Snapshot · Freakonomics Radio
ExtremeGammon (XG), the leading backgammon analysis software released in 2009, was purchased by Travis Kalanick, founder and former CEO of Uber, with plans for significant AI investment.
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At 51:20 · chapter starts 51:05
The modern backgammon story has a striking new investor: Travis Kalanick, former Uber CEO and avowed backgammon obsessive, purchased ExtremeGammon in 2024 and is expected to invest heavily in bringing modern machine learning to the platform. Meanwhile, Backgammon Galaxy continues to grow its user base, and Olsson observes two distinct and complementary trends: the rise of online play via apps and platforms, and the explosion of social backgammon clubs across the United States. These are not competing phenomena — they feed each other, with online players seeking in-person connection and tournament players learning online. Olsson singles out New York City as the epicenter of the club movement, pointing specifically to Remington Davenport's work.
ExtremeGammon, the gold-standard backgammon analysis software released in 2009, was bought by Travis Kalanick — founder and former CEO of Uber — with plans for significant modern AI investment. It's a concrete signal of the backgammon renaissance reaching serious money.
Remington Davenport didn't set out to build a movement. She just wanted somewhere to play. She started hosting weekly events in 2023 with 10 friends; by season four of her league, 235 people were competing. She cried after her first 50-person event because she didn't even know 50 people in New York.
Sam's initial MVP was coded in approximately one week using ChatGPT voice mode and copy-pasting code, with no prior technical experience.
Sam argues Discord is 10x better than email for building relationships with younger users who rarely check their inbox.
Sam's monthly operating costs include Cursor ($200), AI image generation ($100), AI video generation ($200), hosting ($100), email marketing ($80), and AI compute ($300–$500).
Sam recommends copying days of Discord chat history into ChatGPT and prompting it to list recurring pain points as a fast, free market research technique.
Bhanu and his team built approximately 50 free tools to attract search traffic, each linked back to SiteGPT.
With AI coding tools like Cursor, Bhanu can now create a new free marketing tool in less than 5 minutes by referencing existing tools.
Bhanu filters Ahrefs keyword results to show only those with a keyword difficulty below 10, making them realistic ranking targets for any decent website.
Bhanu sets a minimum search volume of 1,000 monthly searches when selecting keywords to target with free tools.
PropGPT averaged 20 downloads per day right after launching on the App Store through influencer marketing.
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