Dan Clancy

Dan Clancy is the CEO of Twitch. This is a must-listen.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Website's podcast. My guest
today is Dan Plants Ceio with Twitch. Dan, what is Twitch?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, first of all, Bob, thanks for having me. What
is Twitch? So? Twitch is a live streaming service. I
expect a lot of people have heard of it that
are listening. But it's kind of like you two. But
we focus completely on live content, so we have tons
of user generated content where creators go there every day
to create content and live stream to their audience.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
And how about archiving? Do you archive anything?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
We have a brief period of archive, different policies, but
our focus is not on archive. In general, people use
other platforms this. Our focus is for the live, the
live experience, and the archive is really just uses catch up,
not as a long term archive.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Okay, let's say someone is a total newbie, how do
they get started with Twitch?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So, Bob, you know what I was saying. As opposed
to a newbie how to get started with Twitch? I
think it might be useful to start with a newbie,
what do the viewers get from Twitch? Because if somebody
doesn't understand Twitch, I always find it's best to start
with what the audience cares about. And then talk about
how somebody starts creating with Twitch. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Absolutely, go for it.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Okay, Okay, So let me describe where Twitch fits in
the law of the broader space of social media and
all that. And it's in this very unique spaces. It's
between it's long form content. In fact, one thing that
I think we'll talk about, Bob, I want to talk
some about long form content and music, which is the album,
which is long form content, and Twitch is long form content.

(01:56):
But it's also social. So in some ways it's an
alternative to sitting watching Netflix or Prime Video or something
like that, because people tend to sit and watch for
thirty an hour, two hours something like that, but you
do it with other people, which is a community. Okay.
And the magic what I've always said about Twitch is
you have some creator that you care about, that you're

(02:18):
interested in. If you're a musician, of course, musicians you're
interested in. And your audience of fans become a community
because they spend time watching you and they're just sort
of hanging out with you, and over time they get
to know each other. So an analogy that you will
appreciate because we're in a similar age demographic. What I say,

(02:40):
it's kind of like cheers, a place where everybody knows
your name, that you show up and everyone says hey,
nor as soon as you show up the Twitch, And
that's what happens on Twitch, and the way I describe
it is I think today in some ways social media
is now antisocial, whereas what happens with Twitch is you
really form a community bond from people that spend time

(03:02):
watching somebody they care about together while they're a.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Live Okay, that's the concept. Let's go back to my
earlier question. Let's say I'm a newbie. How do I
get started?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Okay, it's pretty simple. You just go to Twitch and
you create an account and you start streaming.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Okay, let's buy for Katie here. Let's say you know,
I want to view other streams. How do I find out?
What is there?

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah? So when you come to Twitch, you come we
allow you to search for creators. This is one thing
that's different, not different, but the way you should think
about Twitch. Most people they don't just come to twitch
without anyone that they want to see. Okay. That Usually
when you come to twitch, it's because you've already been
exposed to somebody that you know that you have an

(03:49):
affinity with. If you come to Twitch and you don't
know anything about anyone, to be honest, it's kind of
hard to get deep into something. Okay. The way I
describe it is suppose you're watching a movie or something
on Netflix and there's a TV series and you don't
know any of the actors, and none of your friends

(04:10):
told you it was good, so you have no reason
to think this is entertaining. It's kind of tough to
just watch a TV series, right or a movie. And
with Twitch, usually when you come to Twitch, there's a
Twitch streamer that you've heard about, that you've seen on
social media, a musician somebody, and you're coming to watch.
Then you're not coming to Twitch, you're coming for the creator, Okay.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
In terms of the content, Twitch is famous for live
video gaming. What percentage of watching is video games?

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah? So now video games, it's about sixty five to
seventy percent of hours watched overall.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
And what are the other thirty thirty five percent?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
The other thirty thirty five percent is kind of what
ever you can think of. But I'll talk about where
the main stuff is. A big category is what's called
just chatting we're basically someone is just hanging out chatting
with their community, okay, talking to them, answering questions. But
then that quickly then pivots into they might be cooking,

(05:19):
they might be in music. There are a lot of
folks now and we'll talk more about this that might
be mixing music or creating music. Okay. A big thing
is what's called IRL or in real life stream, where
people go out into the real world with a camera
and they're doing something at an event somewhere and interacting
with people, but it goes all the way. There's a

(05:41):
pizza Princess g runs a pizza shop in Rochester, New York,
where basically there's a camera on there and she's running
her pizza shop talking to chat all the time. There's
a family in Spain that runs a restaurant on Twitch.
So people run their businesses on Twitch. People knit, people paint, birds,

(06:02):
people fish, So kind of anything you can think of,
there's probably somebody doing it live on Twitch.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Okay, let's use one of those restaurants as an example
how many people might be watching simultaneously.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, So I will take the specific ones. There are
two specific ones I'll talk about. One is piece of
Princess g Another one is Royas del Gracias, which is
a family run restaurant about forty five minutes outside of Barcelona.
That is this wonderful mom and pop whose son got

(06:37):
it going and they run a very much of a
family Spanish restaurant. Both those channels they average about a
thousand what's called average concurrent viewers, which means at any
point in time, there might be a thousand people watching them,
and then over the course of a stream, if that
streams like you know, four or five hours, you probably

(06:59):
end up getting twenty or thirty thousand people will have
come by during that four or five hours and have
watched them.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Okay, obviously this is a let's use the restaurants as example.
These are established enterprises. How did they get started?

Speaker 2 (07:14):
So often they just started to do it. In fact,
so many like what they just do is usually they
have some type of I'll take the destrasias. Their son
was someone who was kind of into social media and
thinking about social media, and they hit their son came
up with the idea. Okay. Oftentimes they combine this with
other forms of social media, so they'll be creating short

(07:38):
form content on YouTuber TikTok or Instagram and then they
also are streaming on Twitch and it's usually the combination
with helps grows them an audience.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Let's say I tune into this pizza parlor. What am
I gonna see?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, what you'll see is she's sitting there making pizza,
but she's reading Chat and she's interacting with Chat. Okay,
I'll have people come on that she'll interact with Okay,
So a lot of times she's talking to Chat while
she's sitting there making pizza. And sometimes she'll a lot
of times they'll do fun stuff with Chat, Like sometimes
they'll do something where somebody comes in and they have
Chat choose the what what they're going to put on

(08:16):
a pizza? Right, they do something fun like that, so
the person gets that Chat creates a pizza. But the
biggest thing is you just see her and the other
folks in her workforce just living their life, but then
engaging with their audience while they're doing it.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
What is the monetization for the restaurant.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, so we monetize by two ways. We monetize by ads,
but then we also monetize from money directly from the
audience and to put it in a context. About seventy
five percent of the money a creator will make is
going to come directly from their audience, okay, and that
comes primarily in two ways. One way is what's called

(09:00):
to subscription. So when I get a subscription to a channel,
it's not a subscription to access content as you normally
think of a subscription, because the content is free. The
subscription is a form of patronage. And when I subscribe
to a channel, first of all, I get no ads,
so it's ads free when I'm on the channel. But
then I also get status in the community because I

(09:23):
am supporting this creator, right, and then you also get access.
Creators all create what are emotes. These are really emoji
cons which they create a language for their community, and
they'll create one for happy, for sad, for cry, for whatever,
and when you subscribe, now you get to speak that language.
But the big reason for subscribing is really to support

(09:46):
the creator. And then I forget exactly how many years
ago we added this concept of a gift subscription, okay,
which was really important for Twitch. Over half of our
revenue from subscriptions come from gift subscriptions, and that's where
suppose I'm paying six months a month to subscribe to
you right now. But right now, I'll only give you
fifty bucks. Okay. What I do is that buy ten

(10:09):
gift subscriptions, and these are subscriptions to go out to
other members of the community. Okay, but really I'm the
money all goes to you, okay, but psychologically, I'm giving
the money to the community. And so the way I
kind of describe it is, suppose you're watching someone busk
and you go and drop five dollars in their hat,

(10:32):
and now everyone who's watching gets some candy or something. Right,
what happens is everyone in the community goes, oh, thanks
for the subscriptions, and they celebrate them. Okay, the creator
celebrates them. So it's this form of patronage and acknowledgment
which generates a meaningful amount of money for these people

(10:54):
that are creating content.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Okay. On a more granular level, something like, since we've
been talking about something like the restaurant, how many of
the people watching are subscribers?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
It will probably be It varies a lot for different
sized channels, Okay, but I would probably say at any
given time, think of it as five to ten percent
or something like that. Ten percent maybe.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Let's say I am the creator.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
A.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
How do I establish the price point? B? Is it
like Patreon where you can have multiple price points or
you know something like that. How do I do that?

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, so we go ahead and canonicalize the price points. Okay.
There's been a lot of discussion of whether or not
for different folks we should change that. But right now,
we actually have three levels of subscription. Tier one, which
is the default that most people get, Tier two, and
Tier three, and it's in US it's six dollars. I
think it's twelve dollars. I forget Tier two, and then

(12:00):
twenty five dollars okay, and then you get some additional
status and benefits if you have a Tier two or
Tier three subscription. Okay, but most of the people are
Tier one subscriptions, and we made the decision to make
it consistent across the site that everything has the same price,
as opposed to having lots of price variability.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Okay, to what degree does the creator have to say, hey,
come on subscribe, come on subscribe, or is it in
the window? How does that work?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Well, it sort of happens naturally, meaning people that are
watching Twitch kind of do it. So I'll use an
example for myself, I stream not as much as I
would like, okay, but I try to swim at least
once a week. Now, any of Now, I don't need
my audience to give me money, right and so, in fact,
by the way, any of the money that I get

(12:53):
from twitch, I go ahead and donate to charity. But
people still subscribe to me all the time, and I
don't do anything to try and encourage them. Now, most
of our creators do things to encourage people to subscribe, okay,
to get the ball rolling. So I'll just go through
a few examples. First of all, one thing that we

(13:14):
do is we have this thing called a hype train,
which has been very successful, which once people start subscribing
at the same time like a subscription or a gift,
and you cross a threshold, then a hype train starts.
And hype trains go to different levels, and I think
the record is like level one hundred and ten, and
as they get higher, we give out these emodes to

(13:36):
the community. So the community gets excited and says, let's
get level five, let's get level six, let's get level seven, right,
and of course the streamer is all excited. It's like, oh,
I'm getting I'm on a level five hype train. Come on, guys,
let's go to level six. Okay. So that's something that
we do that creates this kind of moment okay, that

(13:58):
gets lots of people saying, ooh, I want to be
part of this okay. But then streamers will do a
ton of stuff on their own okay. So for example,
one thing that's very common twitch is people do like subathons,
where they agree that if they reach so many subs,
they'll do certain things. Okay. The other thing they do

(14:20):
is sometimes they even stream for two weeks, three weeks,
thirty days. Whereas people keep giving money, it extends how
long they have to stream, okay. So they're kind of saying,
I will stream so much time for every dollar I receive,
and it has a counter so as people give money

(14:41):
and they keep the stream going even while they're sleeping, okay.
And so that creates this sort of communal experience and
excitement that gets everyone sort of contributing. So creators usually
do a fair amount, but they don't have to.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Are you familiar with this book? Just watch me by
leor Tour?

Speaker 2 (15:01):
I am not. It sounds like one I need to read.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
You have to read it because it's exactly what you're
talking about. It's a new book and it's about someone
who live streams and is raising money, and it deals
with all the concepts you're talking about. So you know,
ultimately we can talk about the themes, which would be
something different, but the mechanics are exactly what we're talking about.

