Speaker 1: Welcome to Behind the Influence, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and t DC Media. Hey, guys, welcome back to
Speaker 1: Behind the Influence. I'm Tatiana, and as you guys know,
Speaker 1: our entire series is all about talking to pioneers within
Speaker 1: their respective industries, whether it's gaming, streaming, YouTube, music, food, fashion, dance.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could go on if you have not
Speaker 1: had a chance to listen to every single episode, which
Speaker 1: I don't know what your excuses, but I thought it'd
Speaker 1: be a fun time in the middle of the season
Speaker 1: to kind of do a recap in the form of
Speaker 1: a mash up. What I'm thinking is, and if we
Speaker 1: don't like this, we don't ever have to do this again.
Speaker 1: But I was thinking, we go within each industry and
Speaker 1: we kind of highlight to you guys, the listeners, the
Speaker 1: big takeaways, the things that I thought were interesting within
Speaker 1: each episode. In the event that, again you didn't have
Speaker 1: the time to listen to the entire thing, We're going
Speaker 1: to start off with a topic in a world that
Speaker 1: is very near and dear to my heart, live streaming
Speaker 1: and also twitch and it's kind of the same world
Speaker 1: twitches near and dear in my heart because my husband
Speaker 1: was a CSO of the company for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and live streaming is something that I've been doing for
Speaker 1: a very long time, and I really love that whole world.
Speaker 1: I love how ron real it is, and I love
Speaker 1: the connectivity with people who are listening or watching. Those
Speaker 1: were actually some of the very first interviews I even
Speaker 1: started off with. I thought it'd be a cool way
Speaker 1: to kick off this little mash up series. And if
Speaker 1: you guys don't like it, I'm listening to your feedback.
Speaker 1: We don't have to do it ever again. I just
Speaker 1: thought it'd be a cool way for you guys to
Speaker 1: hear from different aspects within each world within one episode.
Speaker 1: For this first episode, we're going to cover the world
Speaker 1: of Twitch. Kevin Lynn is a co founder of Twitch,
Speaker 1: and so that's how really the idea started to come
Speaker 1: to be. And then we launched the brand in June
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven and Poke Maine is the number one
Speaker 1: most followed female streamer on Twitch. So I think the
Speaker 1: first step is just trying it out. Is something that's enjoyable,
Speaker 1: interacting with people, showcasing a gameplay. That's really how I
Speaker 1: did it. And then there's a Neil who is the
Speaker 1: director of partnerships at Twitch. It is a dream job
Speaker 1: and to be perfectly awesome at you like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: humbled to be in the every day doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoy this mash up. Let us
Speaker 1: know what you think without further ado the world of Twitch. Baby,
Speaker 1: if you haven't caught on by now, we're talking to
Speaker 1: Kevin Lynn. You guys may know him as one of
Speaker 1: the founders a small streaming company called Twitch. Without you,
Speaker 1: there'd be no doctor disrespect, there'd be no Ninja. I
Speaker 1: mean they're there'd be, but what would they be doing
Speaker 1: playing video games by themselves? Exactly? She has three point
Speaker 1: four million followers on Twitch. She has over eight one
Speaker 1: million views on Twitch. You have is this accurate? Almost
Speaker 1: twenty streamed on Twitch? I have no idea. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's actually a stat I always wish I
Speaker 1: knew a Neil is the head of strategic Partnerships at Twitch,
Speaker 1: a small, tiny, little company you may have heard of.
Speaker 1: You've seen Twitch evolved over the last five six years,
Speaker 1: Like God knows what's going to happen in the next
Speaker 1: five to six after this. Then on June eleven, June eleven,
Speaker 1: we launched Twitch TV. It was this old like heavy
Speaker 1: metal space theme logo with a little TV with a
Speaker 1: ghost in it that Jacob design Twitch a variety of stories,
Speaker 1: that's how we got there. But we were combing the
Speaker 1: Internet for pronounceable, single syllable domain names that were available
Speaker 1: for sale. So Bill who built chat and among many
Speaker 1: other things that at the company, Bill Morier, so he
Speaker 1: built this like domain crawler where he crawled all available
Speaker 1: domains that were like theoretically single syllable so roughly a
Speaker 1: vowel in the middle that seemed pronounceable, that were available
Speaker 1: for sale. And one of the first that popped on
Speaker 1: the list for all of us was art and it
Speaker 1: was available. We looked up on Urban Dictionary. It means
Speaker 1: like the supreme state of being awesome or something like that.
