Yesterday we held our first “Angel Lounge” meeting in Atlanta as part of our ever-expanding efforts through StartupLounge.com. I’ve been incredibly swamped today, so I’m just getting around to jotting down some of my thoughts on it.

The idea is devilishly simple.

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Yesterday the world lost the greatest chess player of his generation, and perhaps the greatest of all time in terms of sheer genius. Robert J. Fischer died in Iceland (the only country that would have him) at age 64.

As an avid chess player, his passing isn’t so saddening as he had retreated from public life in 1974, and played only a handful of serious games in 1992 in an odd re-match against old foe (and current friend) Boris Spassky. Those games showed that, while still a strong player, Fischer’s skills had been overtaken by new, younger, better-prepared players. Indeed, commentators observed that Fischer’s games appeared frozen in time, not incorporating the years of advancement in theory since 1974. Fischer even demanded that the series be named the World Championship, even though almost nobody recognized the match in that context. Fischer won that match, most likely because Spassky’s age was more advanced and he was well past the physical prime required to play serious chess at a high level.

It is hard to understate the importance of Bobby Fischer in our culture in the early 1970’s and his star briefly lit up the sky with unprecedented luminescence from the chess world. Fischer’s apex was as the bulwark against the Soviet chess apparatus (and it was an apparatus with an entire system designed to dominate the world at the game), and then just stopped. His games had Cold War implications and the world watched his every move as he steadily ground down the USSR’s best players, such as Tal, Taimonov, and Keres, on the long march to the World Championship in Reykjavik in 1972. His style was reminiscent of today’s professional athletes. He set out not to win, but to humiliate his opponents. He was going to force victory down your throat because he was simply a lot better than his opponents, who happened to be the best in the world. It’s one thing to be arrogant; it’s entirely another to be arrogant and then back it up every day. Americans like arrogance. We (rhetorically; I was 2 in 1972) embraced his New York personality. To boot, he loved beating the Commies. He hated them. For a time, he was the perfect icon, smashing the Soviets at their game. ESPN would have loved him and he would have loved ESPN - at least for awhile.

And then one day, he just stopped. He got us hooked on him and the game and then took it away. Fischer was convinced the chess world was out to get him. The only thing worse than a paranoid is a paranoid who is right. The Soviets did manipulate matches. Sometimes the did so by changing room temperatures, sometimes by planting listening devices in Fischer’s hotel room to gain insight into his strategies (now called the Bill Belichek Attack). They made some of their people throw games so that their best players would accumulate less fatigue.

As a result of Fischer’s complaining (and, it should be acknowledged, of Spassky’s own opposition to the rigging, which put him in physical danger and nearly had him withdrawn from the Championship match by his own government), conditions were changed in the finals to make the playing field more level. Many of those changes persist in today’s tournament conditions, including much richer prize purses. Fischer once quipped about refusing to “play for peanuts”. Fischer handily won the match and the title of World Champion, the first U.S. born player to hold the title.

But, like catering to a 2-year old, giving in to Fischer only encouraged him, and he quickly and inexorably slid into mental decay, with perceived conspiracies by Communists and he became quite outspoken against Jews and Zionism. When asked once if he were an anti-Semite he replied “Arabs are Semites and I’m not anti-Arab”. When time came to defend his championship in 1975, Anatoly Karpov was the scheduled opponent (Spassky would later emigrate to France), but when FIDE and the Soviets refused to give in to Fischer’s tournament conditions demands, Fischer refused to play and Karpov won by default. Most commentators agree with Fischer that he “would have creamed him” had a match taken place, and Fischer could have been the one to face Garri Kasparov in 1985 in that seminal chess turning point.

Fischer was so arrogant, so convinced of conspiracies against him, that when he was ordered by the State Department not to play his 1992 match in Serbia (it was a violation of the U.S. embargo to try to outster Slobodan Milosevich), he literally publicly spit on the letter and renounced his U.S. citizenship.

After that match (it is rumored the sponsors never made good on their $1 MM prize), Fischer remained in foreign exile (it turns out he also hadn’t paid taxes since 1974), finally ending up in Iceland, the site of his greatest triumph. And he never played chess - or did anything from what anyone can tell.

But after 1974, Fischer never made any contributions to chess save for one book, “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” which remains a seminal work. Chess could have been elevated to a very high stature in the United States if he had stuck with the game. Fischer died in 2008, but we really lost him back then. Ultimately it is a sad tale of talent wasted and opportunity passed. And Fischer likely died rather unwealthy. He could have and should have been a multimillionaire.

The lesson here is that talent isn’t enough to be successful long term. Brashness and bullying works for awhile but after a time, the world decides you’re just not worth the effort. I’ve met many entrepreneurs with loads of talent but insufficient people skills and with such excessive paranoia and grudge-carrying tendencies, that their ideas simply never got far off the ground because nobody wanted to deal with them. I’m certain there’s a cure for cancer or a high temperature superconductor that hasn’t been developed because the inventors simply lacked the people skills required to make it a reality. People don’t have to love you, but they have to respect and understand you and your idea.