(15:27):
Just watch me Lee or l I O R, I
see it, R.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I'll get it. I just searched on my computer and
it's sitting right here for me to start reading. And
by the way, one thing you mentioned, which is a
really important thing to note. I mean a huge thing
on Twitch is fundraising, and which is not surprising if
you go back in fundraising and you think of Jerry
Lewis telethon right, which was kind of the foundation of

(15:51):
fundraising Saint Jude's. I think they've raised over sixty million
on Twitch from creators that actively do things on stream
to raise money. And every year there are millions and
millions of dollars raised by creators who decide that's a
big part of what they want to do. And so
as opposed to you know, they will do these things,

(16:12):
but they do these things for contributions to a charity
that they care deeply about.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Let's say I'm part of the audience and I subscribe.
You know, when you're fundraising, their people say I pledge
one hundred dollars and then frequently they don't come through.
So if I say I subscribe, what are the mechanics
of collecting the money?

Speaker 2 (16:34):
We take care of all that. When you pay you,
we get it right. You have a we have a
credit card with you, we charge it. It's charged right away.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Okay, So I'm there and I click subscribe, My credit
card gets charged.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Their credit card gets charged, and just like anything, there's
always challenges with some charge back because you're a credit card.
But yes, your credit card gets charged.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Okay. Let's say I am the streamer. When do I
get paid?

Speaker 2 (17:01):
So right now, let me get the exact about we
pay out every I'm forgetting if it's every fifteen days
or every thirty days, I should know exactly. We've changed
it recently, but basically think of it every I'm pretty
sure it's every fifteen days, maybe every thirty days. That
we basically on cycle payout. Right, we have a we

(17:21):
have a cycle payout, and that we do need some
buffer in terms of charge backs and other things, because
once we pay you, we don't pull anything back, so
you know it's not too long.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
So let me understand, I have no AD and I'm
a streamer. People are subscribing. I get one hundred cents
on the dollar to me.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
No, that's a REP share. It's a rep share.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
So what is the REV share?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
The rev share? It depends upon. We have different levels. Okay,
for an average for you know, a regular smaller streamer,
it's fifty to fifty. We have what's called our our
Plus program for most of our established streamers, they get
either sixty forty or seventy thirty, and most of them
get seventy thirty. Okay, seventy percent of the revenue goes

(18:08):
to them. And the way we kind of the reason
we have the different levels, as we thought about it,
is for those people we're streaming is a core part
of how they fund their life. Okay, this is how
they pay their bills. We tried to make it so
that we could get most of them to seventy thirty.

(18:28):
So that's why we have these thresholds based upon the
number of subscribers you have, and we kind of set
it so that those people that are in general depending
upon this for their livelihood, and whereas there are a
lot of people that do it pick myself for example.
They do it out of passion and they may get
some additional money, but you know, then they'll be at

(18:48):
fifty to fifty.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Let's just say I'm a household name musician and I
have a lot of subscribers. I'm not living on the
money I'm making from Twitch, but am I going to
get fifty to fifty or seventy thirty?

Speaker 2 (19:04):
You don't have to, meaning if you have other stuff,
as long as you have a certain amount of subscriptions
to you, it'd end up getting seventy thirty.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
So really it's got less to do with whether the
person is living solely on Twitch money.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
No, no, no, it's all about we have objective thresholds
about how many we have subscriber points. I won't go
into the details right because it's very inside baseball, but
it's basically how many subscribers you have. It's a little
more complicated because of our tears, but it's how many
subscribers you have that determines it, and it doesn't matter.
We just set the threshold to try and approximate. Here's

(19:39):
a threshold where if like, if this was your only
source of income it is, you know, you would be
depending upon this. But that's just how we set the threshold.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Okay, we know, mister beast in other clouds forms, what
is the most anybody is making from Twitch?

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Ah? So let me This is what I'll talk about
for a second because it's important as you think about
our bigger streamers, and this is true in general in
the influencer marketplace. There is how much money they're making
from Twitch, but then how much money they're making off
of Twitch through direct sponsorship deals. And as you grow

(20:26):
basically when you first start out, you primarily make your
money from subscriptions. Okay, I've talked about. Then as you
get bigger, you also get ads because we have ads
as an important partner. As you get bigger, ads becomes
a more important part of your revenue stream.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Wait wait, time time out. These are the ads that Twitch.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Provides, Yes, that Twitch provides I know, and I'm going
to get so Twitch will run ads, right, So you
have your subscriptions, okay, then you have ads that we
run on the channel Okay that are also a revshare.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Okay, and what is the revshare on that?

Speaker 2 (20:59):
The same is fifty five to forty five to you,
forty five to us okay. And then you have any
direct sponsorship money that you bring in okay, Okay, Meaning
a creator can get sponsored directly from a brand to
do something or twitch or to post on other social
media as part of their Twitch following because they have

(21:19):
an audience. Okay. As you get bigger, it may be
that fifty percent of your revenue comes off Twitch. You're
still getting it because of Twitch and your Twitch following,
but fifty percent of your revenue doesn't come through Twitch,
and we don't get any cut of that, okay. So
that is quite common. And you know, if you're creating

(21:40):
content on Instagram, often all of your revenue comes from
off Instagram. You get almost nothing from Instagram, right And
same thing with TikTok So how much does? I don't
want to quote any numbers because it's like twitch streamers
makes in the top. Twitch streamers makes in the millions
and millions of dollars, right, and so I don't want
to say any numbers, especially.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Where we'll be very specific. Are there people making seven
figures solely from twitch? I'm sure they're making sponsorship money
in addition to.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
People making seven figures solely from Twitch.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yes, okay, conventional YouTube influencers where it starts, they've migrated
to other platforms. A there is a real focus on frequency.
Unless you're posting at a certain level, you can't gain traction.
And then a lot of them are so busy posting

(22:35):
that they burn out. Jena Marbles, all these original influencers,
they're doing it and then they can't do it anywhere emotion.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
So let's see. First of all, let me describe for
a second how twitch works to begin with, and then
what it takes to sustain. Okay, the foundation of Twitch
is the community you build and the fact that there
is a connection between people watching you and it is
the fact to get a sense of community. It takes
a certain amount of streaming for those people to build

(23:08):
that what I call a horizontal connection. For those people listening,
they won't see my hands going together, but I call
it a horizontal because you recognize each other in chat. Okay,
I'm going to do a quick divergence here to tell you,
you know, a story about that that'll kind of put
it to life. I was actually in the Middle East
and I talked. I was talking to a streamer from

(23:32):
the Arabic World and she was talking about how she
went on stream and one of her audience members wasn't
there and she is used to that audience member being
there regular She's like, what's happening and she asked everyone
in chat, and everyone in Chat was like, yeah, I
haven't seen him either. I haven't seen her on this
other channel, because they all knew who this person was.
So she started trying to figure out if he was okay, okay,

(23:54):
and did whatever information and she couldn't figure out. He
came back a week later and she was like, Oh,
we're so glad you're here. We're worried. In all of
Chat was saying this too, because all of Chat knew
who this person was and was connected to this person. Right.
It turns out he did have a modestly serious injury. Okay.
He was really touched that they noticed that he was gone.

(24:15):
The interesting part of the story is his immediate family,
who he doesn't live with, did not know he was
ever sick because he doesn't talk to them regularly, so
they didn't notice that he was like in the hospital.
He didn't contact them. They didn't notice, but his Twitch
community knew the day that something happened on him. And
it wasn't just the streamers of the community. So countless

(24:38):
stories I've heard of people meeting their mate just by
building the connections on Twitch. So I say that because
an important part of Twitch for the viewer isn't just
watching the content. It's feeling connected to the other people
and talking to them and getting to know them. So
going back to your question, when you get going, you
have to stream on some regularity to form that, Bob. Okay,

(25:03):
if you already have some notoriety, I often tell people, oh,
if you stream two to three times a week, two
to three hours a stream, you can build a sense
of community. Now there are exceptions to that. I'll think
myself as an example, Bob, you would be someone that
might be an exception. I only stream once a week.
But I'm notable in that I was CEO, and even

(25:25):
though I only stream once a week, I still have
that sense of community from the folks who watch them.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Okay, when you stream, how do people know when you're
gonna stream?

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, so I might post something on social media it says, oh,
I'm going live. But in general, for most people that stream,
I tell them maintain a schedule. Okay, say I'm going
to stream every Monday and Thursday from seven to ten. Okay,
because you're going to find those members of your audience

(25:57):
that have that that are just free in that time period. Okay.
So usually it's good to have some schedule. You can
stream off schedule, but try to have some schedule to
build that community. Okay. Twitch sends notifications out whenever you
go live, So basically, once people are watching Twitch and
they follow you, then whenever I go live, the folks

(26:18):
that and I am not good at maintaining a schedule
as an example, Bob, because my schedule is very erratic,
but they all get notifications as soon as I go live.
It says dan is live, Dan is live, Dan is live,
and so a lot of times they just start showing
up because they get the notification that I'm live, and
they're like, oh cool, I want to drop in. Okay.
If I want to tell people in advance, then usually

(26:39):
we do have ways within Twitch, but most people use
social media to say go on live tomorrow at ten,
because that's where people spend a lot of their time
is on Instagram or TikTok and so they post something
on there okay.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Twitch provided ads are those of break in the stream
or is it a bug that sits on the screen?
How does that look like? Doesn't work?

Speaker 2 (27:05):
The answer is both Okay. Basically I would broadly characterize
three types of ads. We do have pre roll media
ads that might occur when someone shows up at a channel. Okay,
most of the video ads will be a mid roll
where the streamer marks they control. Every streamer controls what

(27:28):
the AIRD load is on their channel. Okay, So they
can run three minutes of ads, they can run six
minutes of ads. They decide how many ads okay, they
define when the breaks are okay. Now, it's important to
note the subscribers aren't getting ads, So just because it's
an AD break, it doesn't mean that the streamer goes away.

(27:48):
Don't think if the guy gets up and leaves, usually
he's still doing something, but he takes into account and
AD break. And then we also have non interruptive ads okay,
because obviously that's something we want to get more for
the creators, it's better to minimize the interruptive ads. So
we do have some placements that are non interrupted that
you can see while you're watching the stream.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Okay, going back to sponsorships, you know you have a
lot of people in general influencers or hawking products and
it undercuts their credibility. How would you advise someone who's
doing that on Twitch, someone who has external sponsors.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, what I often say is you want to make
sure there's an authenticity to when you are doing a sponsorship.
When you look at the amount of money that somebody
makes directly from their audience, which again is different. You know,
if you look at the short form, people are making
a lot of money directly from their audience. On Twitch,

(28:50):
they are making a lot of money directly from their audience.
So if you go on and show for a product
you don't believe in to these people that are paying
to support you in general, like, that's not a great idea,
right if you don't believe in the other And so
the magic that works, and this is what I often
talk when I when I talk to brands is I

(29:13):
talk about the fact that to three quarters of the
money we make doesn't come from add It comes directly
from viewers pockets. And that means those viewers are emotionally
engaged with the content Okay. So it's actually because what
you're trying to do with an AD is create emotional transference,
right that I have a positive feeling towards you. You

(29:34):
have an association with this brand. So now I have
a positive association with filling the Brank brand. Okay. And
so I often tell streamers, I say, look, you should
make sure that you like to some degree believe in
this brand. And it's not just you, you know, being
a shrill show for whatever they say, because you know

(29:59):
that matters to your community.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Okay, I follow X and do I have the same
ability to chat as someone who subscribes?

