Twitch Co-founder Emmett Shear has announced he is stepping down as CEO of the live-streaming platform.
It has been revealed that Dan Clancy, Twitch’s current President, will become the platform’s new CEO, effective immediately. Shear will still work for Twitch, albeit in an advisory role.
Shear’s announcement was revealed on a Twitch blog post, with the founder stating that the birth of his son was a factor in his decision to step down.
In the blog post, Shear stated: “With my first child just born, I’ve been reflecting on my future with Twitch. Twitch often feels to me like a child I’ve been raising as well. And while I will always want to be there if Twitch needs me, at 16 years old it feels to me Twitch is ready to move out of the house and venture alone.
“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.”
Shear’s journey started when he founded Justin.tv in 2007 alongside Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel and Kyle Vogt. The company would later become Twitch, which was then purchased by technology goliath Amazon in 2014 for nearly $1bn.
Clancy joined Twitch in 2019 and has been responsible for the streaming platform’s product development since he started. Previously he worked at neighbourhood social networking service for Nextdoor as its Vice President of Product and Engineering. Moreover, Clancy spent over 9 years at Google, which included being YouTube’s Engineering and Consumer Product Lead.
