Emmett Shear, CEO of Amazon’s live streaming service Twitch, announced Thursday in a blog post that he is stepping down from his role, effective immediately. Shear co-founded the streaming platform over 16 years ago when it went by “Justin.tv.” Dan Clancy was named as Shear’s successor. Clancy has been with Twitch since 2019 serving as the company’s President.
“With the arrival of my son, the time has come for me to focus my energies on building that tiny little startup family, and I’m ready to dedicate my energies there,” Shear wrote. “Twitch will always remain part of my extended family, a community where I grew in so many ways alongside Twitch itself.”
Shear oversaw many changes to the Twitch platform over the course of his tenure including the roll out of a new moderation and safety feature, and the controversial changes to revenue splitting with the creators using the platform. Shear also had to navigate the growing challenges from other live streaming services (YouTube, Facebook) which resulted in big name streamers leaving the Twitch platform for competitors.
Even with the recent challenges, Shear is confident Twitch will remain competitive in the future, “I’ve never had more confidence in Twitch’s leadership, in all our people, and in our product, than I do today,” he wrote. “For many years I truly felt Twitch might die without my guidance and input, but I no longer feel that is true.”
Twitch was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for just under $1 billion.
Image from: Amazon/Twitch