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Absolutely? You know. Now, well let me add it on.
Let me add one caveat the streamer can control who
can chat in their chat. So the streamer has a
lot of control. Okay. So for example, they can put
their chat in subscribe or only chat if they so choose.
So if they put their chat in subscribe or only chat,

(30:34):
and sometimes a larger streamer might do that or might
do that for a certain portion of his stream to
reward those people that are subscribers. Okay, you can put
it and follower only chat. Okay, sometimes you might do
that to avoid just a lot of noise from the
people that don't. Okay, So the creator decides who can

(30:55):
participate in chat. I'd say most creators don't restrict it
to subscribe only chat as a general rule. I think
that's more the exception that somebody will limit it to
subscribeer only chat.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
And to what degree is it important for the streamer
to chat with the audience as opposed to the audience
chatting amongst itself.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, so I'm gonna say it doesn't matter for the
streamer to type into chat, right, okay, because they're talking.
The real question is to what degree is it important
for the streamer to interact with chat? Okay? And in general? Now,
sometimes you may be doing streams or you don't do it,
and that's okay, But in general it's pretty important, okay,

(31:37):
because the thing that like, everyone wants to be heard, okay,
And when I'm watching and you just say hey Kevin
verse seven, you know, yeah, let me answer your question
or thanks for being here. Like when I start streaming,
the first thing I do is for the first people
that show up in chat, because I turn it on
and then people say, hey Dan, what's happening? Hey, I

(31:57):
go yo, Kevin verse seven, glad to see you again,
and oh, Vix and Bena, glad you're here. Oh. And
I'm sitting there calling out all these people, right, and
so that is part of building the sense of belonging
because I'm showing that I hear them. Okay, and so
most of our streamers spend some amount of time paying

(32:18):
attention to chatt to show that they care.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Okay, this goes with the territory, and I have to
ask these people become somewhat public, to what degree are
their issues of stalking and other infringing upon someone's privacy
or space.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, so everyone needs you know, the reality is in
today's world, notable people need to be cognizant of this.
We have very strict rules around boxing and boxing off
platform as well as on platform. So in fact, if
ever someone is doing that which is sharing private information,
we take that seriously. We ban them from Twitch. So

(32:59):
in general, that's not something that that happens a lot.
But of course as you get bigger, and it varies
depending upon the creator, you have to be very cognizant
because you're becoming a public figure in today's world. Okay,
one of the factors, there's one issue about what i'll
call your personal safety, okay, in terms of where you're at,

(33:19):
and as you get bigger, you have to be cognizant
of that. Which is unfortunate that that's the case, right,
but that is the world we live in. One thing
that's really interesting about when you're on Twitch, though, is
you can control and you can ban people from your chat.
So one of the problems in today's social media world

(33:41):
is you post something and you have all the trolls
that are there responding, whether it's on X or Instagram
and commenting or whatever. Right, So if you say something
on X, you have all these people that will attack you.
And if there's anyone you're a fan of, any musician
you love they post something, they're going to be people
that are going to be, oh, I can't believe you
did this, you sold out or whatever. Right, And when

(34:01):
you read all that stuff, it just makes you feel
like shit, right because you know, let's say you're a
musician and you're creating stuff and then these people are
attacking you. Okay, on Twitch, if somebody attacks you in chat,
we have moderators, we have lots of tools you ban them,
and what ends up happening it's kind of different in
other social media and other social media, sometimes fifty percent

(34:23):
in your comments can be trolls. On Twitch, people tend
not to just sit there if they don't like you.
They don't sit there and watch you for two hours. Right,
They're not going to do that. They might come in
and say something then you ban them. So the reality is,
in terms of the abuse you get in chat, I'm
not saying it's not an issue. It's something we think about.
It tends to be far less than in other social

(34:47):
media platforms because you can control who can be engaged
in your chat.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Okay, do you block at the user level name or
the IP address name.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
When somebody bans this account, Okay, it is the person
who is getting banned. Now, we do a lot of
work to try and determine when people have duplicate accounts,
and there are two types of banning. If you violate
our community guidelines, we may ban you from Twitch. But
you also can set different standards on your chat that

(35:20):
are different than Twitches. Okay, so you can say this
is family friendly. I don't want anyone cursing. Someone curses,
you can ban them from your chat. Okay, you're banning
that person. We have various different ways to determine when
this person is associated with different accounts, and IP is
one of them. Okay, But so we work to make

(35:41):
sure that somebody can't do ban evasion. Of course, it's
always a cat and mouse game because there's no perfect
formula for that. But conceptually, what it is is we're
banning the person, not the account.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Okay. Other than video gaming, which is a world up
to itself and Twitch really owns, can you name someone
else who has primarily built their career, reputation, monetary reward
via Twitch.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, well, I mean I'll take our top streamer who,
while he gains a little bit, that's not why he's known,
Miss Kaisano. Okay, our top streamer who was on the
cover of Time magazine for the Creator of the Year. Okay,
He's primarily known for the antics that he does, if

(36:31):
you will, for all the funny stuff that he does
where he has people over you know, in his you know,
in his you know house, just doing funny and goofy stuff.
He has a great clip where he did a stream
with Kevin Hart where they did a sleepover. Okay, but
I would start with with Kai, who's you know at

(36:54):
the you know, at the top of the heap right now.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
On twitch, Okay, I'm a creator, you know these some
of these terms influencer. There are multiple platforms, There's YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch,
What would you say, would you say be on all
of them? Or really you should be on Twitch and

(37:19):
dedicate your type of Twitch.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
So, first of all, as opposed to talking about platforms,
I'm going to talk about content types and then get
to platforms, okay, and broadly, I think now you should
think of three types of content live. Okay. What I
will call is I'm going to use the term long
form BODVOD for video on demand, and I'm going to

(37:44):
use the term short form VOD. Okay. Now, the reality
is the length of the VOD is a continuum, doesn't binorize.
But in your mind, as we think short form BOD,
be thinking of thirty seconds to one to two minutes,
in other words, based the type of experience that YouTube, shorts,
TikTok and Instagram reels is optimized for. So that's what

(38:06):
I'm going to call short form. When I think long
form for now, think of twenty minute videos on YouTube
or longer. Okay, now, yes, I know there's a gap
between two to three minutes and twenty minutes. You have
ten minutes, but just and then live. Okay. So the
first thing you have to ask, the question is your

(38:27):
creative expression? What are you trying to create? What are
you trying to communicate? Okay? And that sometimes dictates the artifact. Okay.
Short form content is the best content for discovery. The
reason for that is someone can watch a lot and
it's very easy for something to go viral. Okay. So

(38:47):
to use a you know, comparison, someone on TikTok might
see two thousand creators in a week, okay with this star,
or three thousand or four thousand someone on twitch watch
five to ten. I believe someone on YouTube is probably
in the middle, three hundred or four hundred. Okay. I

(39:09):
think one thing, and especially later on we might start
talking about music. There's this thing about emotional attachment between
the creator, okay, and short form is a great way
to get discovered, but it isn't a great way to
form an emotional attachment between the artist, the creator and
the viewer because you're just one of two to three thousand. Okay.

(39:32):
If somebody stops creating content, on TikTok you don't even
know it right because your attachment is to the platform.
If someone stops streaming on Twitch, then I know it
within days that they're not streaming right now. That's because
I'm more emotionally attached. So the way I describe it
is personally, I think if you want to be discovered,

(39:53):
that's what you're trying to do. I think short form
content is the best channel for discovery. Okay, you want
to build deep connection with your audience, I think live
is the best way to do that, and it's also
the best way to turn affinity and affection into dollars directly,
where they're supporting you directly. Okay. Now, the one caveat

(40:14):
I will say is live isn't for everyone. Some people
aren't comfortable live. Some people aren't comfortable being exposed to,
you know, all the sundrys and everything that they you know,
might deal with. They're better And that's particularly true from
a musician's perspective the way I think of it. And

(40:36):
you know, some musicians finally craft their words and you
can see them on stage. There's sometimes a little uncomfortable
in stage because they have this artifact, which is the
song which is a finely crafted song and that's what
they're presenting, and they don't want to be answering questions
and improvising and doing all sorts of stuff. So for
some people, Live isn't the right thing for them. Okay,

(41:00):
to enjoy live is you're going to do it because
it's gonna take time. So the way I would say
it is everyone as they're thinking about discovery should be
thinking about using the short form content platforms if you're
looking for discovery, because it's just the best for discovery,
that's just the nature of it. Then as you think
about building a stronger connection, I think that's when you

(41:20):
want to think about longer form, and I think Live
is a great form of longer form. I also think
YouTube can be useful for longer form.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
What about nudity slash pornography?

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, so we don't allow nudity and pornographa on Twitch.
So that's pretty straightforward not on Twitch, So I won't
hypothesize if that's what your product is, which platforms to use.
So we don't allow nudity and pronoraphy itch, we decided
that's not appropriate for our platform.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
As a practical matter. How do you believe that.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Oh, it's fairly. We have policies, we have automated techniques
that detected, but then we also have user reporting in
case the automated techniques don't work. But in general the
automated techniques worked pretty well. But we also have a
fairly rapid where we have a bunch of operators, we
have useder reporting and within a matter of minutes, if
something is in violation of our community guidelines, then we're

(42:20):
able to act and take it down.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Okay, pulling the lens back in terms of number of
users in hours. Watch if we graph it, what's going
on with Twitch.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
Meaning over time? Yes, okay, over time. What you'll see
is there have been these certain exogatius events that drove
a lot of growth. Okay, so the first well, you
could go back and StarCraft was a big thing that
first drove Twitch. But then as you fast forward you

(42:56):
get to when Fortnite came out and Twitch had this
huge resear I'll growth during Fortnite praize. Okay. Part of
that is because a lot of the folks that were
creating Fortnite content started streaming, and so there was this
natural feedback cycle with Fortnite COVID caused another big bump
okay after COVID then, But like many platforms, because basically

(43:17):
there are a lot of people at home looking for community,
looking for connection in Twitch was a great platform and
also a lot of creators, a lot of musicians to
come up to me and say, wow, Twitch was a
lifesaver for me, Like I turned to Twitch because I
couldn't do shows. Okay. As COVID passed, there was a
softening of the market, which was this kind of like
many platforms, if you look over the last year or so, overall,

(43:42):
it's been you know what, I'll just call you know,
roughly flat. Okay. Now, I think what has been happening,
interestingly is Twitch streamers actually have been having a bigger
impact than ever in terms of their reach and their
impact on a society. What's happening is there's a more

(44:04):
seismic shift towards more short form content. Okay. And so
if I had a metric, which I don't have, by
the way of viewership of Twitch content on third party
social media platforms, I'm quite confident it's been up into
the right the last two years that the impact that
Twitch creators are having on culture is larger than ever. Okay.

(44:25):
The end result, by the way, this matters to our creators.
A big part that's important for Twitch as a business
is are we creating a platform where our creators can
sustain a living and you know, reach their audience. And
the answer is, our creators are bigger than ever in
terms of the audience they're we are reaching, and so

(44:46):
I feel very good about that aspect of it.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Okay, if we look at history, Second Life was going
to be the future that didn't happen. Snapjack came along.
Of course, it was initially disappearing videos. We all know
you can ca after those, et cetera. But it ended
up being a you've dominated service that did not grow. Okay, Instagram,

(45:12):
which was purchased by Facebook is generating a lot of
money as a result of ads, etc. Hey is Twitch
really the land of young people? Or are old people
watching Twitchell?

