Internet billionaire who now lives in a small town in South Africa
Jan Henric Buettner, a German Internet entrepreneur now living in Wilderness, South Africa, is bringing the high-profile Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour to Cape Town.
Buettner is a pioneer in mobile technology, internet, venture capital, and luxury hospitality, and is now making his mark in chess.
He was born in September 1964 in Hamburg, Germany. He studied business management and did an internship at a precursor of Vodafone.
He started his career as a trainee at Axel Springer AG, where he worked on interactive media and gained valuable experience in the telecoms and Internet sectors.
In 1989, Buettner played a pivotal role in Axel Springer Verlag’s bid for the D2 mobile license, contributing to the introduction of private mobile telephony in Germany.
In 1992, he founded the world’s first multimedia online service, which later led to the creation of AOL Europe in 1995. In 2000, Bertelsmann and Buettner sold their stakes in AOL for $10 billion.
He became head of AOL Germany. In 1997, he moved to the United States, establishing BV Capital, a venture capital firm specialising in internet companies.
The California-based BV Capital, now known as Headline Ventures, manages over $4 billion in assets today.
Between 1998 and 2007, he invested over $1 billion in emerging technology companies, including GoToMeeting, Groupon, and Sonos.
In 2006, Buettner acquired the 400-year-old Weissenhaus estate on Germany’s Baltic Coast and invested over $150 million in the property.
He transformed the estate into the globally renowned and award-winning Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort.
Buettner remains a sought-after expert in Internet innovation, venture capital, luxury hospitality, and sports.
He advises political and business leaders worldwide, and his book, JBite-Sized Wisdom for Life, humorously reflects on his experiences that have shaped him.
Over the years, he has lived in Hamburg, New York, Santa Barbara/California, and Weissenhaus, but he now primarily resides in Wilderness, South Africa.
Wilderness is a small town in South Africa’s Western Cape Province, on a coastal stretch known as the Garden Route.
Buettner and Magnus Carlson revolutionise chess
In 2024, Buettner co-founded Freestyle Chess with the world’s strongest chess player and former world champion, Magnus Carlsen.
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour brings together the world’s top 25 chess players to revolutionise the sport, drawing inspiration from Formula 1’s success model.
Unlike traditional chess, where the starting position is the same for every game, Chess960 randomises starting positions.
This removes the need to memorise openings, which has become an integral part of modern chess at the top level.
Carlsen has been an advocate for Chess960 as an alternative to classical chess because it eliminates the need for opening preparation.
While previous Chess960 tournaments mostly used rapid time controls, Carlsen proposed using slower time controls, believing the variant requires more time for thought.
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is a series of Chess960 tournaments in 2025 organised by Buettner and Carlsen’s Freestyle Chess Operations.
The prize fund for each event was set to be $750,000, with plans to raise it to $1 million for future events. This is the highest-ever prize money for a chess tour.
The first event was held at Buettner’s Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort, and the second one in Paris, France.
The third grand slam will take place in Las Vegas, United States, and the fourth in Cape Town, South Africa.
This will be the first time South Africans will have the opportunity to attend a local chess tournament featuring the world’s top players.
The expected players include Carlsen and other top grandmasters like Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja, and Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Other top players who may participate are world-champion Gukesh Dommaraju, Alireza Firouzja, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Levon Aronian.
Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour photos
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