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Twitch, the popular site where people go to watch other people play video games, has lost at least six top employees since the beginning of the year, including the chief operating officer, chief content officer and head of creator development. The exodus began last year, when more than 300 employees left, and so far 60-plus people have walked out the door in 2022, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
The departures will probably continue, if not accelerate, according to seven current and former employees, because they say Twitch is losing touch with its north star: a community of about 8.5 million streamers whose gaming exploits attract an average of 140 million people to the platform each month. Long a haven for game streamers to make a living doing what they love, Twitch in recent years has focused on expanding and finding new ways of making money from its streamers, rather than listening to and understanding them, these people say. That strategy, they say, has alienated some hard-core users and the employees who serve them—the very people whose ingenuity and enthusiasm that made Twitch a success.
Marcus "DJ Wheat" Graham, the head of creator development who departed in late January, faults Twitch's approach to becoming a mainstream service, which he says included hiring outsiders uninterested in the business or culture. "We went down the Silicon Valley route—hiring from Facebook, from Twitter," he says, adding that many recruits had little understanding of gaming or livestreaming and were "unwilling to learn what this community was, why it was special." Another former employee says, "The customer was the content creator. If you're not passionate about the product, you're not really looking at it from the customer's lens. And so you don't have the same level of empathy."
Still, the departures of Graham, COO Sara Clemens and chief content officer Michael Aragon have left a potentially damaging gap in Twitch's leadership, according to former and current employees. Their exits have solidified the reign of Chief Executive Officer Emmett Shear, whose engineering-first focus has led the company to misread what the streaming community wants, these people say. "It's really hard to help Emmett understand anything qualitative," one former employee says. "It has to be quantitative."
Of particular concern, two former employees say, is a failure to heed warnings that efforts to monetize streamers' work would fall flat. One product invited viewers to buy extra exposure—1,000 recommendations for 99 cents, say—for their favorite streamers. The initiative generated a backlash from creators who felt it would advantage streamers with bigger channels. Another feature, released in late February, offered users who stream at least 40 hours a month financial incentives to run ads on their channels. Employees say they told their bosses that clunking up the experience with these ads would annoy viewers but say their input was ignored. "Twitch's leadership is uncomfortable with mid-level and lower level employees pushing for change," says a former employee who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions from their employer.
In an-emailed statement, a company spokesperson said that streamers' input guides every aspect of decision-making. "The common thread for all employees is a drive to serve our community—from staff members who started as streamers themselves, to those who integrate themselves into Twitch culture when they start at Twitch," she said. "Serving a community as dynamic as Twitch's means there isn't always one clear solution or answer, and as a result we have always believed in being experimental and innovative—even when that means launching a bold product or experiment that might have short-term risks, but will ultimately help us build the best possible solution." She also touted efforts to hire people with different backgrounds and skillsets, whose "diversity of thought" help Twitch innovate and improve.
Veteran employees chafed against the notion that newcomers could directly apply marketing or business expertise gleaned at one tech company to Twitch. "I'd stand in meetings and say, 'I really want you to try to forget everything that you know about, like Twitter," Graham says. "Twitch is not Twitter, Facebook, or Pandora. Twitch is its own thing and it's incredibly magical." Jason Maestas, who worked at Twitch between 2012 and 2019 and ran influencer marketing, says many new recruits "wanted to come into Twitch and quote-unquote make it better, make it a household name. They were part of other industries and wanted to lend their amorphous experience to this gaming cultural mainstay." Before long, tensions arose between the vets and newbies. "Nobody trusted each other or believed their colleagues were capable," a former employee says.
Brandon Ewing, a former content marketing manager, says shipping new products has become more important than fealty to the Twitch community. "You had people who didn't really use the platform designing products for users they didn't care about in order to get promoted," he says. "The understanding was that, if you were on the product side, you had to ship something to get promoted." Brandon cites a 2017 product called Pulse, which he describes as "a Facebook newsfeed you could have under your stream." He says Twitch employees who used the platform argued it was more work for creators, who already felt overworked.
But the prevailing view among employees interviewed by Bloomberg is that Twitch is losing key executives just as competition heats up in the gaming industry. Twitch is determined to expand beyond its initial audience without alienating them. But managing that transition is always tricky, and internal critics say Twitch hasn't come up with a compelling way to pull that off. "There's a lack of intention," says a current employee. "There's a lack of strategy. There's an overall lack of leadership."
