Speaker 1: Welcome to Behind the Influence, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and t DC Media. For me, that was everything
Speaker 1: I told myself, I'm like one or another. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: find a way to get a job here. You know,
Speaker 1: we're we're thinking about the future and we're not leaving
Speaker 1: in Tempson. We're here. Stay. If I'm a traveling toon event,
Speaker 1: I want to be able to see my fellow streamers,
Speaker 1: my colleagues, my friends, funny stories with my mom, and
Speaker 1: I give me an option. They're like, Okay, we can
Speaker 1: either build your brand of computer or we'll get you
Speaker 1: a car. But I was like, no funk that. I
Speaker 1: want a computer. I want it right now. Well, guys,
Speaker 1: today's a happy day and Neil Angishman is in the house.
Speaker 1: How'd I do with your last name? We practiced a
Speaker 1: few times, pretty much killed it every time, murdered it.
Speaker 1: You're superstar. How are you doing today? Doing great? Thanks
Speaker 1: for stopping by. A Neil is the head of strategic
Speaker 1: partnerships at Twitch, a small, tidy, little company you may
Speaker 1: have heard of. You've been there, what five years, going
Speaker 1: on my sixth right now. Yeah. We were just talking
Speaker 1: actually before we started recording, about how people who work
Speaker 1: at Twitch just are celebrities in their own right. It's
Speaker 1: a small culture, you know, like it's grown a lot
Speaker 1: quite over the last three years. And uh yeah, there's
Speaker 1: like a prestige with like working with Twitch, right, and
Speaker 1: I think even attached to that. A lot of employees
Speaker 1: at work at Twitch in some capacity were made into
Speaker 1: like a meme, a Twitch emote you have not for
Speaker 1: the right reasons, but you know, I'm I'm there as well.
Speaker 1: And so for people who don't know what an emote is,
Speaker 1: break it down. Imagine a emoji that you can put
Speaker 1: into any chat room within Twitch. All it requires is
Speaker 1: just a simple text code. So for you, taught, if
Speaker 1: we wanted to have you as an emote, and maybe
Speaker 1: it's a picture of you smiling, or you've thrown the
Speaker 1: peace sign, whatever, maybe we can put in a code
Speaker 1: and we can put that code to be t T
Speaker 1: Carrier whatever. Maybe. And if you're the type it either
Speaker 1: with all capitals or all lowercase boom, your face would
Speaker 1: show up. And that shows up in every single chat
Speaker 1: room and people make memes out of it, just like
Speaker 1: anything else in Internet. People just me So you're kind
Speaker 1: of a celebrity in the streaming world. I mean your
Speaker 1: faces for sure. When I first got high, They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, as an employee benefit, you can upload your
Speaker 1: own emoticon or your own emoji, your own emo to
Speaker 1: the like the back end, and you can make it
Speaker 1: into like an actual email that can be used throughout
Speaker 1: the website. I'm like, fuck, yeah, dope. They're like, okay,
Speaker 1: but we need a picture of you looking straight at
Speaker 1: the camera. And I'm one of those guys that like
Speaker 1: never takes like a proper photo. I'm always like goofing
Speaker 1: off and everything. So I had one picture I'm wearing
Speaker 1: a white beanie and I put that up and ironically enough,
Speaker 1: because the picture was scaled down so tiny within chat,
Speaker 1: it kind of looks like I'm wearing a turban. So
Speaker 1: people haven't been able to like miss miscontact that for
Speaker 1: for other things, and I won't go into people really
Speaker 1: use your amount. It gets highly used. I remember the
Speaker 1: first time I saw it in a chat, I was like,
Speaker 1: what is that? Is that a Neal? And Colin was like, yes,
Speaker 1: that's a Neil. Yeah. My little cousins when they found
Speaker 1: out that I was working at Twitter, like, you're the
Speaker 1: fucking anil, My cousin and Neil is the Anneal and
Speaker 1: my guess yes, I'm so start treating me like it exactly.
Speaker 1: So you're your role at Twitch is actually very very important.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that Twitch is a household name
Speaker 1: is because of the streamers that we watch so avidly
Speaker 1: on the platform. These streamers are going hours and hours
Speaker 1: a day. For the majority of the partners, it's their
Speaker 1: full time job, and you are the person. You're basically
Speaker 1: the thread between them and the platform. So you are
Speaker 1: the middleman. You're the one dealing with both Twitch and
Speaker 1: the ninjas of the world. How does one get this role?
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of seems like the dream job.
Speaker 1: It is a dream job, and to be perfectly honest
Speaker 1: with you, like I'm I'm humbled to be in that
Speaker 1: every day doing what I'm doing. I love people, and
Speaker 1: I think the number one thing that I would look
Speaker 1: at when I'm looking at hiring for this role, even
Speaker 1: for myself, has always been attitude. I think that you
Speaker 1: have to have a highfinity and high drive to want
Speaker 1: to help people out because this is a very selfless role.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of times where you're advocating for things
Speaker 1: that might go against the grain, both politically within the
Speaker 1: company or even extra only to the community, and you
Speaker 1: always have to kind of have a very headstrong mentality
Speaker 1: with understanding that what you're doing is for the betterment
Speaker 1: of the community, for the betterment of the platform, and
Speaker 1: having that holistic view is probably like the most integral
Speaker 1: part of like succeeding within partnerships for me personally. In
Speaker 1: terms of like hiring, I look at attitude number one.
Speaker 1: Number two, I would look at people who have a
Speaker 1: background and like being able to develop other people, whether
Speaker 1: it be within a management role, whether it be within
Speaker 1: working within content and working within communities, volunteering, because I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of those traits translate well over
Speaker 1: to whatever you want to do within partnerships as well.
Speaker 1: We've gotten to the point where we're not wearing multiple
Speaker 1: hats anymore like we used to be back in a day,
Speaker 1: so the roles are very concentrating, really well defined. So
Speaker 1: maybe someone who's really good at charity can stay within
Speaker 1: the domain of charity, whereas someone who's got a high
Speaker 1: affinity of like wanting to help people out, maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit shy and want to work more on the
Speaker 1: back end. They have opportunities to do that was like
Speaker 1: a program manager. So there's a little bit of something
Speaker 1: for everybody. And again, I think the core root of
Speaker 1: it is like as long as you got the right
Speaker 1: attitude and you have that drive for it, I would
Speaker 1: say like that's like the baseline for being a candidate
Speaker 1: for partnerships because I mean, you guys have to have
Speaker 1: so many people applying for roles at Twitch every single day.
Speaker 1: Twitch is hands down one of the most successful companies
Speaker 1: out there. When you think back to how you landed
Speaker 1: the role, what were the steps that you took in
Speaker 1: your own Because you got the job when you were
Speaker 1: fairly young, So did you have a background in streaming
Speaker 1: or were you just a gamer who found out about
Speaker 1: this platform because you were using it and you were like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to apply for a job there. How did
Speaker 1: you land there? And I don't even know where to begin.
Speaker 1: I'll give you the condensed versional, at least what I
Speaker 1: would as seem to be the most condensed version. When
Speaker 1: I was younger, actually competed in gaming. When I was
Speaker 1: like fifteen sixteen, I played a game called Counterstrike. Never
Speaker 1: heard of him. It's a just kidding. Colin plays at
Speaker 1: all the time. Oh my god, it almost caused multiple divorces.
Speaker 1: But this isn't about me. We could talk about that
Speaker 1: off the record. But I played a ship ton of
Speaker 1: counter strike when I was in high school. Actually, funny story.
Speaker 1: So my mom and I'd give me an option. They're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we could either build your brand new computer or we'll
Speaker 1: get you a car. And if I got a car,
Speaker 1: I can go get a job and go make some
Speaker 1: money and then buy a computer. But I was like, no,
Speaker 1: funk that I want a computer. I want it right now.
Speaker 1: So I got a computer ended up dropping like three
Speaker 1: racks in two thousand and five, which was like a
Speaker 1: ship ton of money for computer. Also, let's just a
Speaker 1: lot of teenagers would have chosen a car. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: an idiot, but looking back, but it worked out. It did.
Speaker 1: It was the best decision I made. But your parents
Speaker 1: were probably like thinking they scored because they're like, we
Speaker 1: don't have to get this kid a car. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go get a three thousand dollar computer. That's fine, he's
Speaker 1: not going out anymore. So I got into programing, and
Speaker 1: I was finking for about a year. It really sucked.
