Emmett Shear Resigns

Emmett Shear, the CEO of Twitch, announced his resignation from the firm today in a blog post and a tweet about his 16 years working for the network he helped build.

Shear announced in the letter that Dan Clancy, the platform’s current president, will take over as CEO with immediate effect. Shear will continue to serve in a “advisory position” at Twitch. He made no mention of the potential compensation that might be involved. Twitch was purchased by Amazon in 2014 for around $1 billion. Shear explained the origins of Twitch and stated that the birth of his first kid was the main factor in his decision to leave the site. 

He said; “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 holds a job at Twitch and also works as a part-time partner with the venture financing firm Y Combinator, which supported two of his ideas, including the one that eventually became Twitch. Shear, the last of the platform’s original founders to leave the company, is primarily renowned for the laid-back atmosphere he creates during his yearly keynote addresses at TwitchCon. 

Dan Clancy, who took over for him, has worked for Twitch since 2019. Clancy worked for Google from 2005 to 2014 for nine years before to joining the platform. From 2014 to 2018, he then worked for Nextdoor for a few years as the VP of product and engineering.