Since the glory days of Twitch being called Justin.tv, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear has been there, and after 16 years, he has resigned.
Emmett Shear is an enigma. The person behind the huge streaming platform has rarely been seen in the limelight, and yesterday he decided he was hanging it up as CEO after 16 long years at the company. Surprisingly, Shear has rarely taken to social media to talk about the company he helmed for 16 years. Still, the announcement initially came from Twitter in a long-winded, heartfelt post that was only available for reply by people mentioned in the post. No one was mentioned in the post.
In a blog post, Shear outlines his time at Twitch from its inception until now. His reasoning for stepping down is family related, as he writes, “So it is with great poignancy that I share my decision to resign from Twitch as CEO. I want to be fully there for my son as he enters this world, and I feel ready for this change to tackle new challenges.”
Twitch has had a rough year, with streamers lambasting the decision to discontinue the 70-30% revenue split in lieu of a 50-50% profit split, meaning the platform retains half of the profits made by streamer subscription count and other issues outlined in a few articles posted by Joe Findlay here at CGMagazine. An issue he briefly mentioned in Twitchcon 2022’s opening ceremony but then went radio silent on.
There was also a boatload of controversy surrounding gambling streams that plagued the site in 2022, with popular streamers such as Pokimane condemning the practice. There was also Twitchcon 2022‘s huge issue with lax security, and streamer Adriana Chechik’s injury during an alleged instance of negligence surrounding safety during an attraction. The then Twitch CEO didn’t remark publicly on any of these issues after they had happened.
As the last founding member of the platform steps down, Dan Clancy will take over immediately as CEO. Fans looking to read Emmett Shear’s sendoff can visit the blog post here.