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Two old people are watching Twitch. Interestingly, Our largest demographic
now is twenty five to thirty four. Okay, and I
should have gotten I meant to check to see what
percentage or our viewership is fifty plus and I forgot
to do that. But it's surprising when I see what percentage.
I don't know if it's five to seven percent. In fact, actually,

(45:51):
while we're sitting here, maybe I'll ping someone on that.
So here's the way I would describe it. I don't
think there are a ton of old people linked to
twitch having never watched twitch. Okay, uh and now for
the first time they're watching Twitch at sixty and the
certainly that happens, but I wouldn't say that's the prime demographic.

(46:12):
What's happening is people are aging up. Okay, so you
know gaming has been around for a while now, so
and as people as opposed to aging out of Twitch,
you don't age out of Twitch. Is maybe the simplest
way to say it. Okay, it may be with snap
after you get to a certain age, you age out.
With Twitch, what we see is, you know, we get

(46:32):
a lot of usage from still people in their thirties
and upper thirties and now they may have been using
it for five or ten years.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Let's use someone you may be familiar with and you
can translate it to other people. But it's music. There's
this guy, Rick Biado. You know who that is.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
I know the name. Let me check, well, Rick.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Biato has a presence on you too.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
I recognize the face. Yeah, I know that, I know
Rick Beata.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Now it has It was first just him analyzing music
saying thing. Now it is interviews with more famous musicians
about their music how they're literally making.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
It yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
He is making multiple seven figures from YouTube and his
videos are not brief. Could he make as much money?
What would be the advantage of going to twitch for
someone like him?

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, here's the way. If I were talking to him,
I'd say, don't think of it it's either or okay,
think of it as d It's absolutely the case that
VOD allows you to reach a broader audience because when
you go live, not everybody can show up whenever you
are live, okay, And so you're just going to reach
more people when you create BOD content. The advantage of

(47:55):
doing it live is if you like the idea including
your audience and community while you're creating content. So I'll
use as an example what we are doing right now, Bob. Okay,
how would it be different if we were doing this live? Okay?
The way it'd be different and'd be doing it live

(48:15):
is chat would be going and you might be keeping
an eye on chat, right and then at some point
I will say something that you aren't an expert in.
So when I say something, you don't know about something,
and someone in chat would say something and you say, oh, Dan,
chat said what about so and so?

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Right?

Speaker 2 (48:33):
And then I'd say, oh, what about so and so right?
And so if you take someone like Rick, okay, if
there and by the way, again, live may not be
for everyone, but Rick is a perfect example. Okay. Lots
of his audience has lots of opinions okay about whatever artists,
and they have passionate about their artists, and they have
questions for the artists, and they have ideas okay, and

(48:56):
views on music that they want to feel part of it. Right.
If I were Rick, I would think about saying, Okay,
I'm going to do these these recordings. I'm going to
do them live. I'm gonna do you know how we
said you can do subscriber only chat. If I was Rick,
I'd probably do subscriber only chat because he's a bigger name,

(49:17):
a little more prominent. Okay, So then he's gonna say, oh,
you want to go ahead and chat during this, okay,
and ask me questions and have me Okay, here's how
you can do it, okay. There's also features where sometimes
people say, oh, I can only I can make it
so that anyone can chat, but I only look at
the subscriber's chat, if you will, so me as a creator,

(49:39):
so you can chat with each other, but I the creator,
only see the subscriber chat, so the subscribers know. And
then so in addition to the money he makes from YouTube, okay,
now he's also making money from Twitch, which is you know, additive.
And the biggest thing is he's getting a closer connection,

(50:00):
which is fan base that in fact, there's a little
more intimacy with those people that like him because they
feel a little more connected with them. And if I
were him, I would even say, okay, look and at
the end of the end of what I am doing
for the vod that I'm going to put out and
distribute to all these people, I'm going to send fifteen minutes.

(50:21):
Where so, for example, I recently started doing a podcast,
a live podcast where basically I do it on stream.
At the end of the podcast, I interview someone, then
I turn it off the podcast and now I just
talk with chat for a little while right about what
we talked about, any issues and these are this is
in a very off the cup fashion, Okay, and then

(50:43):
that creates this connection with your fan base, right, and
a lot of times it's a source of short form content.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Okay, there are people once they gather fans, they have
a fan base, they want to monetize that, live performances, etc.
Forgetting that, if you have someone who is making seven
figures from video only on YouTube, and I know we're
talking completely in the abstract, they might be building community

(51:11):
on Twitch, but can they make anywhere near that kind
of money?

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Well, first of all, let's since it's not substitutional as
opposed to saying can they make anywhere near that type?
First of all, the answer is yes, they can make
that near type of money. But the right the simple
answer is yes, sympatically yes, Okay, But the real question is,
let's assume they're making seven figures, can they make an
additional fifty from Twitch? Well, in additional, if you if

(51:41):
you got a fifty percent raise prop you're pretty excited.
If it's not half again as much work, okay, so
so absolutely. And then also the other factor is it
can create this loyalty in your fan base. I'm going
to make an analogy to music that I'd love to

(52:02):
go into it at some point with you. This this
emotional connection between a creator and an artist, and of
course a musician is a creator okay, and their audience Okay,
And how much in music now the connection is a
little more with the platform rather than the artist. And

(52:22):
in part the interesting analogy is I think music has
gone more towards short form content because the single on
Spotify is basically short form content. The album was long
form content. And I'm sure you love listening to albums,
and the more I listen or even if you again,
whether you listen to the physical album or the artifact,

(52:43):
when you listen to a piece of work from a
creator which is a long form content, you create a
stronger emotional bond with that creator. And that's a huge
part of music, and that's a huge part in the
creator ecosystem as well.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Okay, at this point in time, how many I'm gonna
have a dividing line and people get pissed off of this.
Their people who are cottage industry, Okay, they put songs
on Spotify, they do a few house concers, God bless them, okay.

(53:18):
And the other extreme, we have people who either have
a I'll give three criteria. They could have a major
labeled deal, they could be in the Spotify top fifty,
and they could sell five thousand tickets in most markets
forty markets. How many of those acts are on Twitch?

Speaker 2 (53:38):
This is i'd say, for those acts on Twitch, I
can't give you an exact number, but I wouldn't say gobs. Okay,
I wouldn't say gobs of those now in rap and
hip hop, it's probably larger than any other music venue
because in rap and hip hop, more and more folks
have been saying, oh, I need to be using Twitch, okay.

(53:59):
And so now streams all the time. Ti Dollar Sign
streams regularly like they'll stream thirty hours a week. Actually
Snoop Dogg streams regularly now too. But so in rap
and hip hop, it's becoming more commonplace. Outside and rap
and hip hop, I think most of them, I'd say,
don't use Twitch as a primary channel as a musician, Okay.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
In the music business, we see these amazing numbers historically
for concerts on Twitch.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Massive.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Tell us about that.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Yeah, So the way I describe that is you get
these massive numbers for concert. Amazon Music does a number,
Bad Bunny did a massive concert on Amazon Music. Okay,
and so that is absolutely a thing, right, big concert
on Twitch, And there are lots of folks that Again
Amazon Music is the most notable, but a lot of

(54:54):
you know, folks that are putting on concerts use Twitch
to reach a big audience. And of course that's something
I'm I love, I'm excited about. I like as I
talk to musicians as they think about what they're doing.
I think of the one of the things that is
evolving is just putting a concert on Twitch when you're live.

(55:17):
It is nice, but it's not so it's certainly not
as good as being at the physical event, and it's
not so much better than watching the same thing on
bod a day later on YouTube. Right, you have to
create this experience of why does it matter being live?
And it's not to criticize those things, okay, but I

(55:39):
don't think that is the way to think about live
if you're a musician, Okay, as the prime In fact,
that's what happened at during COVID. Of course you couldn't perform,
and so there's a lot I'm gonna go live, right,
And all it was doing was taking the same artifact
that you create in a live concert and bringing to Twitch. Okay.

(56:02):
And what is more interesting now is as you start
thinking of adapting what you're creating for the for the
live experience, and I think that is engaging with the
audience more as opposed to just putting a concert up
on Twitch.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Okay. Twitch made investments in music, trying to grow its
music footprint, and then is pulled back from that. Can
you tell us about that experience?

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Yeah? In fact, that's at the time what they did
was basically pay folks to often put their music on Twitch, right,
if you will. The thing that I'm saying what they
were doing was investing in that.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Well wait, wait, so we're basically saying they your predecessor,
not you. Who do you mean by they?

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Yeah? Yeah, they they We? I should say we, but
it was I was not in charge. I was not
the same at the time, but it's still we. I
was still here at the time, so I should say we.
That's fair. That was that was a mistake we and
what we learned was that was not Sometimes what we
were doing was saying, if you will, you have this
idea of a loss leader, pay for something where you

(57:10):
lose money. But that's okay. It's going to grow the service, okay,
So we would pay, but it didn't end up growing
the service because if you were coming just to watch
this concert, that didn't mean you'd come back the next
day for everything else, okay. And what we realized was
we needed more organic growth than music and this has

(57:33):
been this actually has been working. Again what I've been
saying recently, there was a Rolling Stones article saying, you know,
if you're looking to break into song and rap and
hip hop, you're thinking about how to use Twitch, Okay,
And that's because that's grown much more organically than us
just going and recruiting people.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
You're talking to me, But to what degree are you
or the company evangelizing amongst artists and record companies?

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Yeah, a big deal. So one reason I was excited
to come on is we started We've had deals with
all the major music labels now for a while and
also the indies, although it's over the last two years
year and a half that they've really been leaning in
because they are starting to see the potential of using
Twitch as part of what they were doing. And I

(58:26):
think the biggest thing that they and we needed to realize.
Initially they looked at Twitch because of course, the labels
are all looking for discovery, and they look for Twitch
for discovery. And the reality is short form is better
for discovery, okay. And what they've realized is really Twitch
is much better for maintaining your community and your audience

(58:49):
once you build it. So the comparison, I'll make the
old model used to be, write an album, record it,
release the album on tour, and then disappear for a
year and a half while you create your next album. Okay.
In today's world, you can't disappear for a year and
a half. Okay. You need to stay top of mind.

(59:11):
That's why many people now are just constantly releasing songs.
The album is an artifact, is dissipated because of the
nature of these streaming services. Okay, because you have to
stay top of mind. So how do you stay top
of mind? Well, one thing is everyone's telling you to
create short form content. If you're a musician, it's like,
oh god, I don't want to create short form content.
That's another thing I have to do. What I often

(59:31):
tell him is go ahead and stream. Do something you
enjoy doing. Kane Brown he gains when he streams because
he likes to gain that's what he does when he streams. Okay,
Bieber was streaming recently, spending a lot of time and
he was playing basketball and doing all sorts of things. Okay.
What I and as I said, a lot of musicians,

(59:52):
Tee Paint has been streaming since twenty sixteen and he'll
mix his next album on twitch. Okay. So what I
say is find something you like doing, okay, And this
is to engage your core audience. And if you're doing
something you enjoy doing that connects you with your community,
then from that you can create short form social media.
So it's not just about what you do on Twitch.