Speaker 1: That wasn't good. Why why did you get into programing,
Speaker 1: because back then I don't even think it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was like a cool thing. It was like an
Speaker 1: underground community, you know, like there's websites. I got fragged
Speaker 1: they can go into that, like shared wars and tournaments
Speaker 1: from like all around the world. And back then it
Speaker 1: was like a little underground society, like you only heard
Speaker 1: about these tournaments happening like Sweden, and you would hear
Speaker 1: about like the World Cyber Games, and that was like
Speaker 1: the pinnacle of like events. You know, nowadays we got
Speaker 1: a ton of events going on on like on a
Speaker 1: monthly basis. Back then you only had one or two worldwide.
Speaker 1: I did it for about a year and I realized, look,
Speaker 1: my grades are failing. I'm not doing well. I need
Speaker 1: to grow up. I need to focus on what teenagers
Speaker 1: care about, which is like going to school and getting
Speaker 1: a job and meeting a girl and all this other
Speaker 1: teenage ship. I end up going into school for premed
Speaker 1: I did that for like three years, and my mom
Speaker 1: and dad had to sit down with me with my
Speaker 1: brothers and we were like, what do you really want
Speaker 1: to do? And I'm like, I want to go become
Speaker 1: a doctor and They're like, no, you don't. We know
Speaker 1: you don't want to be a doctor, we know you
Speaker 1: hate it. What do you really want to do? And
Speaker 1: that was like my breakthrough moment of like being very
Speaker 1: honest with myself. What good parents? I feel like the
Speaker 1: majority would be doing the polar opposite, especially in a
Speaker 1: space that your parents probably were not familiar with and
Speaker 1: did not understand. They did it and they totally had
Speaker 1: to read on me, like they knew me inside and out.
Speaker 1: So I think it was just like their own intuition.
Speaker 1: They knew that I wasn't happy doing what I was
Speaker 1: doing or trying to pursue what I what I thought
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. Anyways, that caused me to like
Speaker 1: dial back, and coincidentally, at the same time, StarCraft two,
Speaker 1: which the franchise was like everything to me, was getting announced,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get back into playing some video games when we play
Speaker 1: StarCraft two. And I really wanted to get good at
Speaker 1: the game. So I went on YouTube and I started
Speaker 1: watching like sutorials and I found Justin TV, which was
Speaker 1: like the sister company of Twitch back in the day,
Speaker 1: and t like when I tell you like I was
Speaker 1: an avid fucking viewer, Like I was on that ship
Speaker 1: all day. I was up until like five six am
Speaker 1: watching like the Korean like Star Half League, which was
Speaker 1: like going on from like one am all way to
Speaker 1: like five am every fucking night, and then I would
Speaker 1: roll into class like half awake. But I did that
Speaker 1: and I loved it. I fucking loved every bit of it. Now,
Speaker 1: what was it? What was it about that? Was it
Speaker 1: a learning experience? Was it you were just the voyeuristic
Speaker 1: element of it, which I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: are drawn to that. Imagine picking up a new hobby
Speaker 1: that doesn't really have much of a culture, much of
Speaker 1: a community around it, and you find one little outlet,
Speaker 1: one little outlet, and there's like one place where we
Speaker 1: kind of feel like a sense of belonging and something
Speaker 1: that you can I should take away on a day
Speaker 1: to day, something you can learn from. And for me
Speaker 1: that was justin TV and watching like these Korean leagues
Speaker 1: at the time. Plus you're interacting with other people in chat,
Speaker 1: so it's like this other like kind of shared experience
Speaker 1: that you kind of experienced with other people along the way,
Speaker 1: And for me, that was everything I told myself I'm
Speaker 1: like one or or another, I'm gonna find a way
Speaker 1: to get a job here. And that was this is
Speaker 1: pre twitch Twitch. I didn't know how I was going
Speaker 1: to do that, but there was a bunch of like
Speaker 1: small little community events are happening throughout the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: and the Bay Area is not a very big hut
Speaker 1: for gaming like l A is, but the Bay wasn't
Speaker 1: any opportunity that there was an event like I volunteered,
Speaker 1: I spent some time throwing my own money into it,
Speaker 1: and then I got a job at Zinga, and that
Speaker 1: was like my big break because I was like my
Speaker 1: first step into the gaming industry. And that is not
Speaker 1: necessarily the Pinnacle, like they're not like a true like
Speaker 1: hardcore game company, but it was in the gaming industry,
Speaker 1: and I met a lot of talented people there, made
Speaker 1: made a lot of friends, and I used actually my
Speaker 1: salary at Zinga to bootstrap my own StarCraft team. So
Speaker 1: that was like how I actually really really got into
Speaker 1: like e sports and everything, and I learned a lot
Speaker 1: about getting sponsors and paying out teams and travel and
Speaker 1: hurting sheep because these guys were like, you know, their children,
Speaker 1: they're they're making a couple hundred bucks, a couple of
Speaker 1: thousand bucks, competing in in a in a small time
Speaker 1: game that hasn't really blown up yet, and you you
Speaker 1: just learned along the way and it was great. I
Speaker 1: loved every minute of it. And anyways, over time, about
Speaker 1: a year of doing that while working at Singa, the
Speaker 1: right opportunity locked to my door Twitch and that interview
Speaker 1: process took like three months. It was at this point
Speaker 1: was it already Twitch? It was already Twitch. It was
Speaker 1: about a year into it, which was already kind of
Speaker 1: like a formed company. When you heard about Twitch for
Speaker 1: the first time, what were your initial thoughts. I was like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, I thought I can break in as a streamer.
Speaker 1: It's actually stream For like two years, I wasn't good
Speaker 1: at it. It really wasn't. But you know, I love
Speaker 1: I love every bit of it. Uh And for for me,
Speaker 1: I say, Twitch had a really cool like gothic, like nerdy,
Speaker 1: like steampunk. Looked at it back then, and then like
Speaker 1: six months in or I think it was about a
Speaker 1: year after, they like reframed it into the whole Purple Company,
Speaker 1: which I absolutely loved because purposes the pem color. You know,
Speaker 1: it's purple hoodie. You just know it's iconic. It was
Speaker 1: all Donald or not downhill, but it's all history from there.
Speaker 1: It was all downhill from their interview overhop. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. No, I know exactly what you meant.
Speaker 1: So you got a job at Twitch where you initially were.
Speaker 1: Was there a partner's program in place when you first started?
Speaker 1: There was a partnership program. To get a partnership with
Speaker 1: Twitch back then, you required I think anywhere from five viewers.
Speaker 1: Basically it was really hard. Yeah, you have to be
Speaker 1: like a big shot. I got hired to come in
Speaker 1: and review the applications for these people applying for partnership,
Speaker 1: which was like, by far, like the dopest rule ever did.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was Santa Claus because I'm looking
Speaker 1: at thousands of applications on a weekly basis, and I
Speaker 1: felt like the dean of admissions out of college. And
Speaker 1: you're looking at people like showing out their entire life story,
Speaker 1: talking about why they deserve to be a partner, talking
Speaker 1: about how they came to Twitch, and like their story.
Speaker 1: Then you had other people that are like I just
Speaker 1: bought a capture card. I'm gonna be fucking awesome partner. Me,
Speaker 1: so you hear like you hear both spectrums or you
Speaker 1: hear the whole full spectrum of like white people deserve that.
Speaker 1: Why do you think they deserve to be a partner?
Speaker 1: And for me that was like one of the best
Speaker 1: experiences because I learned about a lot about content and
Speaker 1: I learned all about our community and who these people
Speaker 1: are and what's like the pulsing community. What is a
Speaker 1: hot game? What games are they're playing? So I did that.
Speaker 1: I did that rule for about a year. I will
Speaker 1: look at who are people that are qualified to become
Speaker 1: a partner. Over time I start to realize, Okay, these
Speaker 1: guys aren't hitt five viewers are hit three, hitting four,
Speaker 1: but they're really fucking good at what they do. They're
Speaker 1: really really good, They're really really talented. I made a
Speaker 1: few exceptions here and there, even though I wasn't supposed to,
Speaker 1: but made a few exceptions, and that actually ended up
Speaker 1: being like the best thing ever because we learned that
Speaker 1: it's not just all about viewership, it's about engagement too.