Speaker 1: So that seems okay right Then one day m it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, guys, if no one comes up with anything better,
Speaker 1: we're going to use Zarth. And that's when we're like, okay, scramble.
Speaker 1: So we're like figuring out all these other brands, and
Speaker 1: then the word Twitch comes up for like to me,
Speaker 1: when it popped into my head when we were talking
Speaker 1: about like, what do things gamers need to be good?
Speaker 1: And so it's like fast twitch muscles blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: but really that we're just kind of stuck in all
Speaker 1: of ourselves. Perfect. It was perfect. It was an empty
Speaker 1: vessel you could tell. You know, there's a story there
Speaker 1: about games, but it's just a word we liked. We
Speaker 1: bought Twitch dot tv. That's how it came to be.
Speaker 1: That's how it started, and we designed and Jacob designed
Speaker 1: the logo, and then one year later two launched the
Speaker 1: new logo that you see today. That that that that
Speaker 1: that more retro homage logo. It looks like Amazon has
Speaker 1: purchased game streaming company Twitch dot tv for close to
Speaker 1: one billion dollars. You have a lot of fans, you
Speaker 1: have all these people watching you. You are doing this
Speaker 1: five days a week as your career. How does one
Speaker 1: get here? Well, interestingly enough, when I first started, I
Speaker 1: never ever thought it would be this, And I feel
Speaker 1: like everyone says that, and I kind of think that
Speaker 1: that's a key aspect to becoming a good streamer is
Speaker 1: when you start, it's genuinely just something that you enjoy,
Speaker 1: that you would be happy to do as a hobby.
Speaker 1: I think I sometimes see people get into it and
Speaker 1: they're like, I want to make money, I want to
Speaker 1: hit these mothstones, I want to hit these goals. And
Speaker 1: if you're doing it with that in mind, as opposed
Speaker 1: to this is an activity that I like. For example,
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to find like an Olympian runner
Speaker 1: that just hates running out right right. So I think
Speaker 1: the first step is just trying it out as something
Speaker 1: that's enjoyable, in tracting with people showcasing your gameplay. That's
Speaker 1: really how I did it. Twitch is hands down one
Speaker 1: of the most successful companies out there. When you think
Speaker 1: back to how you landed the role, what were the
Speaker 1: steps that you took in your own Because you got
Speaker 1: the job when you were fairly young, So did you
Speaker 1: have a background in streaming or were you just a
Speaker 1: gamer who found out about this platform because you were
Speaker 1: using it and you're like, I'm going to apply for
Speaker 1: a job there. How did you land there? And I
Speaker 1: don't even know where to begin. I'll give you the
Speaker 1: condensed versional, at least what I would as seem to
Speaker 1: be the most condensed version. When I was younger, I
Speaker 1: actually competed in gaming when I was like fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: I played a game called Counterstrike. Never heard of him.
Speaker 1: It's a just kidding. Colin plays it all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. It almost caused multiple divorces. But let's
Speaker 1: this isn't about me. We could talk about that off
Speaker 1: the record. But I played a ship ton of counter
Speaker 1: Strike when I was in high school. Actually funny story.
Speaker 1: So my mom and I 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 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, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go get a three thousand dollar computer. That's fine,
Speaker 1: He's not going out anymore. So I got into programing,
Speaker 1: and I was doing for about a year. It really sucked.
Speaker 1: That wasn't good. Why did you get into programing because
Speaker 1: back then I don't even think it was It was
Speaker 1: like it was like a cool thing. It was like
Speaker 1: an underground community, you know, like there's websites. I got fragged.
Speaker 1: You can go into that like shared scores 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 in like Sweden, and you would
Speaker 1: hear about like the World Cyber Games, and that was
Speaker 1: like the pinnacle of like events. You know. Nowadays we
Speaker 1: got a ton of events going on on like on
Speaker 1: a monthly basis. Back then you only had one or
Speaker 1: two worldwide. I did it for about a year and
Speaker 1: I realized, look, my grades are failing. I'm not doing well.
Speaker 1: I need to grow up. I need to like focus
Speaker 1: on what teenagers care about, which is like going to
Speaker 1: school and getting a job and meeting a girl and
Speaker 1: all this other teenage ship. I end up going into
Speaker 1: school for premed I did that for like three years,
Speaker 1: and my mom and dad had to sit down with
Speaker 1: me with my brothers, and we're like, would you really
Speaker 1: want to do? And I'm like, I want to go
Speaker 1: become a doctor. And they're like, no, you don't. We
Speaker 1: know you don't want to be a doctor, we know
Speaker 1: you hate it. What do you really want to do?