(01:00:14):
It's also about how whatever you do on Twitch can
become short forms so you maintain stop of mind and
you don't disappear for that year and a half, which
you just can't do anymore. And the labels realize that's
important for them for building an audience. So there's a
lot more interest to what degree are re evangelizing. I'd
say a fair amount. That's you know why I was

(01:00:34):
down in LA when we met each other, because I
was down talking to you know, labels and artists, and
you know, I'm going to Nashville and April I'm gonna
be talking to some folks and we others. We have
a team that's designed to bring people to onboard them.
So that way, if you are, if you are a influencer, creator,
musician that already has some type of a following, we

(01:00:57):
have a team that helps you get started on Twitch,
accelerates you to the rev share that we talked about earlier,
so that way you can get going, and then also
connects you with other creators so that way we can
help to encourage this usage.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Okay, Originally every act needed a website, Then they needed
to be on Wikipedia, then they needed to be on
Facebook than Twitter. Now, of course X and people talk
about TikTok. Why doesn't every musician have an account and

(01:01:39):
stream some at Twitch.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
I think it would be good for every musician to
do it. I will tell you the ones that are
more naturally doing it tends to be a little more
of the young ones because if you grew up in
a given model of the music scene. But let me
tell you why some shouldn't. First second, Okay, as opposed
to arguing that everyone should, let me tell you why
some shouldn't. For some artists, you create a mystique, you

(01:02:10):
create a character. So I'll pick one as an example,
Lady Gotgat, Right, Lady gog Got is this amazing character
right that she's created, And I don't know if it's
the right thing to lift the veil on that character.
Okay that sometimes that's actually a great thing. Okay, other

(01:02:31):
artists are not as such. Right. For example, it's absolutely
the case that rap and hip hop there's much more
of an intimacy and immediacy, but the same in country music,
the same in lots of music, where there's more of
this kind of authenticity, this connection all that. So I
don't think every artist wants to lower the veil and

(01:02:52):
like just kind of have the rawness that happens in line,
but I think for many artists. So one reason is
for some artists, if I say this to a label, like,
if you're an artist and you like them more as
you get to know them more, they're a great person
for twitch because their audience are going to like them
more as they get to know them more. Okay, because
you can't hide yourself when you're live, you can't you know,

(01:03:14):
create We all know that part of what happens is
we create these images that is not exactly who we are,
and you can't keep that up when you're when you're live.
So I think for those artists where they're kind of
authentic and intimacy and they want that authenticity with their
with their audience as long as they enjoy it, they
should absolutely be live stream.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Well, going back to your Lady Gaga example, mystery is
pretty much history in the music business because you can
find out anything about everybody, et cetera. There is hang
over in the music business. People don't like the remuneration
for recorded music has changed formula. People say, oh, in

(01:03:54):
physical product era, et cetera, we're not going back to that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Okay, doesn't matter what album Sturgel Simpson releases.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
The other thing is, especially today now more than ever,
the artists are very money focused and they want to
sell board tickets. Needless to say, someone like Kim Kardashian
is making more money than other than maybe Taylor Swift. Okay,
so I don't get the disc This is just my opinion.

(01:04:28):
Twitch still has a exoticism to it. It's still an
island offshore. When you know, you get a lot of musicians,
you know, they think they have to create something snappy
for short form video content, and then most of them,
which is just horrible. They let some team do it,

(01:04:50):
which is worthless, right, Okay, I just don't understand why
everybody isn't on Twitch. There's a communication.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Look, I don't disagree, I think Look, I completely agree.
I do think that with short form content, we've been
used to this radical change in the industry, right because
TikTok and just bam it explodes, right, Okay, I don't
think the world changes as quick when it comes to

(01:05:20):
longer form, more intimate connection, because it's not like just
show up and suddenly you get success. Okay, So I've
seen a massive I will use a comparison. Okay, if
I was at if I went to the different parties
the week before the Grammys, uh two years ago, and
I got introduced, I bet you if you and I

(01:05:42):
we you know David masseyas if two years ago we
were at the same event and David introduced me, you
wouldn't have been like, oh actually.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
I would have. But I understand the concept.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
May you may have you may have end Okay, But
and I will tell you the number of times that
I'm out there and someone here is I'm the CEO
of Twitch they're like, oh, I need to talk to
you now, okay, And that is markedly different than two
years ago or even one year ago. Literally almost I

(01:06:17):
would say, it's like eighty percent of the people that
someone introduced me to somebody, to an artist, to an agent,
to someone down there. And the same thing was true
when I was at the Super Bowl. Eighty percent of
the times I met someone would say oh, like they
would peer cup and says, oh, I need to talk
to you okay, because I need to understand. So this

(01:06:38):
is happening now. But the reality is it just takes time.
It just takes time. And every you know, every two months.
You know, this year at the grammyspread again in Septa
and blackwa Max were nominated for Grammy first song they
wrote on Twitch, Right, that creates more attention, more attension
builds more attention. But it just takes time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
Okay. The NBA was the first league to go to Twitter.
It lived on Twitter. And as you say, the lifestyle
and lives of hip hop artists, that is one of
the way you promote the so called air quote brand
other artists they're not used to this. Is it a

(01:07:19):
matter of getting Okay, Well, we talk about software. We
talk about, Oh, we're talking about killer rap for a platform.
Is it a matter of Twitch, of getting some specific
artist who is not in that vertical of hip hop
or pop to come have a presence on Twitch?

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Is that what's gonna take? I think what is what happens?
Is it sort of it sort of builds. But yes,
I think it is somebody starting to do it. I mean,
like Bieber did it, and now a lot of folks
because Bieber did a lot, more people like, oh maybe
I just should do that. Maybe and Bieber really, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop your second Okay. Unlike
when I was growning up, everything is niche. Even Taylor
Swift is niche. Bieber very big artist, but the vast
majority of the public could give a shit, Okay, So
therefore Jason is Bell, Chris Stapleton. Yeah, their fans tend

(01:08:18):
not to be Bieber fians. I'm not gonna go through
each one. I don't think Don Henley will do.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
It, but I agree, I agree. This is what i'd say.
And let's focus in the And I don't know about
your views on the Americana label, so I'll say the
Americana and country label. I don't know your views on
that right that label, which I'm sure they're strong. I
actually think that's In fact, it's one reason why I'm
going to Nashville and April. I think it's an extremely

(01:08:44):
well suited genre. Okay. I do think it's gonna need one, two, three,
four that start doing it to kind of show people
what what you do on there. Okay. And I don't
think in that genre it's quite, but it's gonna be.
You know, a few people start doing it and then
it's like, oh wow, this is great. Now, I will

(01:09:06):
say this in terms of who is the right person. Okay,
this is going to make my point that not everyone
is live the right format for them. I'll use an
example of someone that of probably my favorite group out
there is Turnpike Troubadors. Okay. Having met Evan Falker once,

(01:09:26):
I'm not sure he would enjoy going live. I think
it would be work for him. Okay. And so if
it's worked for you to be there in front of
the camera like off the cuff, then life may not
be this. So it's not universal.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
It's I understand your point, you know, I've come actually
coming more to your defense the music world has changed.
It's as simple as people. You know, people were songwriters.
If they had a song on an album, they made
as much money as they made on the hit other
than and for radio airplay, etc. Yes, people want to

(01:10:03):
go back to that era. It's never come exactly. Okay,
I don't agree more okay. So we have these artists
who say I am a songwriter a musician, only most
of them tend to be older or tend to be
in genres that don't generate.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Also, by the way, tend to be established, because you
can be that when you are established as a songwriter.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
You know, listen, I hear from these people all day long.
If you're selling out arenas, there's basically no issue. The
next step above that is stadiums. It's people who had
success in the old era.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Oh that's fair, or they and they're not anymore now.
They're maybe on an old tour like a right it
can start going tour.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
Their deals were keeping them alive even though the sales
were not as high or the airplay was not as high.
So I would pause it that what a musical artist
today is not what it was before. Your identity and
expressing yourself is part of the whole hate urbina using
a holistic view of who you are.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
I completely agree. I'll take somebody who's past the point
of doing it. But let's assume he were fifteen years
younger or something like that. Okay, someone like Neil Diamond.
To take someone you can imagine someone like him like
really building a big audience, and you know, again he's
the point now that he can't tour around. But I

(01:11:33):
actually completely agree with you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Well, you know there are some people, some byn like
Paul Anka who was on Yeah Bill Maher the other night.
He's got a lot of personality, et cetera, Garth Brooks,
As I say, is it a matter of getting with you?
Is a matter of getting one of those people on.
Let's just go sideways for a second. What I'm going
to start streaming, not literally, but I'm gonna start streaming

(01:11:55):
on twitch. What are the music rights issue? Can I
play any music I watch?

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
Let me go through. That's a great, that's great. So
with music rights, first of all, let's go to you
playing music, not recorded music. Okay. So we have the
publishing rights for live for the live performance of the music. Okay,
So when I stream, I do cover songs. We have

(01:12:21):
all those rights, no issue. Okay, if you're playing recorded music. Okay.
If you're playing recorded music, okay. So we have an
agreement with the labels that is opposed to having to
issue a DMCA. They notify us if somebody is playing
recorded music that they have a concern with, So that

(01:12:42):
way we can notify them and it doesn't have to
go through the DMCA. Okay. In general, right now, the
labels aren't so concerned. Now, let me go through a
category where we have do full rights for if you're
a DJ, or let's assume for a second somebody wanted
to do a radio show. Okay, we do have the
ability for you to get full rights for the catalog

(01:13:05):
to play them while you're streaming. Okay, it's under particular
deal that we have that the labels. Now, a portion
of your revenue get shared with the labels. Okay. So
if what you want to do is sit on and
play recorded music and that's what your creative expression is, okay,
you can do that. You just have to sign up.
It's a DJ deal. But you don't have to be
doing dance music for the DJ deal. Right If I

(01:13:27):
want to play all.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
So if I'm saying I was driving down the street
and I heard this amazing record I'm playing for you. Now,
there's not really a deal for that. The label could
come and say, hey, you know, can't do.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
That, right, but the labels as long as you're not
abusing and like you know and others trying.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
To wait, let's not talk reality because there are many
people see this promotional and then there are certain artists
who clamp down no matter.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Yeah, yeah, okay, we did not, but we we have.
We have an agreement where as opposed to need to
do DM. The labels can come and work with us.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
So why don't you have an overall agreement for the recordings.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
Let's talk about the primary way that people end up
with music on their stream. Okay, the primary mean isn't
is what you kind of said, where music is just
sort of in the background. They're gaming and there's some
music playing in the background. Okay, it is not a
significant portion of their creative expression, which is different from

(01:14:30):
actually a DJ. A DJ to music is a significant
portion of their creative expression. And so getting the right
deal where in terms of what the REV share split
would be when it's not a significant portion, it's just
complicated and hasn't been very simple because in general, the
labels are used to dealing where the music is a

(01:14:52):
significant portion of the creative expression, which is exactly why
we did the DJ deal. Okay, but if it's in
the background, that's we have an agreement that this is
an issue. They notify us and so we don't encourage it.
But it would be difficult to get the right revenue
share split for something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
Okay, how did you end up as the CEO of Twitch?

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
It's an interesting route. I will go back. Actually, when
I was in undergrad I was actually a computer science
and theater major.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
And so if we're going back to the beginning, where
did you grow up?

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
I grew up in New Orleans.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
And what did your parents do for a living?

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
My dad was sort of in consulting type of stuff.
He had been an engineer and then he did some consulting.
And my mom raised seven kids and also was heavily
involved in politics too.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Except where are you in the hierarchy?

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
I'm the well, I'm the second oldest, but my dad
died before I was born. Actually, my dad was flying
home to see my mom on Father's Day, and you know,
you plane that he was flying assessminent type thing, any crash.
And then my mom remarried and I have five younger
brothers and sisters, and so yeah, I'm one of the

(01:16:13):
older ones.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
Okay, you are as I say, I'm self editing, because
people have such reactions to these terms, like successful, you
are very successful. What happened to the other six?

