Emmett Shear is the co-founder and CEO of Twitch, a popular video game streaming service that was purchased by Amazon for nearly $1 billion eight years ago. Emmett is also a part-time partner at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator.
Twitch has been in the news recently because the alleged shooter of 13 people in a Buffalo grocery store used it to livestream his actions. The stream was taken down less than two minutes after the violence began, according to the company, but Shear told HBR editor in chief Adi Ignatius that “clearly there’s still work to be done” to make livestreaming platforms safer.
In this episode of our video series “The New World of Work,” Ignatius sat down with Shear to discuss:
Techniques and strategies for preventing racist, hateful, and abusive speech on platforms like Twitch. The creator economy’s present and future, which he claims will be a more fulfilling alternative to not just the gig economy, but regular full-time employment for some. The differences in monetization between small creators with 5 followers and experts with 50,000 followers. The best pieces of advice he’s developed for young startup entrepreneurs during his time at Y Combinator.
“The New World of Work” investigates how top executives perceive the future and how their companies are attempting to position themselves for success. On LinkedIn Live, Ignatius interviews a top leader every week; previous guests have included Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi. In a newsletter sent exclusively to HBR subscribers, he gives an inside look at these conversations and solicits questions for future discussions.