Speaker 1: Um And at the time, the reason why we looked
Speaker 1: at it from such a from a high viewership was
Speaker 1: because a tech costs and operating costs. But you know,
Speaker 1: of course, over time, like you're able to kind of
Speaker 1: society that so we're able to look at truly content
Speaker 1: and look at what is meaningful content, what is engaging content,
Speaker 1: and what is what we define now is like those
Speaker 1: shared real time experiences for me like Twitch. You know,
Speaker 1: you see these different people from different walks of life
Speaker 1: all around the world, and they they run their channel
Speaker 1: different ways. You know, there's no template, there's no cookie
Speaker 1: cutter format. So over time we were able to lower
Speaker 1: the viewership requirements so that more and more people can
Speaker 1: come into the funnel and get that opportunity to become
Speaker 1: a partner. So you you referred to yourself earlier when
Speaker 1: you said, you know, I wanted to start streaming and
Speaker 1: I wasn't good at it, and then there are these
Speaker 1: people that don't have many views, but they're really good
Speaker 1: at it. What constitutes a good streamer consistency Number one.
Speaker 1: You've got to be consistent. I wasn't consistent, and that
Speaker 1: really is a magical sauce. If you come in on
Speaker 1: a on a weekly basis or on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: and you're coming at seven pm every day, you're communicating
Speaker 1: and guarantee you can rely on you to be live
Speaker 1: at that time, they'll come back during that period. It
Speaker 1: also opens up opportunity for people that otherwise may not
Speaker 1: be tuning into streams but maybe happened to be that
Speaker 1: evening to come and find you. But consistency is like
Speaker 1: the biggest key second part, which is arguable depending on
Speaker 1: who you're talking to, but having fun. If you're not
Speaker 1: having fun, like people don't want to watch you. They
Speaker 1: look if it looks like you're having a miserable time,
Speaker 1: like why would anyone want to tune into that? And
Speaker 1: for me, it got to a point where like I
Speaker 1: was streaming just a stream for for that period and
Speaker 1: I wasn't having fun because I sucked at the game.
Speaker 1: I sucked that StarCraft. So I started to pivot to
Speaker 1: other stuff that I actually did enjoy. And when I
Speaker 1: did that, I actually saw the change in my beership
Speaker 1: where people want to tune in more. People wanted to
Speaker 1: be around me because I was having a good time
Speaker 1: and I was cheery and I was upbeat. Engagement's also
Speaker 1: very big, and I think those are kind of correlated
Speaker 1: with one another, Right, having fun and being engaged in
Speaker 1: to community. If you're not talking to your community. More
Speaker 1: likely people are watching you because you have a high
Speaker 1: skill caliber, So maybe you might be really good at
Speaker 1: a game, or maybe you're doing something that might be
Speaker 1: funny or it might be a little cringe e, So
Speaker 1: people want to tune in because of that. But the
Speaker 1: magical sauce really is consistency and engagement, having the upea attitude,
Speaker 1: having fun with with your content. When it comes to
Speaker 1: when it comes to folks like Tyler Ninja, I'm really
Speaker 1: proud of how far along he's come along, especially because
Speaker 1: he's one of the guys that have been streaming since
Speaker 1: just in TV days, so he's been at it for
Speaker 1: like eight years now. This guy has been committed, and
Speaker 1: you know, he hasn't always had this big break. So
Speaker 1: for people like him, I think, you know, it's really
Speaker 1: the right opportunity. And I think games like Fortnite, H
Speaker 1: one Z one, pub g all have like eight to
Speaker 1: those opportunities because the battle are All format is exciting
Speaker 1: in itself in terms of content. But I think when
Speaker 1: you look at a game like Fortnite, where it's encompassing
Speaker 1: different types of cultures with the different dances and the
Speaker 1: and the skins and y'all fits and everything. Like you
Speaker 1: you kind of opened up a new world of opportunity
Speaker 1: with culture and for for Ninja, it also opened up
Speaker 1: an opportunity for like sick plays. You know, he was
Speaker 1: doing some really dope shit building. His building skills were
Speaker 1: like off the chart, and I think he was able
Speaker 1: to kind of show off his skill set and his
Speaker 1: engagement and the level that people weren't able to really
Speaker 1: see in the past, and that got the attention with
Speaker 1: the main stream media, and so artists like Drake start
Speaker 1: to see then caught attention and follow him on Instagram
Speaker 1: because he was posting his clips on there, and I
Speaker 1: think all that type of stuff aided in his discovery,
Speaker 1: which ultimately led to where he's at now. That was
Speaker 1: gonna be my other questions. So I don't think it
Speaker 1: just ends at Twitch. So people are not only are
Speaker 1: they streaming on Twitch, they're clipping their videos, they're putting
Speaker 1: it on YouTube, they're putting them on Instagram, they're putting
Speaker 1: them on Twitter. It's a full time job. So do
Speaker 1: you think had Ninja not been utilizing other social media
Speaker 1: platforms that he would be where he is today, Because
Speaker 1: maybe Drake wouldn't just be on Twitch randomly, but he
Speaker 1: saw a clip on Instagram or somebody tagged him because
Speaker 1: they know that Drake's a huge Fortnite fan, and somebody's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a sick play let me tag Drake. Now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Drake knows about Ninja. Do you
Speaker 1: when you are talking to and helping shape partners or
Speaker 1: giving them advice, are you advising them to use these
Speaker 1: other platforms as well? For sure? I think syndicase of
Speaker 1: your content, especially after your streams are over, are super
Speaker 1: important because it gives you the opportunity to be discovered
Speaker 1: in other places. And I think ultimately you want to
Speaker 1: build up your brand. When you look at my team
Speaker 1: and look at what they're focusing on, they're focused on
Speaker 1: building up creators from the ground up, not only on
Speaker 1: the Twitch level, but holistically so well. We can't double
Speaker 1: into every side of their business. We do try to
Speaker 1: encourage them to to to to be effective and be
Speaker 1: smart about how they're syndicating their content and do it
Speaker 1: mindfully right. Don't just put it in every single platform
Speaker 1: for the sake of putting it on there. Do it
Speaker 1: because you know you're gonna gage to the right audience.
Speaker 1: And I think for for people like Ninja, you know,
Speaker 1: gaming has really tried to take a presence in social
Speaker 1: media and Twitter and in Instagram over only the last
Speaker 1: few years. Really, I think it was really just the
Speaker 1: perfect storm for him Fortnite coming in Fortnite, being a
Speaker 1: game that is widely admired endored by all ages and
Speaker 1: all cultures. I think it was a right opportunity. It
Speaker 1: was a perfect storm for from to come in and
Speaker 1: be able to capitalize on that. And I think I
Speaker 1: think it definitely did help out and his discovery with Drake.
Speaker 1: Whether there he would have whether Drake would have found
Speaker 1: him if he didn't do that, I don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it's up in a year, it's arguable, but
Speaker 1: I would definitely say it did help out a ton.
Speaker 1: I mean, he definitely had a huge following, a very
Speaker 1: specific following, but I think he kind of moved into
Speaker 1: mainstream because of that. Obviously, there are tons of really
Speaker 1: great streamers on Twitch, so we won't focus on Ninja,
Speaker 1: but I think Ninja is a really great talking point
Speaker 1: for Twitch because not only did he capitalize on a
Speaker 1: celebrity movement, did you sense that Twitch was benefiting from
Speaker 1: all of a sudden on a whatever. It was a
Speaker 1: week night at two am, the world is watching Twitch
Speaker 1: because Drake, Travis Scott, who else was in that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so all these people are playing Ninja Ninja. You can
Speaker 1: tell is almost beside himself as he's doing it. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure as a person who's involved in the partnership program,
Speaker 1: you probably had an influx of celebrities saying maybe we
Speaker 1: should jump on this totally. For me, it was it
Speaker 1: was a wonderful moment. It was a wonderful evening, and
Speaker 1: I was so happy that all that was happening at once.
Speaker 1: It was overwhelming of course too, But I think the
Speaker 1: thing that really made me happy about that entire experience,
Speaker 1: from the actual stream happening to even after the fact
Speaker 1: and getting hit up by different people was it was
Speaker 1: a shifting culture. I think gaming has always had this
Speaker 1: stigma from I guess pop culture where it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're some kid that lives in the basement eating hot pockets.
Speaker 1: So the whole South Park reference, you know, the wild
Speaker 1: reference where you're sitting at home, living in a basement
Speaker 1: eating hot pockets, ship like that. So for me, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I've been very passionate. I was
Speaker 1: like moving away from that stigma and really kind of
Speaker 1: unveiling the mask behind the community and showing like, yo,
Speaker 1: these are just people like everybody else. These are sucking,
Speaker 1: awesome people, are talented people, they're cool people, and they're
Speaker 1: just like you and I. They're not any different. And
Speaker 1: it's weird to say that, Like gamers have always has
Speaker 1: this label of like, oh, you're a gamer, so thus
Speaker 1: you're this type of person. It's like, no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Anyone's a gamer. Colin was a gamer for that matter,
Speaker 1: you know, like everybody is a gamer in one way
Speaker 1: or another, and it's a matter about like what you enjoy.