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Ally? My brother, Well, that actually is one of the
stories I was gonna tell, because there's a whole different
world where I became a creative So my brother. I
have one brother who runs a theater in New York
called The Drilling Company, and he's been an actor and
you know, trying to make ends meet as an actor
his whole life. He's one year older than me. I
have a sister who still does a lot of acting

(01:16:48):
and performance. I have another brother different last name than me.
By the way, my younger siblings have different last names.
Who's the CEO of the Fred Rogers Company, which is
very much a you know, part of that creative bank, right,
so you know, in different things. And his sister lives
in North Carolina. Another sister who's a lawyer that lives

(01:17:10):
in Colorado, so sort of across the board mishmash your father.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
You literally not knowing your father to what degree? Is
there an emotional hangover there and you have to work
that through.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
Yeah. The interesting thing was since I grew up in
my mind having a father, right because when I went
my mom was remarried by the time I was two
and a half, right, Okay, So in my mind I
have had a father and he's been a wonderful father.
He's cared for me everything, So I don't have this
hangover from when I was young, if you will. The

(01:17:49):
interesting part is you I have had to find out
more about who I am because biologically I'm very different
than the father who raised me. Okay, my birth father,
he's Irish. He has a brother that lives in New
York who's a sculptor, who's the only member of his

(01:18:11):
family that I've had a connection to. There's a lot
of similarities from talking to my uncle about me and
my birth father. My mom actually didn't talk about my
birth father almost at all when I was growing up
because the emotional trauma of losing him when she had,
you know, one baby and another one on the way,
and she was only like a month pregnant with me

(01:18:33):
when he died, and so nobody knew that she was
pregnant when she got the news that he had passed away.
That so she just couldn't deal with it, so she
wouldn't talk about my dad at all. So it's only
as I've gotten older that I've gotten to know my
father by talking to my uncle, by doing all sorts
of things. So it's more and then I find out

(01:18:54):
things about myself that I realize, huh, that's probably that's
you know, that's part of my father that is still
in me somewhere. But it's not that I have like
any baggage from not having a father. It's more this
interesting exploration of finding out who this person was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
Do you go to public school or private school?

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
I went to public school until fifth grade, and then
I went to in New Orleans, most people go to
all boys or all female Catholic schools. So I went
to an all male Catholic school through fifth through eighth
grade and then in high school.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
To what degree? Did that indoctrination fuck you up?

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
So? New Orleans is like seventy percent Catholic, okay, And
you know, I'd like to think it didn't. I've been
able to handle it well I have a very healthy
attitude towards all that. It is funny, I've been thinking
about that lately. Where I am. I do not practice
catholow Simmary religion. And I always think, you know, if

(01:20:04):
somebody is sharing the words of Jesus Christ, there's a
lot to be learned there. Then there's a lot to
be shared there. If they're preaching the Old Testament, I
don't know, that's a different story. But so I have
a very healthy attitude. I kind of went through this
path or I have a very healthy attitude towards all
the good things, even though there are lots of challenges too.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
So were you the smartest kid in the class?

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
I did pretty well. But I will tell you one
of those stories I love to tell. Interestingly, this relates
to streaming. So one thing that I realized about a
year ago. And my kids always told me they all
identify as having ADHD. Okay, And they said, oh, Dad,
we think you have ADHDM. It's like, what do you mean,
I have a PhD in Ai. I went to Duke like,

(01:20:52):
I did really well, I don't have ADHD. Like, okay,
do you have ADHD? I said no, I don't. And
then I read more about Adhd and then I realized,
and I look back to my childhood and I realized,
I'm a poster child Adhd. Okay on the spectrum, and
in fact, this is one thing we can get back
to this. Most streamers you find are because they have
this superpower of their mind being able to process multiple

(01:21:14):
things at once. But I tell this story because in
fourth grade I was having trouble. I wasn't doing well
in school. And then I went to fifth grade at
this Christian Brothers all boys school and my parents had
to talk my way in because I wasn't doing very
well in fourth grade. My brother was already there and
they had to push me to get into what was

(01:21:35):
the better of the three classes with this guy, brother Gregory,
and this teacher. The way he taught was he had
something that he called good Marks where he gave out
what basically were credits okay, And at the end of
every week he had a Jeopardy game to learn the
stuff you were supposed to learn that week, and you
were quizzed on this stuff for that week, and if
you won Jeopardy, you got ice cream to play football.

(01:21:56):
Then you got good Marks, and at the end of
the semester, you could spend the good marks on this
this like, uh, everybody brought in their old toys and
they bought you know, an exchange. Anyway, he gained a
fied learning for me, and I went from being barely
in there to be one of the top two or
three kids in the class because he basically turned learning

(01:22:18):
into a game, which was like a poster child of
what you need to do for someone with ADHD. And
then once I had the confidence that I was smart,
because then I thought of myself as smart. So then
I kept performing. But I needed to think of myself
as smart. And the only way I thought of myself
as smart is because I just happened to have this

(01:22:41):
teacher at the perfect time that taught in a non
traditional way. So yes, I was one of the top
kids in the class, but it wasn't it was by
chance that everything worked out for me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
And where does the theater angle come from.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):
My brother was into theater. I got into theater. And
the only reason I mention it is because it's this
interesting twist with twitch because when you ask about how
did I get here, right, I've spent most of my career,
all of my career in the technical space. After a duke,
I worked in a technical capacity. Then I got a
PhD in AI. Then I worked at NASA leading their

(01:23:26):
autonomy and robotics group in AI. And then I was
at Google and YouTube, and I was at a startup
next door. So basically I've spent my whole life in
a technical product and engineering role. Okay, but am I root?
I'm really a creative and in a different world. If
I were coming out today as opposed to using my
mask skills, I could every much found myself being a creative.

(01:23:48):
And I've also always been a music fan. I had
a thousand albums. I taught myself to play the piano.
So there's a different life where I didn't go technical
and I did something in news are in creative expression.
And the thing I love about Twitch is it is
this perfect bringing together of these two sides of my
life that I did not I could not have predicted.

(01:24:10):
It brings together my sort of business product technical skills
with my creative uh you know, DNA. That has always
been a big part of who I am.

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
Okay, AI is the buzz term of today, isn't it.
What What was AI like when you were getting your degree?

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
So interesting. A lot of what has become the foundation
of AI was part of AI back then. Okay. The
interesting thing that there is this battle back then between
two approaches to AI. One was the symbolic AI that
tried to represent things in the way we think about
how we think, Okay, so they tried to explicitly represent

(01:24:52):
information and all that. And then the other was statistical AI,
where they just had all sorts of data and they
learned these complex models, which a neural net is the
foundation of. And back then there was this battle of
which type of AI would win. By the time I graduated,
it was clear who was going to win. Statistical AI
was going to win, okay, and statistical AI has been

(01:25:14):
the thing that has dominated Okay. But the interesting thing
is a lot of what people talked about then we
were talking about the world that now exists, but we
could never deliver on that, and only now because of
some algorithmic improvements, but also because of a massive amount
of data combined with computing. If another way to say this,

(01:25:38):
if the World Wide Web never occurred, we wouldn't be
where we're at with AI. One of the reasons we're
at with the AI is because this thing occurred, carled
the World Wide Web, which creative these massive data sets,
and these massive data sets then allowed the algorithms to
work in ways that previously they could.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
Okay, did you literally have a PhD? There certain experts
who say this is a dead end the way we're
doing it. If it's gonna start talking about thinking like
people were at least thirty years off, what's your take
on that?

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
So this, I mean, I'm gonna try to be shorten this.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:26:20):
We think that people think very logically and rationally. Okay,
but they don't. But they don't. I don't know. Have
you ever read about the system one brain and the
system to brain?

Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
Okay, So all the research are your system one brain
is your gut, your instincts, your intuition, all of that. Okay.
Your system to brain is your reasoning and logic. Okay.
All the evidence suggests that the primary usage of our
system to brain are reasoning and logic is to come
up with a plausible justification of the answer that pops

(01:26:53):
into our head with our system one brain. As soon
as you ask the question, okay, so what do you
think about Sturgil Simpson releasing just an album and not
an answer pops into your head. I think it's stupid.
I think it's a great idea. Okay, then your system
two brains explains that, and we think the reason we
believe this is for all these good reasons, it's bullshit

(01:27:15):
ninety five percent of the time. Which is one reason
why we have the divide in the country we have
is because you watch the same video to people's system,
one brain tells them two different things, and then they
try to justify. So the way humans think is through
all this compiled thing, and so interestingly, that is the
way AI is working now. So I actually think this

(01:27:38):
idea that AI doesn't work the way humans brains thinks.
I think it does work the way human brains thinks. Okay,
I still think we are a long way. I think
there is a vast misunderstanding of the complexity of human intelligence.
I think that we think of the primary form of
human intelligence as doing really hard math problems. Okay, But

(01:28:01):
the really unique part about human intelligence is our ability
to coordinate, cooperate, think about each other, you know, interact
with each other. Okay, And that allows us to function
as a unit. And I don't think AI has any
data on that. So I believe that we keep projecting
the advances in AI to continue like this, it's gonna

(01:28:23):
asymptote okay. And I think this idea that AI will
replace human beings, I think we still have a long
way to go. And the people that like to tell
you that are the ones that are trying to get
lots of funding in AI. And also usually they're the
math folks that tend to think the pinnacle of intelligence
is doing hard maath, which I don't think the pinnacle

(01:28:44):
of human intelligence is doing hard math. I think the
pinnacle of human intelligence is all the complex interactions of
humans doing all sorts of stuff with other humans.

Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
This is a really subsidiary point to your excellent delineation
of the landscape. But math is one thing the present
models hallucinate such that you know, I find mistakes all
the time. Is that something that you feel can be

(01:29:15):
conquered in the short.

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
Term, the degree that it happens will be improved, Okay,
But the short answer is so the egregious examples, yes,
the non egregious examples are non And the problem comes

(01:29:40):
in is AI is like that trend of yours who
thinks they're an expert in everything okay, and they speak
with such great authority that you actually think they are right.
Oh yay, because they speak with such great authority that
you think they know everything, and the reality is they're

(01:30:01):
bullshitting you and they don't, and really you're being wrong.
So like, I'm trying to fix this Watt bike I
have that's like this exercise bike and it's not working.
And I use AI and it talks with so much
authority that I think that it knows exactly the problem,
and actually it's taking me down dead end trail.

Speaker 3 (01:30:22):
Okay, but it is so confident, and I know that
sometimes because I'll ask questions and then like sometimes I
use ai'd ask questions about twitch stuff and they'll tell
me an answer with absolute confidence.

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
I'm like, they completely got this wrong, okay, but they
misunderstood it. So I guess that it's the ones that
are great fodder to put on a headline. I think
we can solve that. The ones that we won't solve
are these ones that you only know if you know
something about the area and you know that it is

(01:30:55):
bullshitting you.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
Okay. Even in the Washington Post today, certain financial people
believe that the market is up. There's investment in AI companies,
but in realay productivity has not increased whatsoever. Okay. In addition,
having lived for a while, it's been constant reports to

(01:31:19):
the paper, maybe the market's going to crash. Is this
a winner take all business? There's so much investment in
open AI that they could never make their money back.
What's your take here?

