Richard Tait, the longtime Seattle entrepreneur who co-founded the wildly standard 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,” in accordance with a Fb submit by his household, shared with GeekWire.
Prepare dinner Household Funeral House of Bainbridge Island posted a transient obituary. Information of his loss of life was additionally shared in a notice 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 pronounces the loss of life 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 will likely be enormously missed.”
Tait’s son, Finn Tait, additionally posted TikTok movies and Instagram images through which they remembered their father.
“He was an important 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 lots.”
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 a variety of consumer-oriented on-line companies together with Carpoint, Sidewalk and others, in accordance with 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.
Nevertheless it was Tait’s choice to go away Microsoft in 1998 that may largely outline his legacy, as he and fellow Microsoft govt Whit Alexander co-founded “Skull.”
It turned one of many fastest-selling video games in historical past and spawned a variety 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 achieved that and a lot extra, making historical past with nice merchandise which have gained 5 Toy Business Affiliation Sport of the 12 months awards.”
Seattle entrepreneur and advertising govt Adam Tratt knew Tait at Microsoft, when “Skull” was “simply an thought in a shoe field,” he informed GeekWire. 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 pals in his front room.
“I’d describe him as the last word dreamer,” Tratt mentioned. “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 capable of take easy concepts and switch them into rather more. “That was his particular sauce: his imaginative and prescient and his creativity and his means to suppose huge,” Tratt mentioned.
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 secure place for excellent concepts with out company critique, and provides them the possibility to shine and thrive.”
He served as a marketing consultant to inner product groups at Starbucks the place he launched the Actual Meals, Merely Scrumptious marketing campaign and, in accordance with 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 crew 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 turned effectively funded in 2011 with a $3.7 million spherical from traders 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 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 power 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 good telephones and different digicam equipment. And he was 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 loss of life “an unbelievable loss for the Seattle entrepreneurial group. He was such a gem and an inspiration to so many people. He will likely be sorely missed.”
Shauna Swerland, CEO of Seattle’s Gasoline 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 shortly the enterprise dialogue turned deeply private. That assembly led to the beginning of a friendship.
At certainly one of 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 perfect,” Swerland mentioned. “Wonderful storyteller, supportive buddy, artistic thinker and so beneficiant.”
Tait additionally was uniquely linked to GeekWire.
In 2018, he served as a decide within the inaugural season of GeekWire’s Elevator Pitch startup competitors, imparting witty recommendation along with his fading Scottish accent.
GeekWire co-founder John Prepare dinner credited Tait with offering a number of the greatest entrepreneurial recommendation he’d ever heard when it got here to constructing new firms: “If you happen to’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 youth 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,” in accordance with the Heroes Centre bio.
Tait earned an MBA from Dartmouth College in 1998 after which joined Microsoft, recalling later that he went from paperboy to software program big.
“I like being an entrepreneur and have executed 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 ascertain an emotional reference to a shopper 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, in accordance with the notice to workers.
“Richard was an essential Valor tradition service who embraced our mission every single day of serving and investing in firms in search of to make the world a greater place,” Valor’s Jonathan Shulkin wrote. “He was totally dedicated to creating a optimistic distinction in each manner potential, from the businesses we serve to our crew at Valor, our strategic companions, and all of the individuals he touched.”
Shulkin mentioned that Tait is survived by his three kids, Remi, Finn, and Deacon, in addition to his stepdaughter Bella.
“He beloved all of them enormously,” Shulkin mentioned, “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 taking part in an early model of the sport in his front room, saved in contact with Tait frequently, describing him as somebody who cared deeply about different individuals.
Tait would name individuals on their birthdays, and ahead images from the previous to reminisce over shared recollections with pals and colleagues.
“He at all times ended each name by telling you ways a lot he beloved you,” Tratt mentioned.