Speaker 1: And I think with with the whole Drake and Ninja situation,
Speaker 1: what I loved about is that a lot of people
Speaker 1: who in the past would be quite about being a
Speaker 1: game or closet gamers, if you may start to come
Speaker 1: out and realize, like, hey, it's actually cool for me
Speaker 1: to share this information with you. It's like I love
Speaker 1: fucking video games. As a matter of fact, check out
Speaker 1: my entire collection. Weren't really apparent or really present in
Speaker 1: social media before, and now they are and it starting
Speaker 1: to become a more of a widespread thing amongst culture.
Speaker 1: How would you define the Twitch community who? That's a
Speaker 1: really good question. It's a melting pot, So it's a
Speaker 1: big melting pot of of everybody I look at I
Speaker 1: look at the Twitch community as one giant ecosystem, and
Speaker 1: there are people that have different interests, whether it be
Speaker 1: I r L content, cooking, music, specific game game communities,
Speaker 1: Like you may be into first person shooters, you might
Speaker 1: be into Battle Royale, you might be into strate teagic games.
Speaker 1: Everyone's got that thing that that they're really interested in.
Speaker 1: And I think when you look at the Twitch ecosystem
Speaker 1: as a whole, the entire community, like they have these
Speaker 1: like subcommunities within them, and that's where like each streamer
Speaker 1: kind of has like a domain. So you look at
Speaker 1: people like Lyric for example, and I love Lyric. Lyric
Speaker 1: is what I would define as like a device streamer.
Speaker 1: He has a community that follows him wherever the funk
Speaker 1: he goes, whatever game he's playing. There are certain games
Speaker 1: that he might have much more vieweris in and other
Speaker 1: games where he may not. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, his domain is variety gaming. So that's where
Speaker 1: a lot of streamers want to get to where they
Speaker 1: want to be focusing on playing whatever game they want
Speaker 1: because it gives them the liberty to play games and
Speaker 1: have fun with it, whereas other other streamers much more
Speaker 1: enjoy playing a particular game focusing on one genre as
Speaker 1: opposed to multiple genres. Everyone's got their specialty. I think
Speaker 1: everyone's also got different aspirations. Some people want to break
Speaker 1: out from one particular game into variety, and some people
Speaker 1: who are variety really want to have one game that
Speaker 1: they focused on that's like their bread and butter. But
Speaker 1: when I look at the Twitch community, I don't really
Speaker 1: have a single definition for it because there's multiple definitions
Speaker 1: depending on what what community you're looking at. You know,
Speaker 1: you can look at from a charity perspective. You can
Speaker 1: look at it from speed running, you can look at
Speaker 1: it from competitive I can go on and on about it.
Speaker 1: As somebody who works with the company, What are you
Speaker 1: doing to protect the streamers in a sense from trolls
Speaker 1: or people who are just coming on And a lot
Speaker 1: of these people have nothing really to do with Twitch,
Speaker 1: they're just you know, it's a free platform. Anyone can watch,
Speaker 1: anyone can chat. What are the measures that you guys
Speaker 1: are taking to protect the streamers and the content creators
Speaker 1: on the platform. So I can't go into like all
Speaker 1: the crazy specifics, but just to kind of give you
Speaker 1: some context, we do have a safety ops team. These
Speaker 1: guys worked in day out to protect the community as
Speaker 1: a whole. Doing anything on the Internet scary. And I
Speaker 1: think when you think about trolls and you think about
Speaker 1: toxic people, the shit you think about the Internet really
Speaker 1: is that you can you can hide behind a screen
Speaker 1: and be whoever the fun you want to be. You
Speaker 1: could be a dick, you could be an asshole, it
Speaker 1: could be a racist, and a lot of people they
Speaker 1: can get away with it. And it's shitty because a
Speaker 1: lot of people do it for the simple fact of
Speaker 1: just like getting a reaction out of other people. They
Speaker 1: don't really have a purpose, they don't really have an intent.
Speaker 1: That's unfortunate. I hope culturally with the entire Internet, that's
Speaker 1: something that we start to pivot away from and change.
Speaker 1: It's a pipe dream, but I really, I really think
Speaker 1: that that's something that needs to happen as a whole.
Speaker 1: It's not just within Twitch, it's not just within YouTube,
Speaker 1: Twitter or any of these other like microcusing communities like
Speaker 1: it's the entire Internet. And I think when you look
Speaker 1: at Twitch and what we're doing, we have a We
Speaker 1: have both product features that help prevent and protect streamers
Speaker 1: from malicious behavior happening and also behaviors and even activity. Again,
Speaker 1: I can't go into all the specifics in terms of what,
Speaker 1: but we do have product features that allow for you
Speaker 1: to moderate your channel automatically. Maybe you don't have moderates
Speaker 1: your channel. We have an automoti feature so and you
Speaker 1: can dial that from like a one to four. You
Speaker 1: can adjust it to based on how how you want
Speaker 1: your chat to be controlled, how you want to conduct
Speaker 1: your community, And we also do a lot of education
Speaker 1: when you become a partner. A lot of what our
Speaker 1: team focuses on is empowering these streamers on how to
Speaker 1: be more vigilant not only with the content that they're
Speaker 1: putting on stream, but with their community, with their moderators,
Speaker 1: and how they're thinking about their content on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis. Because every time you're playing a new game,
Speaker 1: you're welcoming a new opportunity for people to come in
Speaker 1: and say something toxic, say something rude about you, and
Speaker 1: it is a trained behavior. Training your community is a
Speaker 1: very difficult thing to do. So from a general perspective,
Speaker 1: there's definitely a ton of education, there's product features, but um,
Speaker 1: when it comes to working with partner streamers, there's a
Speaker 1: lot more involvement. There's a lot more proactive empowerment. We
Speaker 1: do a lot of coaching and education around it. It's
Speaker 1: a cat and mouse game. Toxic people are always looking
Speaker 1: for new vectors to be able to kind of attack
Speaker 1: your stream and funk with you. And I think it's
Speaker 1: it's going to continue to be an evolving, iterating game
Speaker 1: where we have to improve upon and and basically do
Speaker 1: more to to protect not only our streamers but our
Speaker 1: entire community. For sure, trolls are everywhere. They're on Twitter,
Speaker 1: they're on YouTube, they're everywhere. If you're putting your stuff
Speaker 1: out there, you are susceptible it's going to happen. But
Speaker 1: with the Twitch community, I know when I first started streaming,
Speaker 1: I was personally like, Okay, I'm not doing gaming content
Speaker 1: per se. So do you think it's because there are
Speaker 1: people that have been there since day one who don't
Speaker 1: really want to see the platform evolve into Because you
Speaker 1: guys are evolving into different platforms. I mean you're talking
Speaker 1: about cooking, you're talking about singing, You've twitched things now.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many different lanes that you guys
Speaker 1: are moving into as you should. You're the number one
Speaker 1: streaming platform in the world and you've got fifteen million
Speaker 1: daily users, so why wouldn't you. But do you think
Speaker 1: that there's the community you have to be careful with
Speaker 1: them because they are so specific or is that just
Speaker 1: an assumption that I'm having. I think that with any
Speaker 1: kind of change, people are always to be resistant to it,
Speaker 1: and people act on different ways. It kind of goes
Speaker 1: back to what else saying earlier. When you're on the Internet,
Speaker 1: people people act however they feel like acting. They might
Speaker 1: want to be a ship head one day, they might
Speaker 1: be cool about another day. But would change, especially in
Speaker 1: anything on the internet, like people always react negatively to it,
Speaker 1: even if it is for the betterment of everybody. We're
Speaker 1: not trying to change the platform. What we're looking at
Speaker 1: is adjacent content, right, So if you're a gamer, you
Speaker 1: like food, you're a gamer, you like music, and so
Speaker 1: these are the things that we look at that are,
Speaker 1: like wonderree, adjacent to what is gaming content. So we're
Speaker 1: not deep anyway from what we are. We are a
Speaker 1: gaming platform. We're going to continue to be a gaming platform.
Speaker 1: That is our community, that is our bread and butter.
Speaker 1: But we are welcoming to everybody that is has an
Speaker 1: interesting gaming content. We do have adjacent content that's also
Speaker 1: available for you to do, but our core focus is gaming.
