The CEO of Twitch, Emmett Shear, made the announcement on Thursday that he is resigning from his position as the company's top executive.
Shear offered a lengthy farewell and hinted that he was leaving to spend more time with his family, as per a report by Gizmodo.
Shear Is Ready To Move On To The Next Chapter Of His Life
The live streaming platform Twitch, which has given customers endless steaming hams and a way for video game makers to more easily monetize their work, is undergoing a change.
Shear, the CEO and co-founder of the Amazon-owned business, is leaving after 16 years of building Twitch into what it is now.
Dan Clancy, president of Twitch, who assumed the role of CEO as soon as he announced his resignation, is his successor.
Clancy joined the business in 2019 and served as its "executive vice president of creator and community experience" at first.
Shear mentioned wishing to be able to spend more time with his young son and give him more time and effort in a blog post that was shared on Twitter.
"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 says.
Despite his resignation, Shear will reportedly continue to serve as an advisor to the business going forward, Polygon writes.
Shear compared the firm to a "family" in his blog post announcing his resignation, where also discussed the platform's history and his personal relationship to it.
The now ex-CEO joined the company before it was known as "Twitch," as he was one of the founding trio of Justin.tv.
Michael Seibel, Kyle Vogt, and Justin Kan established Justin.tv, the predecessor to the Twitch platform, in 2007 together with Shear.
The company launched a project called Twitch.tv in 2011 and made streaming accessible to all users while concentrating on the most popular genre of content-video games.
Twitch Interactive became the official name of the brand in 2014, the same year that Amazon paid $1 billion to buy the platform.
It can be remembered that the COVID-19 pandemic gave the livestreaming site a boost, and Shear claims that it now has more than 8 million streamers a month.
Read More: Twitch Tests New Elevated Chat Feature - But is It for Free?
Shear's Resignation Came At A Precarious Time For Twitch
Twitch implemented caps on the incomes of its top creators in September 2022, which infuriated many platform users and creators.
As a result, the modifications decreased creative profits while increasing Twitch's own, according to Gizmodo.
However, Twitch has come under fire for concerns including the prevalence of gambling on its platform and the unintentional hosting of potential sexual predators.
In early March, Twitch amended its non-consensual exploitative pictures policy in response to a deepfake scandal.
Furthermore, in far less significant news, a streamer at the company-hosted TwitchCon fractured her back after diving into a foam pit.
Given everything that has transpired, it appears that Dan Clancy will have his hands full once he assumes the role of new CEO.
Amid all of the controversy Twitch is facing, Shear insisted that his company will be in good hands regardless of the situation.
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