I knew we would have to do something unique to stand out from the crowd but wasn’t sure what. Unfortunately, so would hundreds of others who also wanted to pitch their business idea. After many requests, we eventually managed to snag an invite to speak at an AI conference where we would have a chance to briefly meet him. Back in 2009 AI was not the hot topic that it is today and we were trying to get a meeting with a well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist to pitch DeepMind. In fact, a chess connection was even partly responsible for attracting our first major investor. Then suddenly, after dozens of moves of not making any progress, he finally somehow managed to trap my king, with checkmate seemingly forced on his next move. Hours rolled by as he pushed his pieces around trying to outmaneuver me, and the vast playing hall slowly emptied as everyone else finished their games. He was ahead in material but if I could just keep his king in check with my queen, I could force a draw.

We had reached a highly unusual endgame, which I had never seen before – I only had my queen, and my far more experienced opponent had a rook, bishop and knight. I was 11 years old and in the middle of a gruelling eight-hour match with a veteran Danish master at a big international tournament in Liechtenstein. These questions led to my lifelong obsession with the workings of the mind and a fascination with philosophy and neuroscience, but one particular moment would end up having a big impact on the direction I would take for the rest of my life.

Game changer book matthew sadler