Speaker 1: There are going to people who are going to be
Speaker 1: resistant to that. That's perfectly fine. I think you're going
Speaker 1: to find that everywhere. For us, it's really just about
Speaker 1: making sure that we have the most welcoming community, the
Speaker 1: most welcoming platform, and people feel like it's a safe
Speaker 1: place for them to be themselves. So with the streamers,
Speaker 1: because you work with them so closely, I do want
Speaker 1: to talk about without into specifics, because so many people
Speaker 1: who don't understand the world world of streaming do not
Speaker 1: understand how these people make a living. So, you know,
Speaker 1: like my parents, for example, don't understand Twitch, don't understand
Speaker 1: how kids can spend all day long gaming and live
Speaker 1: these great lives and make six seven figures. When did
Speaker 1: this become a reality, Because I know when you first
Speaker 1: started in the in the streaming world, you were saying,
Speaker 1: like making five thousand dollars when did it start to
Speaker 1: become very very real when it comes to making a
Speaker 1: legit amount of money. I think as the new vectors
Speaker 1: for monetizing started to become more apparent is when it
Speaker 1: starts to become more of a reality and to kind
Speaker 1: of like dive into that. You know, there's first party
Speaker 1: vectors like running advertisements and the stream selling subscriptions, which
Speaker 1: is effective like people pledging to you on a monthly
Speaker 1: basis and exchange for stuff like custom e moticons, a
Speaker 1: cool badge, and beyond that, we we we have plenty
Speaker 1: of other victors. We've we've launched a digital good called
Speaker 1: bits that you can earn both by purchasing and also
Speaker 1: by watching advertisements. You know, there's merchandise or sponsorships. I
Speaker 1: could go on and on in terms of the first party,
Speaker 1: but what has really become a big phenomenon is the
Speaker 1: sense of acknowledgement. And you look at people who subscribe
Speaker 1: to channels. We've actually built in first party toolings for
Speaker 1: people to be recognized for that for the support. So
Speaker 1: if you were to subscribe to my channel, you're paying
Speaker 1: me five bucks to to to to to support me.
Speaker 1: That gets recognized not only in my channel. But if
Speaker 1: I have overlays on my stream, I can kind of
Speaker 1: uncustomized that experience based on how I want. I can
Speaker 1: make it a big, you know, big party. I can
Speaker 1: make it something really well, or I can have it
Speaker 1: just be something that possible stream and I can technology
Speaker 1: recognize you and thank you for that personally. And for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, that's free fulfilling and that's something
Speaker 1: that they kind of get addicted to in terms of behavior.
Speaker 1: And you think about that experience and you think about
Speaker 1: stuff like tipping tipping his third party. People do that
Speaker 1: through vectors like PayPal, and through that they can also
Speaker 1: added messages and usually some people will do stuff like
Speaker 1: Texas speech, so they'll put a message, it will read
Speaker 1: it out loud back to the streamer as they're streaming,
Speaker 1: and they can respond back to it live on stream.
Speaker 1: Or maybe sometimes people will be really shitty and troll
Speaker 1: and see something inappropriate, but it's still read out loud
Speaker 1: and people do it for the ships and giggles. Is
Speaker 1: that to the discretion of the streamer. It's discussion stream
Speaker 1: so that do you guys have certain guidelines like you're
Speaker 1: not allowed to do this for any amount of money,
Speaker 1: So there are. We want streamers. We want to make
Speaker 1: sure that they're upholding themselves to a safe standard. We
Speaker 1: don't want them hurting themselves along the way. We don't
Speaker 1: want you taking shots for subs because people are giving
Speaker 1: you money to to do so, like you're going to
Speaker 1: get yourself hurt and we don't want that happening. And
Speaker 1: and to that point, we have had celebrities reschedule interviews
Speaker 1: on this show because they're burnt out, they just went
Speaker 1: back to back on tour, or you know, they've been
Speaker 1: shooting for thirty days straight with no break. I imagine
Speaker 1: that the world of dreaming is very similar, if not
Speaker 1: more intense, because you have all this pressure to put in.
Speaker 1: Like you said, consistency is really key. How much is
Speaker 1: too much? And is streaming burnout real? And do you
Speaker 1: step in and intervene as somebody who works on the
Speaker 1: partners side. For sure, I definitely acknowledge it as a
Speaker 1: real thing. And I think Burnard comes in different shapes
Speaker 1: and forms. That could be traveling too much for for
Speaker 1: for different obligations. It could be streaming too many hours.
Speaker 1: It could be getting to hyper focus on one particular game.
Speaker 1: I mean, Bernard comes in different shapes and forms in
Speaker 1: different variations overall, I think to to answer your question, yeah,
Speaker 1: we do intervene to what level I can go into specifics,
Speaker 1: but you know, we we don't want our streamers, we
Speaker 1: don't want our partners, our friends being affected by by burnout,
Speaker 1: and when they are, when they are affected by it,
Speaker 1: we try to intervene and try to help them out.
Speaker 1: I understanding where they're coming from and try to ultimately
Speaker 1: understand what we do proactively in the future rather than
Speaker 1: being reactive. And I think that's the biggest issue is
Speaker 1: like right now we're all learning together, you know, still
Speaker 1: a brand new industry in terms of how people are
Speaker 1: monetizing content, in terms of the community growing, and so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work to be done. I we'll say,
Speaker 1: for from my personal standpoint, like this entire, like my
Speaker 1: entire commitment this year has been focusing on how do
Speaker 1: we minimize that bur now because it is becoming more
Speaker 1: apparent in situations like the Draking Ninja event really has
Speaker 1: evolved Twitch and it's kind of grown into like this
Speaker 1: mainstream levels becoming a household name, which I'm really proud about.
Speaker 1: But as a result, people are kind of experiencing. It's
Speaker 1: like supernova explosion and growth as well, And so they're
Speaker 1: building up this anxiety of like, if I don't stream
Speaker 1: for X amount of hours or X amount of days,
Speaker 1: someone else is gonna take over. I'm gonna lose descriptions.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lose momentum. How true is that? Though? I mean,
Speaker 1: is it? There are so many streamers on Twitch. If
Speaker 1: you decide to take a week off, does that dramatically
Speaker 1: change your viewership or your subscribe options in terms of
Speaker 1: the run numbers if you're looking from a raw standpoint,
Speaker 1: like inevitably, yes, it will. I think the issue is
Speaker 1: we need to do a better job on our end
Speaker 1: in terms of how we're presenting those numbers to you
Speaker 1: so you can better understand what are those changes, because
Speaker 1: naturally people do lose subscriptions on the day to day,
Speaker 1: even if they are streaming. People do churn just because
Speaker 1: their subscriptions expire. Some people said to not renew. They
Speaker 1: confuse that with the dates that they take off from streaming,
Speaker 1: as people are unsubscribing to them or they're losing subscribers,
Speaker 1: And inevitably, like anytime we take off, yes, you're losing
Speaker 1: traffic here channel, but we are trying to get creative
Speaker 1: with how we resurface content in your channel and also
Speaker 1: how do we alleviate that anxiety because ultimately that's my
Speaker 1: biggest pain point right now, was like I hate seeing
Speaker 1: people feel like they have to be on behind a
Speaker 1: stream at all times. They have to produce content because
Speaker 1: if they don't, they lose momentum. It's a really shitty
Speaker 1: feeling because it really starts, say, interfear with their personal
Speaker 1: life and how do you get out. You cannot get
Speaker 1: off the hamster wheel. There's just it's it's there is
Speaker 1: too much at stake. I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: is feeling irrelevant if you step away, is that the
Speaker 1: audience is fickle? What what do you think it? I
Speaker 1: think there's multiple um, there's multiple multiple sizes. There's multiple
Speaker 1: things that kind of come into play here. One of
Speaker 1: them is definitely momentum, especially like if a new game
Speaker 1: comes out Fortnite. When it first came out, you know,
Speaker 1: early on it was a beta game and they experimented
Speaker 1: as a battle rail and it didn't really start to
Speaker 1: pick up momentum until you know, season one, passive, season
Speaker 1: two and starts to create new content around it, and
Speaker 1: at that time it starts to really build up momentum.
Speaker 1: It soon as a game, and so people start to
Speaker 1: kind of hop on start playing Fortnite as a whole.
Speaker 1: And I think with streamers in general, Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the slow, more feeling of like if I'm
Speaker 1: not live, I'm missing out, I'm missing out on capturing
Speaker 1: an audience. There's a lot that goes into it, really.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean, it's it's it's such a complex.
