"Maybe I'm the villain to help Hans grow his Endgame.AI business..." — Daniel Rensch

Daniel Rensch

Co-founder of Chess.com

“Where I’ve come to peace with a lot of it is that many people, I can see very clearly, that they’re actually projecting the motives and actions they would take if they were in my chair. Meaning if they assume something of corruption, it’s probably what they would do. It has nothing to do with me. People fill a blank that doesn’t exist.

There’s like a big bucket of people who are just basically un-self-aware of the fact that they are actually projecting meaning onto a situation where they don’t have enough information to determine the meaning. They actually don’t, but they’re doing it anyway.

And then even the small bucket of people who are thoughtful and nuanced are still projecting hate but just in a thoughtful way. I kind of have come to terms with the fact that you can’t have great hate without great love.

Which is not me saying everyone who hates me secretly loves me. What I’m saying is people project that type of unfair hate or criticism because I have influence over something they love. They perceive me as having control over something they love.

And they do the same type of thing where they arrive at a wrong conclusion, project an inaccurate motive, and then determine my character. But they’re only doing it because they see me as having influence over something they really care about, which is chess and the chess world and community.

And it’s kind of my way of coming to peace with the fact that not everybody who hates me is a bad person. In fact, they’re good people. There’s a lot of really good people out there who are just probably going to think that Danny Rensch is a villain until they die. And I’ve come to peace with that…

When you get to the other side of being sued, and having just explosive drama, and learning to value what really matters all over again in terms of your own life, your own health, your own family. And you kind of come to terms with the fact that I’m never going to not be the villain in this story for some people.

As much as that hurts, if I need to be the villain in the story for some reason, then that just is what it is. Maybe it helps Hans get more investors into Endgame.AI. So maybe I’m the villain to help Hans grow his business. And that’s okay, I’m actually not kidding, right? Whatever it looks like.

But my mission doesn’t change. And the fact that I think chess is good for the world and that we’re doing a lot of good things doesn’t change. And, yes, it is a version of my own ‘haters gonna hate’, but not in an arrogant way.”