Richard Tait, the longtime Seattle entrepreneur who co-founded the wildly well-liked board recreation “Skull” after spending 10 years at Microsoft, has died. He was 58.
Tait handed away on Monday at his Bainbridge Island, Wash., house from “continued pulmonary issues as a consequence of COVID-19,” based on a Fb put up by his household, shared with Startup.
Prepare dinner Household Funeral Residence of Bainbridge Island posted a quick obituary. Information of his demise was additionally shared in a be aware to workers from Valor Fairness Companions Co-President Jonathan Shulkin. Tait had been a companion at Valor Siren Ventures since March 2019.
“It’s with nice unhappiness that Valor Fairness Companions declares the demise of our colleague and buddy Richard Tait,” Shulkin wrote. “Our Valor neighborhood, in addition to the many individuals that labored with Richard over time, mourn his passing. He can be tremendously missed.”
Tait’s son, Finn Tait, additionally posted TikTok movies and Instagram pictures during which they remembered their father.
“He was an incredible dad,” Finn stated 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 lots.”
Tait began at Microsoft in July 1988 and is credited with launching a sequence of latest companies on the tech large. He helped pioneer shopper server computing within the firm’s working system division, ran the CD-ROM enterprise with merchandise like Encarta, and began plenty 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 Nineteen Nineties.
However it was Tait’s resolution to go away Microsoft in 1998 that will 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 plenty of “Skull”-branded follow-ups and associated merchandise. Gaming large Hasbro purchased “Skull” for $77.5 million in 2008.
“We got down to create a model that will give everybody the possibility to shine,” Tait stated 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 12 months awards.”
Seattle entrepreneur and advertising 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 concept to market and Tratt, who ended up spending six years on the firm, was among the many first to play “Skull” with associates in his front room.
“I might describe him as the final word dreamer,” Tratt stated. “Everybody else would have checked out ‘Skull’ and seen at greatest a cool new board recreation 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 rather more. “That was his particular sauce: his imaginative and prescient and his creativity and his capability to assume large,” Tratt stated.
On the lookout 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 excellent concepts with out company critique, and provides them the possibility to shine and thrive.”
He served as a advisor 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 large’s Transformational Agenda management staff credited with turning Starbucks round throughout a difficult financial time.
Tait then based Golazo, a soccer-themed power sports activities drink, in 2010. The product grew to become effectively funded in 2011 with a $3.7 million spherical from buyers who included Starbucks’ Howard Schultz. And Golazo was well-known due to a hefty social marketing campaign and Seattle’s rising standing as a soccer capital.
However regardless of continued progress, Golazo failed to succeed in profitability and safe extra capital and needed to shut down.
From there, Tait went again to Starbucks, taking up the distinctive title of senior vice chairman and entrepreneur in residence — a primary on the firm. He spent 2 1/2 years “bringing the power and fervour of a startup contained in the rhythm of a giant company,” he stated 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 digicam equipment. In an Instagram put up on Thursday, Second co-founder and CEO Marc Barros known as Tait the “spark to our early flame, the wind behind our backs” and stated that Tait “challenged us to assume greater and impressed us to be a lot extra.”
“He impacted lots of people in Seattle, particularly the startup neighborhood,” Barros stated in an e mail to Startup.
Tait was additionally a longtime mentor within the College of Washington’s Foster Faculty of Enterprise.
Geoff Entress, managing director and co-founder of Pioneer Sq. Labs, known as Tait’s demise “an unbelievable loss for the Seattle entrepreneurial neighborhood. He was such a gem and an inspiration to so many people. He can 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 she or he was struck by how rapidly 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 a giant 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 most effective,” Swerland stated. “Wonderful storyteller, supportive buddy, inventive thinker and so beneficiant.”
In a Fb put up on Thursday, Seattle startup vet Kyle Kesterson stated 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 together with his fading Scottish accent.
Startup co-founder John Prepare dinner credited Tait with offering a few of the greatest 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 suggestions 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 stated 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 large.
“I like being an entrepreneur and have completed it since being a younger boy in Scotland,” Tait stated when he rejoined Starbucks in 2016. “I like client manufacturers, constructing nice groups and the chance to ascertain an emotional reference to a client and drive differentiation within the market.”
In March 2019, he joined Valor as a companion with the agency’s meals expertise, retail expertise, and sustainability centered enterprise fund, based on the be aware to workers.
‘He was such a gem and an inspiration to so many people. He can be sorely missed.’
“Richard was an necessary Valor tradition provider who embraced our mission on daily basis of serving and investing in firms searching for to make the world a greater place,” Valor’s Jonathan Shulkin wrote. “He was absolutely dedicated to creating a optimistic distinction in each method doable, from the businesses we serve to our staff at Valor, our strategic companions, and all of the individuals he touched.”
Shulkin stated that Tait is survived by his three youngsters, Remi, Finn, and Deacon, in addition to his stepdaughter Bella.
“He beloved all of them tremendously,” Shulkin stated, “and we all know they meant the world to him.”
Tratt, who went on to turn out to be a basic supervisor at Skull after enjoying an early model of the sport in his front room, stored in contact with Tait recurrently, describing him as somebody who cared deeply about different individuals.
Tait would name individuals on their birthdays, and ahead pictures from the previous to reminisce over shared recollections with associates and colleagues.
“He all the time ended each name by telling you the way a lot he beloved you,” Tratt stated.
Through the funeral house, Tait’s household is facilitating “memorial tree” donations in his reminiscence.