Ventures since March 2019.
“It’s with nice disappointment that Valor Fairness Companions broadcasts the demise of our colleague and buddy Richard Tait,” Shulkin wrote. “Our Valor group, in addition to the many individuals that labored with Richard through the years, mourn his passing. He shall be significantly missed.”
Tait’s son, Finn Tait, additionally posted TikTok movies and Instagram photographs through which they remembered their father.
“He was an incredible dad,” Finn mentioned in one video. “It was like having Willy Wonka for a father. I like him very a lot and I’m going to overlook him rather a lot.”
Tait began at Microsoft in July 1988 and is credited with launching a sequence of recent companies on the tech big. He helped pioneer consumer server computing within the firm’s working system division, ran the CD-ROM enterprise with merchandise like Encarta, and began quite a lot of consumer-oriented on-line companies together with Carpoint, Sidewalk and others, based on his LinkedIn profile.
Tait was even the primary boss of present Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, whom he helped recruit from Solar Microsystems within the early Nineties.
However it was Tait’s resolution to depart Microsoft in 1998 that may largely outline his legacy, as he and fellow Microsoft government Whit Alexander co-founded “Skull.”
It grew to become one of many fastest-selling video games in historical past and spawned quite a lot of “Skull”-branded follow-ups and associated merchandise. Gaming big Hasbro purchased “Skull” for $77.5 million in 2008.
“We got down to create a model that may give everybody the possibility to shine,” Tait mentioned on the time of the sale. “We’ve completed that and a lot extra, making historical past with nice merchandise which have received 5 Toy Business Affiliation Sport of the Yr awards.”
Seattle entrepreneur and advertising and marketing government Adam Tratt knew Tait at Microsoft, when “Skull” was “simply an thought in a shoe field,” he advised Startup. Tait wanted assist bringing the thought to market and Tratt, who ended up spending six years on the firm, was among the many first to play “Skull” with mates in his lounge.
“I might describe him as the last word dreamer,” Tratt mentioned. “Everybody else would have checked out ‘Skull’ and seen at finest a cool new board sport and at worst a mixture of board video games you’d seen earlier than that had been put in a blender, and put in a reasonably field. And what Richard noticed in that field was a way of life model.”
Tait was in a position to take easy concepts and switch them into far more. “That was his particular sauce: his imaginative and prescient and his creativity and his capability to suppose massive,” Tratt mentioned.
Searching for nice concepts
Tait’s subsequent step after “Skull” was the launch of BoomBoomBrands in February 2008 “to ignite breakthrough considering, foster creativity, and supply a protected place for nice concepts with out company critique, and provides them the possibility to shine and thrive.”
He served as a guide to inside product groups at Starbucks the place he launched the Actual Meals, Merely Scrumptious marketing campaign and, based on the corporate, formed “the well being and wellness technique in 2009 and 2010.” He was a member of the Seattle espresso big’s Transformational Agenda management staff credited with turning Starbucks round throughout a difficult financial time.
Tait then based Golazo, a soccer-themed vitality sports activities drink, in 2010. The product grew to become properly funded in 2011 with a $3.7 million spherical from buyers who included Starbucks’ Howard Schultz. And Golazo was well-known because of a hefty social marketing campaign and Seattle’s rising standing as a soccer capital.
However regardless of continued development, Golazo failed to achieve profitability and safe extra capital and needed to shut down.
From there, Tait went again to Starbucks, taking over the distinctive title of senior vp and entrepreneur in residence — a primary on the firm. He spent 2 1/2 years “bringing the vitality and keenness of a startup contained in the rhythm of a big company,” he mentioned on LinkedIn, the place he known as himself the corporate’s “Chief BoomBoom.”
Tait was a co-founder and board member of Second, the Seattle-based maker of attachable lenses for sensible telephones and different digital camera equipment. In an Instagram publish on Thursday, Second co-founder and CEO Marc Barros known as Tait the “spark to our early flame, the wind behind our backs” and mentioned that Tait “challenged us to suppose greater and impressed us to be a lot extra.”
“He impacted lots of people in Seattle, particularly the startup group,” Barros mentioned in an electronic mail to Startup.