Speaker 1: We could probably talk about that for two hours. I
Speaker 1: guess the main question is as somebody who is dealing
Speaker 1: with these people on a day to day, it's almost
Speaker 1: like these are your children in a sense. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of them, Like like you mentioned, you Ninja
Speaker 1: was around during justin tv ds, So a lot of
Speaker 1: these people you have seen grow from you know, zero
Speaker 1: followers to millions of followers. So there's a sense of
Speaker 1: responsibility to keep them on track and you want them
Speaker 1: to continue to grow. But then there's this paternal feeling
Speaker 1: you probably have to protect them as well. Going back
Speaker 1: to earlier days and even today, do you feel like
Speaker 1: in a sense that sometimes you're almost like a casting director.
Speaker 1: You know, early on I felt like that. I think
Speaker 1: the scene has evolved quite a lot in the last year,
Speaker 1: um for the better, because before they're applying and they're
Speaker 1: like telling you why they should be a partner, What
Speaker 1: is it like now? How do people now apply to
Speaker 1: be a partner. So the vector now is we have
Speaker 1: an internal system that's kind of automated half of the
Speaker 1: the trouble of like applying. So what you gotta do
Speaker 1: now is actually qualify for the metrics through what we
Speaker 1: have in our desperads, like twitch achievements. So if you
Speaker 1: have to attain seventy five years for about two to
Speaker 1: three weeks so that you're maintaining consistency, and it has
Speaker 1: to be raw numbers, so like you can't have that
Speaker 1: from people hosteeing you, from people reading. It has to
Speaker 1: be numbers that you have been able to attain and
Speaker 1: retain on your own over over the two weeks two
Speaker 1: to three week period. So for those people, once they've
Speaker 1: done that and once they've met a few other criteria,
Speaker 1: they actually get a little button that allows um to
Speaker 1: apply and once they apply, the same exact flow as
Speaker 1: how it is from the past, which it's like they
Speaker 1: get to tell us about themselves but now we've been
Speaker 1: able to reduce the valling with people who are getting
Speaker 1: zero viewers, are just applying for the sake of applying,
Speaker 1: and we're able to get in people who are actually qualified.
Speaker 1: And it's a guided experience, so people that aren't qualified,
Speaker 1: they'll understand why they're not qualified. They'll be able to
Speaker 1: see what metrics you really need to attain to get
Speaker 1: to that point back, and they didn't have that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it would take us weeks on end to get back
Speaker 1: to you because of theVolume of applications being so high.
Speaker 1: But now we've been able to cut that back and
Speaker 1: being able to keep it focused on quality over quantity.
Speaker 1: And it's okay if you want to answer this. But
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of celebrities, because they hear about Twitch,
Speaker 1: are like, oh, I don't really know what twitches, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start streaming. Let me just make a call
Speaker 1: and become a partner. Is it like that for them
Speaker 1: or do they have to go through the process just
Speaker 1: like everybody else. They have to go through the process
Speaker 1: like everybody else, Because um, I'll be honest with early on,
Speaker 1: that was something that we out of excitement, We're like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get this guy on board. Let's get this gall
Speaker 1: on board. But what ended up happening is they get
Speaker 1: really excited, they do it for about a week and
Speaker 1: there are other work kind of comes into play and
Speaker 1: takes up their time, which is perfectly fine. But we
Speaker 1: ultimately we welcome everybody and we we want everyone to
Speaker 1: be on Twitch. But if we want people to commit,
Speaker 1: we want to be able to see that commitment from
Speaker 1: them too. So I usually asked them, like, look happy
Speaker 1: that you're excited about it, like you see a stream
Speaker 1: for two to three weeks, just to make sure that,
Speaker 1: like you know, you're going to actually be sticking on board.
Speaker 1: And at that point, if you are meeting the criteria,
Speaker 1: then we can we can talk about partnership. How many
Speaker 1: partners does Twitch have on the platform today? I think
Speaker 1: today rough count is about so there's thirty thousand people
Speaker 1: that are your children. How do you personally keep track
Speaker 1: of all of them and make sure that obviously you
Speaker 1: have a team, it's not just you, But what is
Speaker 1: a day to day like for you and your interactions
Speaker 1: with the partners. In terms of interaction, I'm spending I'm
Speaker 1: spending less time communicating on a macro level nowadays and
Speaker 1: focus much more on a micro level, So talking to
Speaker 1: individual partners, I'm out here in l A right now
Speaker 1: meeting with a few partners today and tomorrow from my team,
Speaker 1: and the entire partnership's department is kind of broken down
Speaker 1: too different facets. So we have people that focus on
Speaker 1: individual communities like I mentioned earlier, people who focus on
Speaker 1: first person shooters, people who focus on fighting and communities
Speaker 1: like street fighter, and other people who focus on stuff
Speaker 1: like charity. And then beyond that, we also look at
Speaker 1: people who are broken up by regions. So we have
Speaker 1: a Twitch comedian Europe, we have one in Latin America
Speaker 1: and Asia, so we have different representatives and these different
Speaker 1: regions and also have their own strengths. And for us,
Speaker 1: really that plus partners that we have is kind of
Speaker 1: broken downto each of those regions and for us, we
Speaker 1: we serve them in different ways, you know, and Asia
Speaker 1: there's a lot of growing communities. So it's really about
Speaker 1: building up a presence not only for Twitch but for
Speaker 1: the individual creators. Whereas in Europe and North America they're
Speaker 1: much more prevalent, they're much more present in terms of
Speaker 1: the industry and so it's more about how do we
Speaker 1: grow them beyond mainstream, how do we get them connected
Speaker 1: with sponsors and advertisers that are non endemic to the brand.
Speaker 1: Every day is different, Every day is different, and the
Speaker 1: way that I'm working with the community isn't directly portrayed
Speaker 1: out to the public on a day to day, but
Speaker 1: more so in terms of events like E three, like
Speaker 1: packs being at those events. There's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that my team does not only from like a product standpoint,
Speaker 1: but also just like a from an interaction standpoint, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot that we do. We have usually parties
Speaker 1: of these events that gives us a big opperatunit to
Speaker 1: like communicate and reach out to partners. So we've wise
Speaker 1: not being able to talk to you in the past
Speaker 1: and really build up like a personal relationship and really
Speaker 1: forged that bond between the partnerships team and the individual
Speaker 1: careers because ultimately, the way I look at things, the
Speaker 1: partnership seems like Tron and the partners are really the users.
Speaker 1: We're fighting for them. Yeah, and and with thirty thousand
Speaker 1: partners and even dividing it up by games and style
Speaker 1: of gaming, whatever it is, how are you dividing your
Speaker 1: time like you're in l A. I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: thousands of, if not tens of thousands of streamers that
Speaker 1: are partners in l A. How do you decide who
Speaker 1: you're going to meet with and have get face time with?
Speaker 1: Because I'm sure everybody would love FaceTime with you? Is
Speaker 1: it just the top streamers they get the FaceTime like
Speaker 1: any other industry. So from my particular role right now,
Speaker 1: because I am focused on strategic partnerships, I focus on
Speaker 1: a lot of the particular relationships that we have some people,
Speaker 1: A lot of it maybe top streamers, but it also
Speaker 1: might be large entities as well, So studios particular like
Speaker 1: networks and groups, organizations e. Sports organizations that work really
Speaker 1: closely with a lot of just like up and coming
Speaker 1: talent that are coming from off platform that have strategic
Speaker 1: value some of its top partners. Some of it isn't,
Speaker 1: but it kind of varies. But my goal is like
Speaker 1: if I find out that there are partners in a
Speaker 1: particular region or a particular area and I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: out there, I usually do my dual diligence to like
Speaker 1: reach out to those individuals and let them know, Hey,
Speaker 1: I am in the area, because you'd be surprised there's
Speaker 1: a ton of partners here in l A. Yes, but
Speaker 1: if you're to look at Omaha, Omaha, Braska, there's not
Speaker 1: that many people out there. And I'll usually try to
Speaker 1: reach out to those individuals and say, hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be in town, it'd like to meet for coffee, for lunch, whatever,
Speaker 1: maybe just like I can get to know you better
Speaker 1: and better stand you and what we could be doing
Speaker 1: better for you. Because everyone's got a different need, everyone's
Speaker 1: got a different background in terms of how they came
Speaker 1: into twitch and what we can do to improve their
Speaker 1: life is an iterating process. So do you find yourself
Speaker 1: advising a lot of the time and brainstorming with them
Speaker 1: what what they could do. It's a lot of listening,
Speaker 1: a lot of conversating, a lot of conversing. Should say
Speaker 1: it's not a word of conversating a lot of conversing,
Speaker 1: but I would say it's a two way conversation most
Speaker 1: of the time. Is there a question that you you
Speaker 1: keep hearing over and over that that is happening so
Speaker 1: often that you're like, wait, this is something that we
Speaker 1: should probably address as a whole. Is there something that
Speaker 1: you're noticing streamers are concerned about or wondering like, how
Speaker 1: do I improve this or how do I Is there
Speaker 1: a common question, yes, but it's usually based on trend
Speaker 1: depending on what's going on in the communie at the time.
