Emmett Shear, CEO and co-founder of Twitch, has announced that he is leaving the platform. Speaking via the company’s blog, the head of the Amazon-owned streamer said he is stepping down to spend more time with his young family. Shear will continue to have an advisory role at the firm for the foreseeable future.
Having built the platform to a point where it now has 8 million streamers a month, Shear said: “It’s hard to put into words how much Twitch has been for me. Twitch has been a place of community for streamers and viewers, but also for me. Twitch will always remain part of my extended family, a community where I grew in many ways.”
Dan Clancy, Twitch’s President, is stepping into the role of CEO, effective immediately. “I’ve never had more confidence in Twitch’s leadership, in all our people, and in our product, than I do today,” said Shear. “For many years I felt Twitch might die without my input, but I no longer feel that is true. (Dan) cares deeply about the Twitch community, its streamers, and our staff and understands what makes Twitch, Twitch.”
Following Shear’s resignation, Clancy’s first task was to announce a reduction in workforce. In his first significant blog, he said: “we’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our workforce, which results in us having to say goodbye to just over 400 people. As a company focused on building community together, this decision was incredibly difficult and one we did not make without considerable thought.”
Clancy said: “Like many companies, our business has been impacted by the current macroeconomic environment, and user and revenue growth has not kept pace with our expectations. In order to run our business sustainably, we’ve made the very difficult decision to shrink the size of our workforce. I and the rest of the leadership team are confident that we have big opportunities ahead to grow Twitch. Our focus has always been on inspiring, growing and sustaining our streamers globally.”