Speaker 1: And that was like my breakthrough moment of like being
Speaker 1: very honest with myself. What good parents? I feel like
Speaker 1: the majority would be doing the polar opposite, especially in
Speaker 1: a space that your parents probably were not familiar with
Speaker 1: and did not understand. They didn't and they totally had
Speaker 1: to read on me, like they knew me inside and out.
Speaker 1: So I think it was like their own intuition. They
Speaker 1: knew that I wasn't happy doing what I was doing
Speaker 1: or trying to pursue what I what I thought I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. Anyways, that caused me to like Dill back.
Speaker 1: And coincidentally, at the same time, StarCraft two, which the
Speaker 1: franchise was like everything to me, was getting announced, and
Speaker 1: so I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: back into playing some video games when we play StarCraft two,
Speaker 1: and I really wanted to get good at the game.
Speaker 1: So I went on YouTube and I started watching like sutorials,
Speaker 1: and I found Justin TV, which was like the sister
Speaker 1: company of Twitch back in the day, and t like
Speaker 1: when I tell you, like I was an avid viewer,
Speaker 1: Like I was on that ship all day. Really, I
Speaker 1: was up until like five six am watching like the
Speaker 1: Career in like Stark Half League, which was like going
Speaker 1: on from like one am all way to like five
Speaker 1: am every fucking night. And then I would roll into
Speaker 1: class like half a week. But I did that, and
Speaker 1: I loved it. You were a part of Social Cam
Speaker 1: and Justin TV and all the stuff for years. Two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, I just moved to San Francisco Justin
Speaker 1: and Emmett after graduation. They graduate two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: They had built a calendar company. They sold it on eBay.
Speaker 1: They saw their company on eBay, packed up their stuff,
Speaker 1: drove across the country with Michael. Michael was working for
Speaker 1: Quasium Fume raising money for a Senate campaign in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: They kept in touch, they got together, drove, drove across
Speaker 1: the country, and I was house sitting from my old boss,
Speaker 1: So invite him over for a barbecue, hanging out in
Speaker 1: the hot tub, and and Justin's like, we got this
Speaker 1: idea for a business. I was like, okay, what we're
Speaker 1: gonna stream my life? Seven? And could you imagine one
Speaker 1: of your friends being like, I have this genius idea.
Speaker 1: You guys are gonna stream my life? Yeah? Yeah no,
Speaker 1: And it's just like you know, you look, I'm just
Speaker 1: like sitting there like, you know, I really like you guys,
Speaker 1: And it's awesome, really happier moving to San Franci les Go.
Speaker 1: And I really don't want to discourage you or offer
Speaker 1: anything that might prevent you from starting your dream, but
Speaker 1: that idea is really kind of the worst, and like
Speaker 1: why would you do this to yourself? And they explained it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, cool. Well, you know like
Speaker 1: they had they raised they were raising money from angels
Speaker 1: and a lot. They already had this idea in motion.
Speaker 1: They were already starting to talk to people about it,
Speaker 1: and and I was like, okay, cool, Like let me
Speaker 1: know if I can help you know, like I I
Speaker 1: is this a hot tub conversation? Was one of the
Speaker 1: hot tub and barbecue conversation. Okay, so let's just let's
Speaker 1: pretend everyone's in the hot tub. So it's justin Cohn,
Speaker 1: emateur Michael Cibo and Kevin Lynn and they were like,
Speaker 1: I think a couple of other people, but I was
Speaker 1: so zoned in on this conversation, just thinking through, like
Speaker 1: what in blaze, what could this act? So Justin's pitching
Speaker 1: you in the hot tub? Yeah, totally, this is this
Speaker 1: is the pitching this genius idea. He's already spoken to
Speaker 1: angel investors, so it's not like he's like brewing the
Speaker 1: idea and running and already tested it. He tested testing
Speaker 1: it with many people and people are like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: give you money for that. And you gotta remember, like
Speaker 1: in in like the early two thousand's, there was all
Speaker 1: kinds of weird experimental stuff that was happening in live video.
Speaker 1: I actually had like just a laptop and really bad internet,
Speaker 1: and I had to beg my parents to upgrade the
Speaker 1: internet so it was like streamable Internet. And I saved
Speaker 1: up a bunch of money to buy a secondhand, custom
Speaker 1: built PC off of Kijigi, which is like Canadian craigslist.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I bought this PC. This was my senior
Speaker 1: year of high school, so about six years ago. Now.