Speaker 2 (01:31:33):
So two things can be true at once. AI can
have a massive impact on the world we live in
in the future, and it can be overhyped. Right now,
I'd say both are almost certainly true. And in fact,
anything that is going to have a massive impact on

(01:31:55):
the world will almost certainly be overhyped because that is
the very nature of the world we live in. Okay.
So I guess this is what I'll say about this
question of crash and all that. Right, If if what
you're selling is a bill of goods where there's no
there there, then you have to worry about a crash

(01:32:18):
because you have a crash and now it's all vapor
where it's gone, okay, as opposed to thinking of a crash.
Our market always has corrections, that's the nature of the markets.
So will there be corrections, Well, almost certainly, because people
are making a lot of bets on a lot of things,

(01:32:40):
and some of those bets, if some of those bets
didn't work out, then people are being stupid in their
investment because you're not going to be able to get
all your bets right right, So there are gonna be
some bets that don't work out where it's overhyped, and
then there're gonna be some bets that actually end up,
you know, being you know, hugely consequential. And I always say,

(01:33:01):
anyone that tells you that they know which bets are
going to pay out and which ones aren't, Okay, if
they are so good, then they should stop what they're
doing and just invest in the market and they'll be
a gazillionaire because I'm sorry, nobody knows exactly which ones
are going to work and which ones aren't. It just
everyone likes to talk.

Speaker 1 (01:33:18):
And what about the issue of regulation and fear with AI?
What's your take on that?

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
So let me take one part of the fear off
the table. There are those people worried about the AI
taking over. Okay, I don't think you have to worry
about the AI. You have to worry about the people
controlling the AI. That's a universal truth about new technology

(01:33:46):
that any new technology that is powerful in what it
can do in a positive fashion is powerful, and what
it can do in a negative fashion. All you have
to do is go back to gunpowder and all that.
Lots of positive things it can do, and lots of
negative things can do. And what you have to worry
about as who's holding the gun right And that's a
you know, a part of your concern or whatever the
weapon is that that came out of that. But a

(01:34:07):
lot of that allowed us to do all sorts of
things as well. Okay, so I don't believe this idea
of AI taking over the world. I think that's just
science fiction. Will negative things happen from AI? Almost certainly.
That's the very nature of tech innovation. And in every

(01:34:29):
tech innovation, you know, there have been bad things that
have come from it. I do think you need to
think about what some of those things are. My apprehension
is figuring out an intervention that can fix a hypothetical threat.

(01:34:52):
I will use a couple examples. Suppose back in the
nineteen twenties someone explained to you global warming and what
we're going to happen, and from the industrialization of the globe,
what policies should they have put in place in the
nineteen twenties to avoid global warming? Well, we can't even
agree on a policy to deal with global warming today
and we have all the science explaining it. So this

(01:35:14):
idea in the twenties they could have figured out the
policies to put in place to prevent global warming. Let's
talk about social networking. Lots of great things with social networking.
A lot of people have concerns about different things in
terms of the division and all that. In two thousand
and eight, could anyone have figured out interventions to prevent
whatever you think are the negative impacts of social network
The answer is no, nobody could have figured it out

(01:35:36):
in two thousand and eight. And so the problem is
the answer is and if you overconstrain it, all you're
going to do is ensure that some other country wins
because you can constrain it here, But that doesn't stop
what's happening in that country or that country or that country.
So I'm for me. I do think there needs to
be awareness and regulation and consciousness. I think you have

(01:35:58):
to be very careful of forecasting too far in the future. Instead,
you have to be identifying where the issues are and
being responsible.

Speaker 1 (01:36:06):
Okay, drilling down on something you just said. You essentially
control a social network that is a virtual world. The
internet is the best thing that ever happened to me.
If you read the New York Times, which is the
best we've got. They have reporters everywhere, but imperfect. You

(01:36:27):
get a lot of self satisfied baby boomers. Put the
phone down. I'm getting a flip phone. We have the
Australia with the regulation where a certain age cannot be
on the Internet now, not beyond social networks. There's been
no study that's proven a deleterious effect. But this is

(01:36:48):
literally your business. So what's your take?

Speaker 2 (01:36:53):
So lots of thoughts here. Let me talk about my
personal belief. Okay, my personal belief. As you're growing up,
the phone can be a challenging object when you're eleven, twelve,
and thirteen. I avoided my kids having phones at that age. Okay,

(01:37:16):
I picked my phone up more than I'd like. Okay,
I'm an adult. I know that I do think there
are a lot of challenges in high school and all that,
and so with my kids, I wanted them to be
doing more interacting. So like my daughter's first phone, was
a flip phone because I felt like that was the

(01:37:37):
right thing. And I still feel like that is the
right thing, because I do believe a lot's happening when
you're thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen just going to school in
a thousand person setting. That's not the way we evolved.
When you think of our evolution biologically, were the same
as the people ten thousand years ago, right, In terms
of our genetics, we're not that different. Nobody grew up
with one thousand classmates ten thousand years ago, right. They

(01:38:01):
use mixed age, they were right, because it's in some
type of tribe or clothes or whatever, and you're exposed
to all sorts of things. So I think we already
have this artificial environment where you pack all these kids
of the same age together because it's efficient to teach,
and then you throw in a phone. So now there's
this kind of thing that you're always turning to and

(01:38:22):
always putting in your hand, and that there's all sorts
of stuff. So this isn't just about the phone, this
is about other things. In terms of that, I think
it's not optimal. So personally, I am a supporter of
having control, but I also am a big believer in
parents having choice. You know, I'm telling you my own
personal my own personal choice as a parent. Okay, So

(01:38:43):
I think there are some truths in the concerns that
people are voicing there, But as you said, I can't
tell you emphatically. I know that for sure it's a
difficult question, but I make that personal choice. I do
think that sometimes part of what's happening is there is

(01:39:04):
there is this I will call demonization of different businesses.
Big tech is doing this, Big tech is doing this,
and really it's a vacuum where unfortunately we haven't created
regulations and guidelines that we think are appropriate to in

(01:39:24):
the world that we live in. Because in general, the
very nature of capitalism is if this party doesn't do it,
then this party will do it, right, That is the nature.
So suppose, you know, Facebook decided Instagram wasn't a good
thing for the world for whatever reason, Well, then someone
would have invented TikTok even sooner.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
And then suppose TikTok decided it was, well, someone else
would invent something right that would take its place. Okay,
So whatever the challenges are, of which I think there
are challenges, I think there's lots of challenges in how
social media. You know, how we talked about the system
one and system two brain. Okay, I think there are
lots of challenges where it creates these micro thought groups

(01:40:04):
where in general this one part I didn't say one
with the system one is system to brain. How does
your system one brain come up with the answer it
gives you. Usually it's what other people they know and
trust believe. That's how the system one brain comes up
with the answer. So if you go back in time,

(01:40:27):
if you hear a rustling in the in the in
the in the bushes, and your brain says, you know, run,
that could be a tiger. Okay, it's a it's a reaction, right,
And why do you believe that? That's because the people
that you live with says, oh, there's a rustling, move
there's a tiger. You believe it because the people you
spend time with believe it. And that's how we're evolved

(01:40:49):
as social animals is we believe things because the people
we spend time believe things, and that's how we program
our system one brain. Well, of course, if all you're
talking to are people with the same views, then it
programs are system one to think homogeneously about it. Okay,
So I think there are all these challenges that we have,
but that doesn't mean the tech companies are to blame

(01:41:10):
for it, algorithms to blame for it. All. An algorithm
is trying to find you something that doesn't bore you
to They send we have problems. We have to deal
with those problems and figure out how to handle those problems,
not blame it on the tech companies.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
Just because you went there twice. Now we live in
a divided country. Everyone gets news from their own source.
Is there any hope? And the hope would come in
a number of levels that we could agree on certain
facts that we can move forward or is it just
going to become a tower of Babel society.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
I can't tell you what the answer is, but I'm
actually a deep believer in the unending path towards greater
compassion and you know, awareness and enlightenment, and so do
I have hope. There's a great song. Don't are you

(01:42:08):
familiar with Emily Scott Robinson? Okay, you she check her out.
She's on Oh Boy Records. But but she has a song,
a Time of Flowers, and she just came out of
a new album that she just recorded, and she actually
wrote it during COVID, But it's particularly appropriate now because

(01:42:31):
it talks about, you know, even in hard times, there
comes a time for flowers, okay, and that the flowers
will bloom. And so I guess I am at my
very base even as people always like to disparage about
where the world is and say it's hopeless, And as
you go back in time, I'm sure people were disparaged

(01:42:52):
about the world and the way it was during World
War Two and during all sorts of during the Great Depression,
during all sorts of things, right, And so I'm a
big believer that, yeah, we'll work through it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
What did we do? Politics have a presence on Twitch.

Speaker 2 (01:43:20):
Uh, So it is. It is part of Twitch, Okay,
I wouldn't say it is. And there are a number
of creators that are you know, noteworthy in terms of
politics and talking about it. It's not you know, a
huge percentage of Twitch. I do think it'll be interesting
as the elections come up about when more politicians are

(01:43:44):
gonna be leaning into using Twitch to sort of get
their message out and engage. So it's a part, but
I wouldn't say it's you know, a dominant portion of twitch.

Speaker 1 (01:43:55):
Okay, let's talk about this career. You went to work
for NASA. Why nasaid? How was that experience?

Speaker 2 (01:44:04):
The way I describe it is, I've been one of
the I'm a big believer that so many people and
I'm one of them they just we stare at our
feet and take two steps forward with no idea where
we're going. Okay, And I very much have lived my
life making choices about things I want to do. So
I got out of getting my PhD. And when I
was getting my PhD, everyone told me, oh, you should

(01:44:27):
be a researcher, because of course all my professors were researchers.
And I knew I didn't want to go to academia.
So I said, oh, but I want to be a researcher.
So I looked at going to Microsoft, NASA, ISI, SRI
Bell Labs. Those were the you know, research things at
that time. I ended up choosing NASA. At the time,
it was one of the better places to go for AI.

(01:44:48):
When I got there and I was thinking, oh, I
want to be a researcher. Within about four months I
realized a big part of being a researcher is publishing
papers and I realized I don't care about publishing papers.
I liked SA problems. So I had to unlearn all
this stuff that I learned in school and realized, no,
I'm really a problem solved. And then I started managing.
Within literally six months of getting to NASA. I went

(01:45:10):
from kind of being an IC and I was leading
a group of like two hundred and seventy people within
three years of having shown up at the door at
NASA after my PhD. And so it's a great time
for me. I loved working at NASA. Really, what it
was is I found out more about who I was
and how much I liked to solve problems, more so

(01:45:30):
than just getting rooted in the technology.

Speaker 1 (01:45:33):
So how get up switching to Google?

Speaker 2 (01:45:36):
So NASA AMES is in a Silicon valley. It's actually
just across a canal from Google, and it was at
a time when Google was growing. The guy who's one
of the positions I took two ago, I got that
one position, I went up another level. He had gone
over to Google. And so like three years before I left,
I thought about going to Google, and I knew I

(01:45:59):
wanted to move on from now. I loved NASA, but
I didn't grow up a space, you know, like a
guy dream about space. As a computer science I was
in Silicon Valley, so I was like, Okay, I've done
a lot at NASA. I want to go into Silicon Valley.
And Google was sort of a very natural choice. It
took a while to make sure I got the position

(01:46:19):
and all that, but then it was great going over
to Google.

Speaker 1 (01:46:24):
And so why'd you leave Google?

Speaker 2 (01:46:27):
After I've been there about nine years? A lot of
people stay at Google and they just stay there forever.
And Google's very generous and how they compensate you and
all that, and I reflected, and part of it is
the way I've described it was, I have I've got
to live in Rome during the Renaissance when you think
of Silicon Valley in this time period. But there was

(01:46:49):
a lot besides the Sistine Chapel during the Renaissance, and
I see all this going on, and I felt like,
if I ended my career having spent my whole career
at Google, how would I feel about it? And I
do think a lot of people get comfortable at Google.
And I felt like and I was compensated well, and
I felt like, no, but I can do other things.