Tait was additionally a longtime mentor within the College of Washington’s Foster College of Enterprise.
Geoff Entress, managing director and co-founder of Pioneer Sq. Labs, known as Tait’s demise “an unimaginable loss for the Seattle entrepreneurial group. He was such a gem and an inspiration to so many people. He shall be sorely missed.”
Shauna Swerland, CEO of Seattle’s Gas Expertise, remembered assembly Tait for the primary time shortly after she returned to Seattle from New York.
She’d heard tales that Tait was demanding and intense. However at that first espresso assembly she was met with heat and laughter, and he or she was struck by how shortly the enterprise dialogue turned deeply private. That assembly led to the beginning of a friendship.
At one among their subsequent conferences, Swerland offhandedly talked about that her son was an enormous basketball fan. Listening to this, Tait, an avid collector of a large assortment of mementos, disappeared for a second to return with a pair of autographed Chris Webber basketball sneakers for her son.
“He was the perfect,” Swerland mentioned. “Wonderful storyteller, supportive buddy, artistic thinker and so beneficiant.”
In a Fb publish on Thursday, Seattle startup vet Kyle Kesterson mentioned his coronary heart was damaged over the passing of his buddy and mentor.
Kesterson known as Tait “the highest shining instance round how creativity, product, enterprise, enjoyable, kindness, and better service all collide. He helped me consider what is feasible.”
Tait additionally was uniquely related to Startup.
In 2018, he served as a choose within the inaugural season of Startup’s Elevator Pitch startup competitors, imparting witty recommendation along with his fading Scottish accent.
Startup co-founder John Prepare dinner credited Tait with offering a few of the finest entrepreneurial recommendation he’d ever heard when it got here to constructing new firms: “In the event you’re not having enjoyable, you aren’t doing it proper.”
A 2010 story by Prepare dinner documented Tait’s eight ideas for entrepreneurial success, together with one which was an particularly clear hallmark of Tait’s profession: “Lead with ardour, a way of discovery and velocity.”
Scottish roots
Richard John Tait was born in Broughty Ferry, Scotland, on Jan. 17, 1964.
In a profile, the web site Heroes Centre mentioned Tait spent his adolescence within the coastal city of Helensburgh. He earned an honors diploma in laptop science from Scotland’s Heriot-Watt College earlier than leaving for the U.S. in 1987 to “make his fame and fortune,” based on the Heroes Centre bio.
Tait earned an MBA from Dartmouth College in 1988 after which joined Microsoft, recalling later that he went from paperboy to software program big.
“I like being an entrepreneur and have finished it since being a younger boy in Scotland,” Tait mentioned when he rejoined Starbucks in 2016. “I like shopper manufacturers, constructing nice groups and the chance to determine an emotional reference to a shopper and drive differentiation within the market.”
In March 2019, he joined Valor as a accomplice with the agency’s meals expertise, retail expertise, and sustainability targeted enterprise fund, based on the notice to employees.
‘He was such a gem and an inspiration to so many people. He shall be sorely missed.’
“Richard was an essential Valor tradition provider who embraced our mission day-after-day of serving and investing in firms looking for to make the world a greater place,” Valor’s Jonathan Shulkin wrote. “He was absolutely dedicated to creating a optimistic distinction in each approach attainable, from the businesses we serve to our staff at Valor, our strategic companions, and all of the individuals he touched.”
Shulkin mentioned that Tait is survived by his three youngsters, Remi, Finn, and Deacon, in addition to his stepdaughter Bella.
“He cherished all of them significantly,” Shulkin mentioned, “and we all know they meant the world to him.”
Tratt, who went on to turn into a basic supervisor at Skull after enjoying an early model of the sport in his lounge, stored in contact with Tait usually, describing him as somebody who cared deeply about different individuals.
Tait would name individuals on their birthdays, and ahead photographs from the previous to reminisce over shared recollections with mates and colleagues.
“He at all times ended each name by telling you ways a lot he cherished you,” Tratt mentioned.
Through the funeral dwelling, Tait’s household is facilitating “memorial tree” donations in his reminiscence.