Speaker 1: Really didn't like Envision much for it. I just thought
Speaker 1: it was really fun to have people like come into
Speaker 1: my channel and I talked to them and they respond
Speaker 1: and create this connection. I kept streaming. Two years into it, well,
Speaker 1: I ended up going to university because in my mind
Speaker 1: it was always like very ingrained in me from my parents,
Speaker 1: like you go to school, you get your degree, maybe
Speaker 1: you do post grad or you become a doctor. I
Speaker 1: don't know very much one of those households. So I
Speaker 1: went to study chemical engineering at McMaster University and two
Speaker 1: years into that, one month I made like a substantial
Speaker 1: amount of money. And when I say substantial, I mean
Speaker 1: like when you're a college kid and you're like at
Speaker 1: least twenty thousand dollars in debt and you make like
Speaker 1: five to ten k in a month off of like
Speaker 1: sponsorships or subscriptions or donations, you're like, holy do I
Speaker 1: store on this? Holy shit? And so they're like, go
Speaker 1: be an engineer, but don't do it. We did. Don't
Speaker 1: teach after go get a job, Go get a real job,
Speaker 1: but learn engineering is really important, and ideally go be
Speaker 1: a doctor. That was was pre med track, had it
Speaker 1: all figured out. Yeah, that was that was the plan.
Speaker 1: And then I took this a class called EB one
Speaker 1: oh one, which was the Diversity of Life with his
Speaker 1: teacher named Leo Busts, who was this like awesome ecologist
Speaker 1: guy and loved it, and I was like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to switch to ecology and evolutionary apology as my major.
Speaker 1: There was like the first rift I had with my
Speaker 1: parents were like, no paying for school, you are going
Speaker 1: to study engineering. Meanwhile, we're playing a bunch of video
Speaker 1: games in the office. A street Fighter was like kind
Speaker 1: of one of those always on games like this just
Speaker 1: droning Street Fighter background music that was always on in
Speaker 1: the office. Then one day StarCraft to Beta comes out.
Speaker 1: This was in May, intent somehow we got access to
Speaker 1: it and we were already thinking about games. But then
Speaker 1: this game comes out, we get it and we were
Speaker 1: playing it NonStop and we're watching We realized that we're
Speaker 1: going home and watching videos on YouTube trying to get
Speaker 1: better learning, and we're like, huh, this should be live,
Speaker 1: Like why would this not be live? And sure enough
Speaker 1: we had a We had a small community of gamers
Speaker 1: back in the day. This was like Kaiba four player podcast.
Speaker 1: You stream had a bunch of Lord Cat and so on,
Speaker 1: and so there was there was a small community of
Speaker 1: game streamers on a variety of platforms, and so we
Speaker 1: started reaching out what can we build for you? And
Speaker 1: a lot of people that we reached out to in
Speaker 1: the beginning that we eventually like eventually worked with us
Speaker 1: or became a partner were like, you guys are terrible,
Speaker 1: we hate you. Don't TV brand sucks, like go away,
Speaker 1: and like no, no, please, like let us ask you
Speaker 1: some questions and we promise we'll go away, but we
Speaker 1: might build some stuff for you. We'll let you know that.
Speaker 1: Just continue to to sort of positively spiral more conversations,
Speaker 1: more feature development. We branched out the subdomain called JTV
Speaker 1: gaming and that became like the home. That was one
Speaker 1: of the big pieces of feedback we got. Was the
Speaker 1: first one being we got to figure out how to
Speaker 1: make money. Then there all these technical features like transcoding,
Speaker 1: high quality, blah blah blah, all these important things that
Speaker 1: we had to build very quickly. But the big thing
Speaker 1: was they were like, we want a home. We want
Speaker 1: a place where we can go and hang out with
Speaker 1: other gamers, not all this other weird stuff, not all
Speaker 1: this noise. We want a home for gamers. And so
Speaker 1: that's how really the idea started to come to be.
Speaker 1: We were toying with it as justin t JTV Gaming.
