Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear steps down as CEO

After 16 years with Twitch, company co-founder Emmett Shear is stepping down from his role as CEO. Shear was there at the beginning, when the popular entertainment platform was still called Justin.tv, a live video site designed to host a 24/7 reality show about the life of co-founder Justin Kan. When the company spun the platform's growing gaming category into its own brand, Twitch was born. Shear shepherded the company through that transition, through Amazon's $970 million acquisition of the company in 2014, and beyond. Now, he says he says fatherhood has inspired him to step down from his leadership role. "I want to be fully there for my son as he enters this world," he wrote in a farewell blog. "I will continue to work at Twitch in an advisory role."

In October 2006 we started working on live video for the internet. That became Twitch. More than 16 years later, I'm now a father and ready to move to my next phase of life. I wrote a blog post, but the short version is: thank you so much to everyone who built this with me.

— Emmett Shear (@eshear) March 16, 2023

Dan Clancy will be taking over as CEO. Originally hired in 2019 as the executive VP of creator and community experience, Clancy soon rose to the role of President at Twitch. When streaming partners raised concerns over Twitch's revenue split with creators, Clancy was the one who put the issue to bed — explaining in a letter to streamers that the share would remain at 50/50 and premium 70/30 splits given to the platforms biggest stars would be subject to new limitations. As the face of this decision, Clancy bore the brunt of much of the backlash.

As for Shear, his exit letter exudes confidence for the new CEO. "He cares deeply about the Twitch community, its streamers and our staff and understands what makes Twitch, Twitch," he wrote. Dan Clancy will step into his role as CEO effective immediately.