Speaker 1: It could be regarding a particular topic, it could be
Speaker 1: related to stuff that's happened in the past, whether it's
Speaker 1: trending right now on twitch? What is what is something
Speaker 1: that you're seeing a lot of the streamers and partners do.
Speaker 1: I think burnout is probably like the hot topic right now.
Speaker 1: Um I would say burnout and also work life balance.
Speaker 1: I start to see that become much more apparent more
Speaker 1: now than ever. And what's really cool and what's really
Speaker 1: encouraging to me is I'm seeing a lot of streamers
Speaker 1: actually get together that live in the same region, same area,
Speaker 1: actually go out and planet trip or planet outing. It's
Speaker 1: do stuff personally and not have to worry about are
Speaker 1: they producing content around it, are they streaming the content
Speaker 1: or anything like that. They're just focus on having fun
Speaker 1: and being themselves. Because that balance is super crucial crucial
Speaker 1: to you as well. So how do you because it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a nine to five job at all,
Speaker 1: and these people are not streaming nine to five. So
Speaker 1: how do you set boundaries for yourself and and have
Speaker 1: a healthy work life balance. Because I'm sure you're in
Speaker 1: l A. You're going to be out all night tonight
Speaker 1: meeting with every single person that is in l A
Speaker 1: and wants to meet with you for every single coffee
Speaker 1: and every single drink. For sure, it's kind of two things. One,
Speaker 1: you have to have the affinity to like want to
Speaker 1: talk to people. If you don't, this job is definitely
Speaker 1: not for you. For me, I'm naturally extroverted, so being
Speaker 1: able to interact and go out and do things is
Speaker 1: very natural and very easy for me. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: burn out from it, and I think that aids meing
Speaker 1: being able to be successful and what I'm doing, and
Speaker 1: also kind of not have to worry too much about
Speaker 1: the boundary but to when it comes, it's actually defining boundary.
Speaker 1: I usually get myself a cut off time, So if
Speaker 1: I'm feeling tired, if I'm feeling like I'm low in energy,
Speaker 1: if I'm feeling like I'm not able to be as
Speaker 1: up beat as I need to be, as you give
Speaker 1: myself a cut off time. So whether they be midnight,
Speaker 1: one am or whatever. That's usually like my boundary that
Speaker 1: I set for myself. You should tell people like, hey,
Speaker 1: to this point, like I need to go back and recharge.
Speaker 1: But from my end set of the boundaries is not
Speaker 1: so difficult as it is for streamers. And the reason
Speaker 1: why I say that is I'm working with one on
Speaker 1: one individual people and they understand the need for being
Speaker 1: able to like take a step back and recharge with yourself.
Speaker 1: I think creators streamers in general based a much more
Speaker 1: widespread issue that I would like to help them out with,
Speaker 1: which is they're looking at it from macro level. They
Speaker 1: have hundreds of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people
Speaker 1: that they have to I hate to use this word,
Speaker 1: but like a piece, you know. And it's really about
Speaker 1: setting the right boundaries for yourself for those creators, right,
Speaker 1: teaching them to say, look, you don't you're not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to make every single person happy, and if
Speaker 1: you are, you're going to bring yourself out of the
Speaker 1: expa to that. So you need to be able to
Speaker 1: be okay with putting your foot down in training your
Speaker 1: community to say, hey, this is when I need my
Speaker 1: me time, this is when I have my family time
Speaker 1: and that stat I'll come back tomorrow. You'll continue to
Speaker 1: have me at that point, but like I need to
Speaker 1: be able to have my my boundary. So going back
Speaker 1: to to answer your question again, Like, I think it's
Speaker 1: fairly easy for me, just because the people that I
Speaker 1: work with are very understanding that and very respectable. Whereas
Speaker 1: with the people that I work with creators, for them,
Speaker 1: it's much more difficult because they were dealing with people
Speaker 1: on the internet who are not exactly the most reasonable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think you lightly touched on this, and this
Speaker 1: may be an uncomfortable question to answer, but why do
Speaker 1: you think you're so good at what you do? I
Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned you you fucking love it. You're
Speaker 1: an extrovert. But there's there's something more because like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't totally serious, but it does feel like
Speaker 1: a casting director a bit, because you're you're spotting these
Speaker 1: stars and you've seen a lot of people come up
Speaker 1: from nothing to being seven figure streamers. Yeah, why is
Speaker 1: this what you're gonna, I believe, continue to do and
Speaker 1: why are you so good at it? I appreciate that,
Speaker 1: um uh, it's something I strive to be better at
Speaker 1: every day. I think for me, this is the fact that,
Speaker 1: like I have an opportunity to do something I absolutely love.
Speaker 1: I love video games, I love people, I love helping
Speaker 1: people out. I'm able to combine those three things into
Speaker 1: something really meaningful for me on a day to day
Speaker 1: and I don't want to lose that, Like it's such
Speaker 1: a special thing to me. It's like this is constantly evolving,
Speaker 1: it's constantly growing, and you've seen Twitch evolve over the
Speaker 1: last five six years, Like God knows what's going to
Speaker 1: happen in the next five to six after this. I
Speaker 1: definitely think that there's life beyond streaming, and we want
Speaker 1: to help people think about that, but we also want
Speaker 1: to be able to build upon their business within Twitch
Speaker 1: as well. UM my goal is to keep people stuck
Speaker 1: on Twitch twenty four hours a day streaming. I want
Speaker 1: them to be able to have the life that they
Speaker 1: always want to have, but I also want them to
Speaker 1: be able to do that in a way that is
Speaker 1: enjoyable for them and for a lot of people. I
Speaker 1: do see people who experienced stream or burnout, but also
Speaker 1: see that they love streaming, like this is something that
Speaker 1: they genuinely enjoy doing. It's just about teaching them and
Speaker 1: empowering them to set the right boundaries. And that's something
Speaker 1: that everybody has to kind of figure out in their
Speaker 1: different type of footing, because everyone's got a differentackgroun, everyone's
Speaker 1: got a different type of lifestyle. So I see Twitch
Speaker 1: becoming a household name, see it becoming more mainstream than
Speaker 1: it has become. I see it becoming something that is
Speaker 1: a staple to to not only individuals, but even brands
Speaker 1: and organizations as a whole um, something that they embody
Speaker 1: and really really really embrace and represent on a day
Speaker 1: to day just like they do with other other content mediums.
Speaker 1: But beyond that, you know, we're we're thinking about the
Speaker 1: future and we're not. We're we're not leaving anytime since
Speaker 1: we're here to stay. What do you think that's Twitch
Speaker 1: apart from every other platform the heart and soul. You
Speaker 1: will not you will not find another company that hires
Speaker 1: people that day and day out like their dedication. What
Speaker 1: they do, what keeps them going is to like make
Speaker 1: the lives of not only the community but the streamers better.
Speaker 1: Like everybody that works at Twitch gives a funk about streamers.
Speaker 1: Everybody gives a funk about the community. Everyone gets a
Speaker 1: funk about making this the best place possible. That was
Speaker 1: true for me when it was employees. It's true for
Speaker 1: me now over a thousand employees. And I guarantee when
Speaker 1: it's ten thou whatever that number may be in the future,
Speaker 1: like it'll continue to be that. And usually when I'm
Speaker 1: interviewing people, I just nod because I have to just
Speaker 1: agree with what they're saying. I can firsthand tell you
Speaker 1: that that is true because I was there when Twitch
Speaker 1: first started and when big things happened, and everyone everyone
Speaker 1: who works at Twitch, and I think this is the
Speaker 1: community who's also streaming and watching it. There's this unique
Speaker 1: passion that is so genuine that you can't fake that.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why Twitch is only going to
Speaker 1: continue to get bigger, and the streamers are going to
Speaker 1: continue to get bigger, and the opportunities are as well.
Speaker 1: What do you think is a common misconception about streamers.
Speaker 1: I think people think that they make a ton of
Speaker 1: money off of playing hours of video game video games
Speaker 1: and and and that's it, and they go on and
Speaker 1: live a spalling life where they make it rain on themselves.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of work, it's a huge commitment. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people forget that being a creator
Speaker 1: in general, streamer for that matter, you're not just a creator.