The best momento I have of Fischer’s brilliance is a two volume collection of the 744 tournament games of Bobby Fischer (before the 1992 series), in the “original” Russian. The greatest compliment you can get is the respect of a grave foe.

- Mike Blake

If you are an early-stage entrepreneur, and need help with your financial modeling, you can’t beat this deal.

Cheers.

According to our good friends Eric Gregg and Allen Maurer at TechJournalSouth, the Georgia Research Alliance is launching a new venture fund (details below). A good move, although I think the amount invested by the state is on the small end. A lot of the research coming out of the universities will require significant amounts of capital (biotech, cleantech, nanotech, etc.) Even though they are getting 3-to-1 matching funds from the private sector, it could/should be more.

Georgia launching venture fund
January 15, 2008
ATLANTA–Georgia is launching the Georgia Research Alliance Venture Capital Fund, Gov. Sonny Purdue told a Georgia Chamber of Commerce Meeting.

The fund will partner the state with private sector dollars to give companies formed around Georgia research university IP early stage financing.

The state is investing $10 million in the fund which will be matched 3-to-1 by private dollars.

This doesn’t help non-research-based ventures at all, but all boats rise with the rising tide, as they say. I still would like to see the state reconstitute and overfund the ATDC’s seed fund, however. It is time they got serious about boosting early-stage fast-growth deals in the private sector. Don’t get me wrong - governmental involvement is very rarely the solution to a problem. But in this case, I think they can send a strong signal, and play an integral role.

I referred a media contact of mine to the ATDC not too long ago. I completely envisioned a role whereby he could offer internal media/public relations consulting services to ATDC portfolio companies. Think about the tremendous advantage that having a free public relations expert at your disposal would bring to a typical startup. I think the ATDC folks liked the idea, but unfortunately, they are a government entity, and are thus susceptible to the normal budgetary constraints that you would expect.

Come on, Sonny. Let’s get it done.  The ATDC has some great ideas for the future, but the impact that they will inevitably have on the regional economy will be directly correlated to their operating budget and their ability to engage the private sector.

Cheers.

As we continue to evolve our efforts at StartupLounge.com, we’re always trying to find new and innovative ways to foster early-stage entrepreneurship in the Southeast. In anticipation of our next StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event, we have decided to hold another quarterly event: Angel Lounge.

There are a lot of new angel investors out there, as well as many that lurk, but aren’t quite sure where to begin. Well, we’re here to help.

Kudos to Charlie Paparelli (of Paparelli Ventures) for suggesting this idea. Charlie is a very experienced angel investor, and the newest member of our StartupLounge.com steering committee. Sig Mosley of Imlay Investments has also graciously agreed to attend and lend his expertise to the room.

The Angel Lounge - Free Lunch!

Building the startup ecosystem in the Southeast (and in particular, Atlanta) is what the Startuplounge.com is all about. The Angel Lounge is an opportunity for our angel investor attendees to get to know each other and for us to get to know you. Our goal is to “help you help each other” get to the right investment more efficiently. In this open, lounge-like, environment, angel investors will meet prior to the Capital Conference to:

• Meet fellow investors
• Gain an understanding of fellow investor interests
• Discuss the various methods of angel investing
• Learn about the various deal structures and what to expect
• Understand how to best evaluate opportunities while attending Capital Connections
• What to expect in the first meeting outside the conference

More importantly, you’ll get to meet some very interesting people just like yourself. And it is literally a free lunch (compliments of one of our sponsors, Adams Capital). Who knows, maybe someday you’ll do a deal together.

If you are an angel investor in the Southeast, and would like to attend, please let me know. The cost is free, but space is limited.

Angel Lounge will be held on Wednesday, January 30th at the offices of Adams Capital in Atlanta. The actual Capital Connections event will be held a week later, on Wednesday, February 6th.

Cheers.

If you are an early-stage entrepreneur in the Southeast U.S., and you want to come hang out with a couple hundred like-minded investors and entrepreneurs, you won’t want to miss the next StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event.

Cheers.

Are you a hot shot programmer who is bored writing business applications and mindlessly retrieving database records and spitting them out to users? Do you want to be a contributing force in a highly-visible, pre-venture-backed, early-stage software company that creates full-body interactive experiences with some of the most premier customers in the world, such as Disney, Nike, Red Bull, Google, Atari, and others?

PlayMotion, a leading provider of interactive, full-body video games and interactive experiences is seeking stud software developers to create computer vision-based entertainment experiences.

If you dig video games, and your idea of a fun night out is designing video games, and doing graphics and engine development in Panda3D, OpenGL, Python, and C++, and you have a penchant for pushing the Agile development envelope to the limit, then we want to talk to you.

If you decide to step up to the challenge, you will collaborate with a small, passionate team to create experiences that balance fun, laughter, challenge, visual beauty, and reward… for both single-player and large multiplayer (250+ simultaneous players) environments. We are on the bleeding edge of computer-vision R&D, and we are seeking highly-motivated individuals to join us in our adventure.

If you think you have what it takes, then we want to talk to you.

We are based in Atlanta - a very cool place. Lots of culture, fun, night life, and more important, peaches. Let’s talk.

Cheers.