Emmett Shear, one of the co-founders of Twitch, announced his resignation as CEO of the company. The news was made known through a farewell note that the executive himself published on the official blog of the platform streaming which belongs to Amazon. His replacement will be Dan Clancywho joined the company in 2019 as president.
As confirmed by Shear, his decision to step away as CEO of Twitch responds to the desire to spend more time with his family. The 40 year old manager has been a father for the first time and intends to focus her efforts on raising her baby. “I want to be fully present for my son as he enters this world and I feel ready for this change to face new challenges,” she said.
While Emmet Shear’s resignation as Twitch CEO is effective immediately, will continue to be linked to the platform in an advisory role. About Clancy, who will assume his role from today, he assured that he is the most qualified to take the reins of the company.
“I have never been more confident in Twitch’s leadership, in all of our people, and in our product, than I am today. For many years, I really felt that Twitch could die without my guidance and input. But I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think, in fact, it’s exactly that growth that has allowed me to even consider the idea of no longer working at Twitch.”
Emmett Shear, former CEO of Twitch.
Emmett Shear closes a 16-year cycle linked to Twitch
Although Twitch was born as such in mid-2011, its beginnings date back to 2007 under a different name: Justin TV. This video platform was co-founded by Emmett Shear himself along with Kyle Vogt, Michael Seibel and Justin Kan. In fact, the name of the service was directly related to the latter, since the site’s original mission was to broadcast his life live, every day, all week.
However, the portal began to mutate shortly after with the inclusion of content belonging to different categories. One of the most popular sections was the one dedicated to the gaming, which later spun off as TwitchTV. Although Justin.tv remained active until 2014, the platform’s focus quickly turned to Twitch, which didn’t take long to generate a lot of attention, both from users and potential buyers.
This is how in 2014, Amazon entered the scene and acquired the company in exchange for almost 1,000 million dollars. Emmett Shear remained as CEO and the service of live streaming it continued to function practically independently of its parent company. In any case, the seal of the firm founded by Jeff Bezos did not take long to become visible, especially with benefits for Amazon Prime subscribers.
Shear’s departure as Twitch CEO comes after a troubled yearespecially in relation to the link with the streamers Most important in the world. Let’s remember that the service applied modifications to the distribution of revenue from subscriptions that were not well received by content creators. Although some of the biggest names on the site have been able to get rid of the exclusivity clause that prevented them from broadcasting on rival proposals.
With his resignation, Emmett Shear is the second great manager in the video world to put an end to his work in 2023. Last February, Susan Wojcicki had announced his departure from YouTube, after serving as CEO for 9 years.