Speaker 1: You you play multiple roles and some that are assumed
Speaker 1: and some that are not assumed based on how your
Speaker 1: community is, and a lot of people will turn into
Speaker 1: these communities to these individual streamers for multiple things. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they're having a bad day, they need a place to
Speaker 1: be able to just reset and and and and have
Speaker 1: a good laugh, or someone that they want to watch
Speaker 1: play high caliber gameplay because they really they really want
Speaker 1: to get better and there's an opportunity for them to
Speaker 1: be educated by that person. Everyone's got different reasons, and
Speaker 1: I think ultimately for streamers, they're really the ones that
Speaker 1: are wearing multiple hats. They're ultimately like their own little startup,
Speaker 1: and they don't really get the credit that they deserve.
Speaker 1: They really don't very well put. And there's a few
Speaker 1: just rapid fire questions that why kind of dug around
Speaker 1: for what people were interested to hear from you, And
Speaker 1: again you don't have to answer, but it would be
Speaker 1: cool if you did. Who's your favorite streamer? You know,
Speaker 1: this is like asking to pick a favorite child, but
Speaker 1: You've got to have a favorite streamer that you just
Speaker 1: either it's because you love the story or you actually
Speaker 1: just love watching this person. Yeah, I man, there's so
Speaker 1: many different stories. Like favorite, like big Dude right now
Speaker 1: stilly killing it. I would say Shroud. The reason why
Speaker 1: I say Shroud is when I first got hired a Twitch,
Speaker 1: Shroud was streaming Counterstrike um, and back then Counterstrike wasn't
Speaker 1: really that big of a game in the directory, and
Speaker 1: Shroud would legit like write me every two weeks telling
Speaker 1: me like why he deserves to be a partner and
Speaker 1: how he's like changing content on his channel to able
Speaker 1: to make him more engaging, to make it more fun um,
Speaker 1: and he would check in with me and it was
Speaker 1: like the cutest ever and I fucking love every bit
Speaker 1: of it. He he obviously he got partnership and he's
Speaker 1: killing it, but like look at him now, you know
Speaker 1: he's really made something for himself. And I love people
Speaker 1: that have like not only that to nasty, but that
Speaker 1: commitment to be better, to improve upon themselves. I love
Speaker 1: people like Tim and Tatman. Tim's also someone else that
Speaker 1: I partnered a while back, and Tim worked as a
Speaker 1: social worker before working or before streaming on Twitch, and
Speaker 1: I remember, I think it was like in February, February
Speaker 1: January he called me and I was like driving home
Speaker 1: from work and he was like, dude, I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it. I'm like, do what. He's like, I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna go full time. I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: quit my job. And here's a day in March that
Speaker 1: I'm planning on doing it. I'm kind of scared, but
Speaker 1: I think I'm just gonna go for it. Man, and
Speaker 1: he he hasn't looked back since, and he's been able
Speaker 1: to make something for himself too. In terms of current
Speaker 1: favorite streamer, I hate to do a shameless plug for him,
Speaker 1: but a buddy of mine from high school. His name
Speaker 1: is Joey Joey Cow. I think his channel name is
Speaker 1: Joey Chaotic. Shout out to Joey Chaotic. So Joey Joey
Speaker 1: is an amazing person. He's got a world of energy.
Speaker 1: He prior to streaming on Twitch, was working at Tiffin
Speaker 1: Coo making a ton of money just selling rings and
Speaker 1: jewelry to people, and he just wasn't getting the fi
Speaker 1: filment that he needed and he came over my house
Speaker 1: one night and we're just talking about streaming, and I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, like, you're a b boy. He breakdances,
Speaker 1: he travels around the world competing, like he's done law content.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why don't you just go out there and
Speaker 1: just do something on twitch for the funk of it?
Speaker 1: And within sixty days of him streaming for fun, he
Speaker 1: quit his job and like he's been able to make
Speaker 1: the full time living. Now he's living in Taiwan doing content.
Speaker 1: I think he's actually like back in the States right
Speaker 1: now this moment. But I would say my favorite guy
Speaker 1: currently at the moment would be my boy Joey. I
Speaker 1: love that. What is the one thing about streaming that
Speaker 1: you don't like that you wish you could just wave
Speaker 1: a magic wand and change? Um. I hate the perception,
Speaker 1: or despise the perception that if you're not a partner,
Speaker 1: you're not a good streamer. I really want to get
Speaker 1: rid of that. Do you think that because it's so
Speaker 1: hard to become a partner now? I do think that
Speaker 1: it discourages people to even stream in the first place.
Speaker 1: And do is that I would argue that the barrier
Speaker 1: to its partnership is actually much slower than what it
Speaker 1: used to be. I think it's more about the perception
Speaker 1: of Once you hit partner status, people assume that people
Speaker 1: are just gonna make your rein on you and that
Speaker 1: you're gonna make a fun ton of money and your set,
Speaker 1: and people look at partnership as a status and as
Speaker 1: an aspirational latter. I think attaining partnership is definitely a
Speaker 1: point that people should hit, and it should be something
Speaker 1: that they aspire to do. But there's much more in
Speaker 1: the progression beyond just hitting partnership, And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are missing us true being a partner
Speaker 1: as being a good streamer, and that's not true. You
Speaker 1: could have thirty five viewers, you can still be incredibly talented.
Speaker 1: You may not be qualified to be a partner at
Speaker 1: that moment, but you're still someone who is incredibly talented.
Speaker 1: You are a good streamer. And for people who aren't familiar,
Speaker 1: the biggest perk of being a partner is just very
Speaker 1: simply put, the opportunity to make money. Right, Yeah, now,
Speaker 1: there is there is monetization opportunities prior to partnership, Like
Speaker 1: we have an affiliate status, which is pretty easy attained
Speaker 1: as well. You only need three viewers, so that that
Speaker 1: allows you to do a lot of the similar features
Speaker 1: as you can with a partner, just having a partnership,
Speaker 1: having a partnership with which has a higher level of
Speaker 1: support not only from Twitch as a company as a whole,
Speaker 1: but also with the opportunities that come with it. But again,
Speaker 1: I don't want people misconstruing that as I'm a good streamer.
Speaker 1: I'm not a good streamer. Another perfect segue to round
Speaker 1: out this beautiful interview. What advice would you give someone,
Speaker 1: because Twitch can be a very intimidating place, what advice
Speaker 1: would you give someone who wants to dabble in streaming
Speaker 1: but they are scared shitless? What piece of advice do
Speaker 1: you give them to get them to do their very
Speaker 1: first stream. I would pick a piece of content or
Speaker 1: a game that they know for sure they'll enjoy, Have
Speaker 1: a friend or two watch, tune into a stream, and
Speaker 1: just have fun with it. Don't worry about what happens
Speaker 1: after the fact. If you're really worried about people saying me,
Speaker 1: ship to you like, have a friend moderate for you,
Speaker 1: in fact, maybe even high chat initially, just just so
Speaker 1: you're not really thinking about it. But get yourself in
Speaker 1: the most comfortable state as you can pick out a
Speaker 1: favorite game that you like to play, maybe have a
Speaker 1: friend play with you. Don't worry about all the wells,
Speaker 1: the bells and whistles of like having a cool set
Speaker 1: up in your camera set up and overlays and all ship.
Speaker 1: Just just do it. You wouldn't have fun. Do it,
Speaker 1: didn't have fun, and then one day you'll just be
Speaker 1: making millions just like that, Just like that. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for stopping by. I feel like I
Speaker 1: could talk to you for another Like every topic we
Speaker 1: touched on, I feel like has lots of players, so
Speaker 1: we had to kind of keep it high level, but
Speaker 1: hopefully everyone who listened got to understand the world of
Speaker 1: Twitch a little bit more, and also the partnership program
Speaker 1: and streaming. And you've got a lot on your plate.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have it. Yeah, it sounds for having
Speaker 1: it sounds like a really fun job. It is. It's
Speaker 1: a dream come true. And again like I'm humbled every
Speaker 1: day to be doing what I'm doing. So you're not
Speaker 1: leaving Twitch anytime soon here forever. I know. I want
Speaker 1: a job there too. Now hiring we are, Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk off air, all right, well, thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1: Hope you guys have learned a thing or two I
Speaker 1: su did. Yeah, we're going to talk to other people
Speaker 1: from Twitch as well, which I'm really excited about because
Speaker 1: the world of Twitch is just there's just a lot
Speaker 1: going on and it's really cool and you guys are
Speaker 1: disruptors in the best way possible and I think it's
Speaker 1: very very cool what you guys are doing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll howk on. Thank you, Thanks guys, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Tootles Behind Influences a production of I Heart Radio and
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