Paywalled by Bloomberg. Thanks to a particular forum for quoting the full article.
The departures will probably continue, if not accelerate, according to seven current and former employees, because they say Twitch is losing touch with its north star: a community of about 8.5 million streamers whose gaming exploits attract an average of 140 million people to the platform each month. Long a haven for game streamers to make a living doing what they love, Twitch in recent years has focused on expanding and finding new ways of making money from its streamers, rather than listening to and understanding them, these people say. That strategy, they say, has alienated some hard-core users and the employees who serve them—the very people whose ingenuity and enthusiasm that made Twitch a success.
Marcus "DJ Wheat" Graham, the head of creator development who departed in late January, faults Twitch's approach to becoming a mainstream service, which he says included hiring outsiders uninterested in the business or culture. "We went down the Silicon Valley route—hiring from Facebook, from Twitter," he says, adding that many recruits had little understanding of gaming or livestreaming and were "unwilling to learn what this community was, why it was special." Another former employee says, "The customer was the content creator. If you're not passionate about the product, you're not really looking at it from the customer's lens. And so you don't have the same level of empathy."
Still, the departures of Graham, COO Sara Clemens and chief content officer Michael Aragon have left a potentially damaging gap in Twitch's leadership, according to former and current employees. Their exits have solidified the reign of Chief Executive Officer Emmett Shear, whose engineering-first focus has led the company to misread what the streaming community wants, these people say. "It's really hard to help Emmett understand anything qualitative," one former employee says. "It has to be quantitative."
Of particular concern, two former employees say, is a failure to heed warnings that efforts to monetize streamers' work would fall flat. One product invited viewers to buy extra exposure—1,000 recommendations for 99 cents, say—for their favorite streamers. The initiative generated a backlash from creators who felt it would advantage streamers with bigger channels. Another feature, released in late February, offered users who stream at least 40 hours a month financial incentives to run ads on their channels. Employees say they told their bosses that clunking up the experience with these ads would annoy viewers but say their input was ignored. "Twitch's leadership is uncomfortable with mid-level and lower level employees pushing for change," says a former employee who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions from their employer.
In an-emailed statement, a company spokesperson said that streamers' input guides every aspect of decision-making. "The common thread for all employees is a drive to serve our community—from staff members who started as streamers themselves, to those who integrate themselves into Twitch culture when they start at Twitch," she said. "Serving a community as dynamic as Twitch's means there isn't always one clear solution or answer, and as a result we have always believed in being experimental and innovative—even when that means launching a bold product or experiment that might have short-term risks, but will ultimately help us build the best possible solution." She also touted efforts to hire people with different backgrounds and skillsets, whose "diversity of thought" help Twitch innovate and improve.
Veteran employees chafed against the notion that newcomers could directly apply marketing or business expertise gleaned at one tech company to Twitch. "I'd stand in meetings and say, 'I really want you to try to forget everything that you know about, like Twitter," Graham says. "Twitch is not Twitter, Facebook, or Pandora. Twitch is its own thing and it's incredibly magical." Jason Maestas, who worked at Twitch between 2012 and 2019 and ran influencer marketing, says many new recruits "wanted to come into Twitch and quote-unquote make it better, make it a household name. They were part of other industries and wanted to lend their amorphous experience to this gaming cultural mainstay." Before long, tensions arose between the vets and newbies. "Nobody trusted each other or believed their colleagues were capable," a former employee says.
Brandon Ewing, a former content marketing manager, says shipping new products has become more important than fealty to the Twitch community. "You had people who didn't really use the platform designing products for users they didn't care about in order to get promoted," he says. "The understanding was that, if you were on the product side, you had to ship something to get promoted." Brandon cites a 2017 product called Pulse, which he describes as "a Facebook newsfeed you could have under your stream." He says Twitch employees who used the platform argued it was more work for creators, who already felt overworked.
But the prevailing view among employees interviewed by Bloomberg is that Twitch is losing key executives just as competition heats up in the gaming industry. Twitch is determined to expand beyond its initial audience without alienating them. But managing that transition is always tricky, and internal critics say Twitch hasn't come up with a compelling way to pull that off. "There's a lack of intention," says a current employee. "There's a lack of strategy. There's an overall lack of leadership."
Paywalled by Bloomberg. Thanks to a particular forum for quoting the full article.