Speaker 1: We didn't launch as that. We just did it. We built,
Speaker 1: just built up brand, but we didn't really make noise
Speaker 1: about it. Then on June eleven, June eleven, we launched
Speaker 1: Twitch tv. And so to me on the periphery, I
Speaker 1: just saw Justin popping up on like Today's show on
Speaker 1: the front page of the s F Chronicle, like doing
Speaker 1: all this stuff, kind of doing it, like becoming this
Speaker 1: internet celebrity by streaming himself to me for something. And
Speaker 1: it's just like that's so wild because I tune in
Speaker 1: and I'm like, this is the most boring shit ever,
Speaker 1: And you're just sitting there just like looking at this laptop,
Speaker 1: like why do people watch this? But it was for
Speaker 1: these moments, all of a sudden something would happen and
Speaker 1: that was enough. Like one day they bumped into Dave
Speaker 1: Chappelle and that was a big deal, right, So it
Speaker 1: was cool to start see to start to see like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I see that people will tune in to wait for
Speaker 1: these things. But guess what they weren't just doing that.
Speaker 1: They were talking with each other. They're talking to Justin,
Speaker 1: Justin's responding to them and chat So it's actually not
Speaker 1: as boring as as if you diggle just one tiny
Speaker 1: little bit layer deeper. People were just hanging out and
Speaker 1: that was that was what I finally realized, was like this,
Speaker 1: this power of this platform that they were building was
Speaker 1: it's a way for people just to hang out with
Speaker 1: other people when they're alone or with other people, but
Speaker 1: mostly for when you're alone. You know, you when you're
Speaker 1: walking around somewhere, you're doing your errands or whatever. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be nice if you could just chat with somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't have somebody to be there
Speaker 1: with you. So that that's that's when we started to resonate.
Speaker 1: But that was you know, it really was like it
Speaker 1: was just crazy to see. Yeah. So Kevin Lynn, who
Speaker 1: was one of the founders actually is one of my
Speaker 1: good friends, and we interviewed him for this show, and
Speaker 1: he was saying, when they initially launched Justin TV, which
Speaker 1: was prior to Twitch, people were just in there because
Speaker 1: they were lonely and they just wanted interaction with other
Speaker 1: people and being and they were just watching Justin do
Speaker 1: day to day things. But ironically they were alone, but
Speaker 1: they weren't alone because they call it your community right
Speaker 1: on Twitch, it's a community. What would you say your
Speaker 1: community is made up of? So for me, interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: I think it's highly dependent on the game that I play,
Speaker 1: and I can tell by the way that my chat changes,
Speaker 1: Like if I play something like Fortnite or Minecraft, I
Speaker 1: know the audience use younger. I know if I play
Speaker 1: like League or do Ira all content like in person
Speaker 1: or walk around or travel, then it's really just about anybody.
Speaker 1: League is definitely like young adults. So, like you can
Speaker 1: tell by the way your chat behaves, the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that people are saying, typically what the demo is like.
Speaker 1: I like to think that I think I have more
Speaker 1: female viewers than most people. I think that's very normal though,
Speaker 1: because you know, when you watch content, it's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to relate to someone who's of the same gender
Speaker 1: as you. I think it's pretty wide because I can
Speaker 1: kind of tap into different demos by playing different games,
Speaker 1: which is really cool. I loved every bit of it.
Speaker 1: And what was it? What was it about that that
Speaker 1: hooked you? Was it you were trying to learn? Was
Speaker 1: it a learning experience? Was it you were just the
Speaker 1: voyeuristic element of it, which I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are drawn to that. Imagine picking up a new
Speaker 1: hobby that doesn't really have much of a culture, much
Speaker 1: of 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 actually take away on a day to
Speaker 1: day something you can learn from. And for me that
Speaker 1: was justin TV and watching like these Korean leagues at
Speaker 1: the time. Plus you're interacting with other people in chat,
Speaker 1: so there'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 every thing I told myself,
Speaker 1: I'm like, one way or another, I'm gonna find a
Speaker 1: way to get a job here anyway. So a lot
Speaker 1: of people were experimenting with like you know now, with
Speaker 1: the with the with the promise of the internet, like
Speaker 1: the ability to just do whatever you want and demonstrate
Speaker 1: that to whoever feels like watching you was tested a
Speaker 1: lot before that, but the technology wasn't there, the infrastructure
Speaker 1: wasn't there. So the timing window around when they decided
Speaker 1: to start streaming and walking around San Francisco's two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, it was still e v D. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: if you're lucky bits per second, So it's still choppy video,
Speaker 1: low quality. Um. But really they actually did this show
Speaker 1: for a while. Justin streamed himself sleeping to waking up
Speaker 1: and getting ready, going to the bathroom, sitting and working,
Speaker 1: walking around San Francis. Are you involved at this point
Speaker 1: or I'm like on the periphery, I'm still I had
Speaker 1: just you know, I moved in two thousand six in
Speaker 1: San Francisco, so I didn't want to. You know, they
Speaker 1: didn't ask me too, because I was frankly would have
Speaker 1: been completely useless to them, questionable if I was ever
Speaker 1: actually full to them. Um. But anyway, I was delivering
Speaker 1: beverages and I was like, oh, I want to help
Speaker 1: these guys, and so I go to there like that.