(01:47:11):
I don't need to stay at Google, and so I
just felt that, but a lot of people don't make
that choice, and I was like, I just don't want
to spend my whole career at Google. So I went
to a startup. The startup, next Door, ended up doing okay,
but not like great. A lot of some people know it,
and then I'll jump Interestingly, when I came to Twitch,
I had left next Doors taking some time off. They

(01:47:33):
interviewed me and they offered me the job, and I
turned it down because I said, oh Twitch. I hadn't
used Twitch a lot. I said, oh, Twitch is a
gaming platform. I'm not a gamer. I don't think that's
right for me. And then they came back four months
later and said, no, Dan, we really think you're the
right person for the job. And so I thought about

(01:47:53):
it and I realized where I've been happiest in life
is when I work with people I like, and I
liked the people I was going to work with, so
I said yes. And then it's only afterwards that I
really realized that Twitch was a perfect fit. It was
just happenstance that even though I wasn't a gamer, I
only after being there realized, oh, Twitch is really about

(01:48:14):
community and about creatives, and I was a creative and
I'd done a lot in community, so it ended up
being this sort of match made in heaven.

Speaker 1 (01:48:22):
Okay. Silicon Valley is the story of founders. There were
you know, dropouts like Bill Gates. There are people completely uneducated,
really liked Steve jobs. But they're all these and then
you have the Google twins at Stanford, you were working

(01:48:43):
for people. Did you ever say, wait a second, all
these other people starting companies, I want to start a
company too.

Speaker 2 (01:48:52):
Yeah, at times I'd have that thought, right, And then
what I realized is so some of those people have
demonstrated an ability to do it multiple times. Not many,
not many, even the good ones. A huge part is
being in the right place at the right time. Okay,

(01:49:15):
And I think I realized, well, I love the idea
of starting something, and maybe I will be in the
right place at the right time. I also was really good.
It's taking something that already had some scale and coming
in and approaching it with the same zeal and passion
that a founder has. And to be honest, some of
those people I don't think would have been good at it.

(01:49:37):
In other words, they many of the people you talked
about you couldn't have brought into Twitch when I was
brought into Twitch, where they could have had the impact
that I had at that point of Twitch, like either
they had to found something or they weren't going to
be able to do it. I realized that, Look, no,
I was really good at kind of taking something that
already had some traction and working to scale it and

(01:49:59):
make it better. So I certainly reflected on it. But
whenever I was faced with that decision, I always kind
of said, where can I have the biggest impact That
I often went to something that already had some traction.

Speaker 1 (01:50:09):
Okay, you're working for NASA, you're working for the Space program.
You can only make so much money. The people at Google,
depending on when they got in, whether that job they
made a shit ton of money. Whatever's going on at Twitch.
It's owned by Amazon, the upside is only so high.
How have you done financially over your career?

Speaker 2 (01:50:30):
Yeah? The way it's funny, a lot of people they say, oh,
he's the owner of Twitch. Like I go around and
people recognize me and they're oh, he's the owner of Twitch,
and so they think I'm a gazillionaire now I'm doing fine.
I'm quite comfortable, Okay, But I'm not the owner of Twitch.
I didn't found Twitch. I wasn't at Google, you know,
pre IPI. Okay. But the way I describe it is,

(01:50:52):
I think the tech industry people, we all, well all
of us in the tech industry, get paid more than
we deserve. We think we deserve so much more because
we see somebody who is in the right place at
the right time. And what I often say is this
is a challenge. When you live in the area like
the Bay Area, you think of your intellect and ability,

(01:51:13):
and then you see other people there and you see
ones that you look at and you say, well, wait,
I'm better than them, and they happen to be somewhere,
and so they're a gazillionaire, right, and so you feel
like I deserve more. And so for the way I
say it is for everyone that you see above you
in terms of how much they've benefited, that you think
you're just as good as there are probably ten people

(01:51:34):
below you that are every bit as good as you,
that did not benefit as much as you did. You
just don't see those ten people and how good they are. Okay,
So I've been incredibly blessed, right, And I am you know,
I'm comfortable, my kids, you know, benefited, you know in
terms of college and all that. I'm not a gazillionaire,

(01:51:55):
but I don't care about being a gazillionaire. I'm still
doing quite well and I have more than what I
deserve in this world, as I think most folks that
have realized some success in the tech industry end up having.

Speaker 1 (01:52:07):
Okay, Twitch is owned by Amazon. Amazon's culture historically is
very lean financially. The layoffs you had to lay off
some people. That does happen at big corporations. What are
the advantages and disadvantages being owned by Amazon?

Speaker 2 (01:52:30):
So I think Amazon has been great for ensuring Twitch
got to where we are. It took a fair amount
of investment, not just from once they bought us, but
to help Twitch grow Okay, and Amazon has been an
extremely patient and supportive owner that allowed us to continue

(01:52:52):
to invest and keep growing. Okay. So I don't know
if Twitch could have gotten to where we are without
someone like Amazon having been there. Okay. It is the fact.
My view is so far in terms of Amazon pushing

(01:53:15):
us in terms of how we run the business. I'm
supportive of it because the way I describe it is
I have a responsibility to make sure Twitch is here
twenty years from now, thirty years from now, forty years
from now, when somebody makes streaming their life. Twitch is
different than all the other platforms. If we went away,
these folks wouldn't necessarily just go to the other platforms
and have the same life they lived lead today. It's

(01:53:36):
very unique. And you know, they've been streaming now for
five ten years, they have two kids. If they had
to go get another job, the resume is like, what
do you mean you've been streaming for seven years? Why
would I hire you? Okay, So I have an obligation
to make sure they like we're still here twenty thirty,
forty years from now, which means I need to run
this business so that it's sustainable. And Amazon's been very supportive,

(01:54:01):
and so sometimes you have to make tough decisions. You know,
when we had to make layoffs, we'd gotten bigger than
we needed to be, And I do think that's happened
in a lot of tech industry where people just think,
you know, get bigger, get bigger, get bigger, and you
don't need to be bigger. So I feel really good
about where we are today. I feel we've shown that
it's a sustainable business if you will, that our business works,

(01:54:24):
and so I feel very good about, you know, the
support we've had from Amazon, and I don't think there
are a lot of you know, these downsides that we've had.

Speaker 1 (01:54:34):
Are you still married to the mother of your children?

Speaker 2 (01:54:37):
I am. I am still with her and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:54:40):
This is a business that usually requires very long hours.
How do you sustain a marriage.

Speaker 2 (01:54:46):
Well, Luckily, I'm someone who aside from my and it's
not just the marriage kids. So I have a kid
who's twenty seven and one who's twenty four. My twenty
seven year old has a has a daughter. So I'm
a grandm father. I just spent the weekend. I took
care of my grand daughter from ten to five on Saturday,
and then from you know, nine to twelve. So I'm

(01:55:09):
someone who spent a lot of time with my kids.
They both live near me now, and so I'd say
the biggest thing is I don't push to create all
this time that's just for me. I don't have like
boys weekends. I don't go off golfing all day Saturday
and Sunday or something like that. You know when in

(01:55:30):
terms of I work hard, I exercise, and I spend
time with my family. Those are basically the three things
that I do, and there's enough time in the day
for all three. There's probably enough, not enough time in
the day if I wanted to do all these other things,
you know, just for myself.

Speaker 1 (01:55:45):
Okay, when you're in the tech bubble and you're talking
about things, people will be able to understand what you say, cogitate,
agree or disagree. But if you're at a pt A
meeting or something, do you feel you're obviously intelligent, educated

(01:56:07):
and aware of what's going on? I mean, do you
find that it's hard to have satisfying conversations?

Speaker 2 (01:56:15):
Not at all, like literally not at all interesting. I
think it comes to this issue of empathy. I was
actually at a dinner last night with the friend of
my daughters who had a reveal. And I live in

(01:56:36):
White Salmon, Washington, which is a small town. It's an
hour east of Portland. You know, the way I describe
White Salmon as both talking about the population. It's a
no safe way, no Starbucks, no McDonald's town. Okay, but
one grocery store town in you know, seven restaurants Okay.
So like when I describe it that way, you get

(01:56:58):
a sense of or across the river from Hoodry, which
is a to McDonald's town and a one Safeway town.
And I use that because I think when now and
one Walmart town, where I describe it like that, you
kind of get a sense for the size of the town.
And so these are folks doing all sorts of things
in this region, right, and I like great conversations. Some
of them are musicians. Interestingly, a number of one of

(01:57:18):
them is someone who tried to be a musician for
a while still writes music and records. My daughter's a
singer songwriter. And so I just think that the reason
people get stuck in that is because they're not very
empathetic of different ways of living their life, and they
think everything is living in this tech bubble, which is

(01:57:40):
not what life's about.

Speaker 1 (01:57:42):
You mentioned Hood River. Are you a windsurfer?

Speaker 2 (01:57:45):
I'm a kayaker, Okay, So for those for your listeners
that don't know, the beauty of this area is Hood
River and the Columbia River which is between Hood River
and White Salmon. In the nineties, all the windsurfers and
kite borders came in the two thousand, all the kayakers
came Okay, and I came here because I enjoyed whitewater kayaking.
My son's are really good white water kayaking. And I

(01:58:09):
love the area because it has both, like the all
these kind of athletic folks came through, but it also
there's a town close to Trout Lake where the hippies
came in the sixties, and then you have the logging,
and so it's really this blend. It's reasonably progressive, but
not overly progressive. So I kind of like the blend.

Speaker 1 (01:58:30):
And why do you live there? And how long have
you lived there?

Speaker 2 (01:58:35):
I lived there about three years. And the story is
raised the kids in the Bay Area lived in Los Altos.
That's where I was, That's where I first started working.
When COVID hit. I realized the kids were never going
to move back to the Bay Area because they're not
into tech. They're both very much into outdoors and that
sort of thing, and so I had this idea of

(01:58:55):
buying land with enough property, with enough land that maybe
one day they could build the are hopefully encouraged they
would both have a son and daughter. I wanted them
both to live in the same area. So that way
their kids would be friends. Very first place we were
looking at we were up here kayaking. We went to
look at a place I thought it would take me
two years to find something that. It was a great house.

(01:59:16):
It was perfect. It was right on this river, the
White Salmon River, twelve acres. So I decided to move
up here. Both the kids live up here now, so
if you will, it worked. They both moved the area.
It's an hour from the Portland airport, so I could
basically get most anywhere without having to I was an

(01:59:36):
hour from the airport in the Bay Area, so I
travel Fairmount for work. I'm down in LA. I'm down
in the Bay Area about you know, two weeks of
the year, I'm somewhere traveling. And I like a lot
of outdoor stuff in terms of hiking and all that stuff,
biking and running, and so it's ended up being you know,
it's end up being perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:59:54):
Okay, Dan, I think we've come to the end of
the feeling we've known. I want to thank you for
making all this time with my audience. You've been a
great guest, fascinating and hopefully people will listen to this
and be hip to twitch.

Speaker 2 (02:00:07):
All right, well, I appreciate you taking time, Bob, and
it was lots of fun and for I guess for
those people that are listening. If there are any musicians
that are listening right, feel free to reach out to
me on social media or something like that. If you're
a musician and you want to get we have a
team to help you and you can find me on
various different social media. I shall say it's DJ Clancy's

(02:00:31):
very confusing, but reach out to me and I'll try
to connect you with the right people on our.

Speaker 1 (02:00:38):
Well that's quite an offer, so thanks Dan. Till next time.
This is bob Lefs