Facebook Millionaire Charlie Cheever: All I Really Need To Know, I Learned Playing Starcraft

by Nicholas Carlson

Parents take heed, if you think your kids are wasting their time playing video games, you're the one who is wasting your time by NOT playing video games! :) - Chris, InfoLibStarcraft II is the game of choice for the Silicon Valley engineers building companies like Facebook, Asana, and Quora.

The game is basically a 21st century version of Chess. Except that instead of starting with your Rooks, Bishops, and Queens, all you have at the beginning of a game is the pawns. You have to then direct these "pawns" to mine natural resources, build factories, and use those factories to build more powerful pieces.

Also, unlike Chess, where players alternate turns, Starcraft II is live and ridiculously fast-paced.

Valley lawyer Justin Liu says he knows people at Facebook, Quora, Asana, Google, and Microsoft who play up to 15 hours a week.

The very best Starcraft II player out in Silicon Valley, at least according to one gamer source out there, is Charlie Cheever.

Cheever is the 20-something, blond, good-looking, now rich, engineer who played a crucial role building Facebook as an early employee. Last year he quit to cofound Quora, a Q&A site that all the Valley bigwigs love.

Cheever himself is pretty modest about his game. On Quora, he writes, "On the current account I have on Battle.net, my W/L record is 56-76. That's about 1/3 of the games I've played in my life. In general, I'm pretty bad. Probably D/D- on ICCup."

The best ever or just OK, Cheever says he's learned a lot about life and business playing Starcraft II.

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