Speaker 1: You know. Michael was originally the producer. His title was
Speaker 1: a producer just In with CEO and Michael would cook
Speaker 1: for everybody every day, cooking all these delicious meals. He
Speaker 1: loves cooking. But he what he was doing was really
Speaker 1: gathering people around what they were up to, and so
Speaker 1: friends from dropbox, Airbnb like at the time, all would
Speaker 1: just come hang out over dinners the Bay Area is
Speaker 1: not a very big hut for gaming like l A is.
Speaker 1: But the Bay wasn't any opportunity that there was an
Speaker 1: event like I volunteered. I spent some time throwing my
Speaker 1: own money into it, and then I got a job
Speaker 1: at Zinga, and that was like my big break because
Speaker 1: I was like my first step into the gaming industry.
Speaker 1: And that is not necessarily the Pinnacle, like they're not
Speaker 1: like a true like hardcore game company, but it was
Speaker 1: in the gaming industry and I met a lot of
Speaker 1: talented people there, made made a lot of friends, and
Speaker 1: I used actually my salary at Zinga to bootstrap my
Speaker 1: own StarCraft team and it was great. I loved every
Speaker 1: minute of it. And anyways, over time, about a year
Speaker 1: of doing that while working at single uh, the right
Speaker 1: opportunity locked on my door Twitch and that interview process
Speaker 1: took like three months. It was at this point was
Speaker 1: it already Twitch? It was already Twitch. It was about
Speaker 1: a year into it, which was already kind of like
Speaker 1: a formed company. When you heard about Twitch for the
Speaker 1: 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 me,
Speaker 1: I would say Twitch had a really cool, like gothic,
Speaker 1: like nerdy like steampunk. Looked at it back then, and
Speaker 1: then like six months in or I think it was
Speaker 1: about a year after, they like reframed it into this
Speaker 1: whole purple company, which I absolutely loved because purposes the
Speaker 1: Pemp color. You know, it's dope, Like you were saying,
Speaker 1: back then, there weren't household names like Ninja making millions
Speaker 1: of dollars where your parents not even close, where your
Speaker 1: parents could point to a case study and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not completely out of the question that
Speaker 1: Pokey could make a live or your name was not
Speaker 1: poke at that time, that that Iman could make that
Speaker 1: much money and survive and make this a way of
Speaker 1: life basically, so there was no case point proving that
Speaker 1: this was an actual reality. You were just kind of
Speaker 1: trying to convince some based off of nothing exactly, especially
Speaker 1: because I mean, at least there's YouTube, and most people
Speaker 1: know about YouTube, but live streaming even nowadays is still
Speaker 1: relatively new and three or four years ago even more so,
Speaker 1: like they didn't even really understand what it was, like,
Speaker 1: is it a video? Is it not? Who are these
Speaker 1: people texting you? You know? So I'm very very grateful
Speaker 1: that they trusted me enough to take that chance. So yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so talk me through that first year. You have a
Speaker 1: one year timeline. The pressure is on. Right at this point,
Speaker 1: you open a Twitch account. I'm assuming this is was
Speaker 1: it on Twitch you're streaming or somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've always streamed on Twitch the last six years. So
Speaker 1: basically I started senior year of high school and then
Speaker 1: two years into that, so for years ago I decided
Speaker 1: to go full time got it. Yeah, and that was
Speaker 1: two years into my university degree. So at that point
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I need to really give this
Speaker 1: a full shot. And I come from Canada, that's where
Speaker 1: I grew up, and I basically decided to momentarily move
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles because that's basically where the sports hub is,
Speaker 1: That's where all the sports players are, that's where a
Speaker 1: lot of live streamers are, that's really where any event
Speaker 1: in relation to gaming or e sports is typically held.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I need to be here or
Speaker 1: at least try it out and see how I feel
Speaker 1: about it. It was a shifting culture. I think gaming
Speaker 1: has always had the stigma from I guess pop culture
Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, you're some kid that lives
Speaker 1: in the basement eating hot pockets, so the whole South
Speaker 1: Park reference, you know, the wild reference for your sit
Speaker 1: at home living in a basement eting hot pockets, ship
Speaker 1: like that. So for me, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I've been very passionate was like moving away from that
Speaker 1: stigma and really kind of unveiling the mask behind the
Speaker 1: community and showing like, yo, these are just people like
Speaker 1: everybody else. These are sucking, awesome people, are talented people,
Speaker 1: they're cool people, and they're just like you and I.
Speaker 1: They're not any different. And it's weird to say that.
Speaker 1: Like gamers have always has this label of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a gamer, so thus you're this type of person.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, I'm not. Anyone's a gamer. What I
Speaker 1: loved about is that a lot of people who in
Speaker 1: the past would be quite about being a gamer, closet gamers,
Speaker 1: if you may start to come out and realize like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's actually cool for me to share this information with you.
Speaker 1: It's like, I love fucking video games. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, check out my entire collection. Weren't really a
Speaker 1: parent or really present in social media before, and now
Speaker 1: they are, and it's starting to become a more of
Speaker 1: a widespread thing amongst culture. The families that you've built
Speaker 1: will open any door that you want, So you do
Speaker 1: have this influence. And if you want to do a
Speaker 1: makeup line, one day, you're gonna do a makeup line
Speaker 1: and it's going to do really well. And if you
Speaker 1: want to sing, it's It's not just streaming. I mean,
Speaker 1: think of YouTubers and think of the Internet in general.
Speaker 1: It allows you to just reach such an insane amount
Speaker 1: of people and it really helps you recognize that however
Speaker 1: unique or particular you may feel, there were people that
Speaker 1: will love that about you, and people that will want
Speaker 1: to be part of your community. You just you know,
Speaker 1: have to reach wider and water. What were you at
Speaker 1: that point thinking about just people's use of the internet.
Speaker 1: It was that was that opening your mind up to
Speaker 1: other possibilities and inspiring other things that you thought this
Speaker 1: could be much bigger than any of us could imagine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, I mean we were you know, we started
Speaker 1: thinking about different ways to use the platform. YouTube was
Speaker 1: skyrocketing then and then eventually got acquired UM and became
Speaker 1: this like level of aspiration for us right Instagram, same
Speaker 1: timing UM. And around two eight that's YouTube was doing
Speaker 1: partner programs. So were you guys seeing the partner programs
Speaker 1: that YouTube and thinking maybe we should be doing a
Speaker 1: partner program Yes, for sure. We didn't really do partnerships
Speaker 1: actually in the very beginning, we just we were it
Speaker 1: was moving too fast and we were too small of
Speaker 1: a team. But we in so two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: the recession hits. I think that was one of those
Speaker 1: you know, it was hard, but was one of the
Speaker 1: most important things we that that could happen to the company,
Speaker 1: which was realized we had to figure out how to
Speaker 1: monetize because our costs were starting to get out of
Speaker 1: control because the traffic was going so quickly and it's
Speaker 1: global traffic and certain countries are just way more expensive
Speaker 1: to deliver continent too. But we're starting to spend you know,
Speaker 1: in theory we could get very quickly to millions of
Speaker 1: dollars of costs per month and we hadn't raised that
Speaker 1: much money. And meanwhile, our competitor, you stream, where Colin
Speaker 1: was at Yes, I was going to say to you,
Speaker 1: what what point does you stream enter the picture, because
Speaker 1: you guys were first. Yeah, the timing was pretty close.
Speaker 1: We so we raised some money in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine and two trenches, but we
Speaker 1: had only raised I think it was about twelve million total.
Speaker 1: Then you stream goes out and raises sixty million dollars
Speaker 1: and moves actually their office to a vantage point of ours,
Speaker 1: like a really nice new building that literally looked onto
Speaker 1: our shitty barn door, and we're like, okay, like what
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? So we started just reaching out,
Speaker 1: going going to events, networking in the ad world, and
Speaker 1: we figured out between thou nine how to make money
Speaker 1: and we've actually became profitable. So with the streamers, because
Speaker 1: you work with them so closely, I do want to
Speaker 1: talk about without getting 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: victors like running advertisements in the stream, selling subscriptions, which
Speaker 1: is affective, like people pledging to you on a monthly basis,
Speaker 1: and exchange for stuff like custom e moticons, a cool badge.
Speaker 1: And beyond that, we we we have plenty of other vectors.
Speaker 1: We've we've launched a digital good called bits that you
Speaker 1: can earn both by purchasing and also by watching advertisements.
Speaker 1: You know, there's merchandise or sponsorships. I could go on
Speaker 1: and on in terms of the first party, but what
Speaker 1: has really become a big phenomenon is the sense of acknowledgement.
Speaker 1: And you look at people who subscribe to channels. We've
Speaker 1: actually built in first party tooling for people to be
Speaker 1: recognized for that for the support. So if you were
Speaker 1: to subscribe to my channel, you're paying me five bucks
Speaker 1: to to to to to support me. That gets recognized
Speaker 1: not only in my channel, but if I have overlaid
Speaker 1: on my stream, I can kind of customize that experience
Speaker 1: based on how I want. I can make it a big,
Speaker 1: you know, big party. I can make it something really well,
Speaker 1: or I can have it just be something that possible
Speaker 1: to stream, and I can technology recognize you and thank
Speaker 1: you for that personally. And for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: that's free fulfilling and that's something that they kind of
Speaker 1: get addicted to in terms of behavior. And you think
Speaker 1: about that experience and you think about stuff like tipping
Speaker 1: tipping his third party. People do that through vectors like PayPal,
Speaker 1: and through that they can also added messages and usually
Speaker 1: some people will do stuff like Texas speech, so they'll
Speaker 1: put a message, it will read it out loud back
Speaker 1: to the streamer as they're streaming, and they can respond
Speaker 1: back to it live on stream. Or maybe sometimes people
Speaker 1: will be really shitty and troll and see something inappropriate,
Speaker 1: but it's still read out loud, and people do it
Speaker 1: for the ships and giggles. Going back to earlier days
Speaker 1: and even today, do you feel like in a sense
Speaker 1: that sometimes you're almost like a casting director, you know,
Speaker 1: early on I felt like that. I think the scene
Speaker 1: has evolved quite a lot in the last year, UM
Speaker 1: for the better, because before they're applying and they're like
Speaker 1: telling you why they should be a partner? Is it
Speaker 1: like now, how do people now apply to be a partner?
Speaker 1: So the vector now is we have an internal system
Speaker 1: that's kind of automated half of the trouble of like applying.
Speaker 1: So what you gotta do now is actually qualify for
Speaker 1: the metrics through what we have in our dashboards like
Speaker 1: Twitch achievements. So you have to attain seventy years for
Speaker 1: about two to three weeks, so that you're maintaining consistency,
Speaker 1: and has to be raw numbers, so like you can't
Speaker 1: have that from people hosting you, from people are reading.
Speaker 1: It has to be numbers that you have been able
Speaker 1: to attain and retain on your own over over the
Speaker 1: two weeks two to three week period. So for those people,
Speaker 1: once they've done that and once they've met a few
Speaker 1: other criteria, they actually get a little button that allows
Speaker 1: UM to apply the wants. They apply the same exact
Speaker 1: flow as how it is from the past, which it's
Speaker 1: like they have to tell us about themselves. But now
Speaker 1: we've been able to reduce the vall with people who
Speaker 1: are getting zero viewers, are just applying for the sake
Speaker 1: of applying, and we're able to get in people who
Speaker 1: are actually qualified. And it's a guided experience, so people
Speaker 1: that aren't qualified, they'll understand why they're not qualified. They'll
Speaker 1: be let's see what metrics you really need to attain
Speaker 1: to get to that point back, and they didn't have that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it would take us weeks on end to get
Speaker 1: back to you because of the volume of applications being
Speaker 1: so high. But now we've been able to cut that
Speaker 1: back and being able to keep it focus on quality
Speaker 1: over quantity. We have had celebrities reschedule interviews on this
Speaker 1: show because they're burnt out, they just went back to
Speaker 1: back on tour, or you know, they've been shooting for
Speaker 1: thirty days straight with no break. I imagine that the
Speaker 1: world of streaming is very similar, if not more intense,
Speaker 1: because you have all this pressure to put in. Like
Speaker 1: you said, consistency is really key. How much is too much?
Speaker 1: And is streaming burnout real? And do you step in
Speaker 1: and intervene as somebody who works on the partners side,
Speaker 1: for sure, I definitely acknowledge it as a real thing.
Speaker 1: And I think burnout comes in different shapes and forms.
Speaker 1: That could be traveling too much for for for different obligations.
Speaker 1: It could be streaming too many hours. It could be
Speaker 1: getting to hyper focus on one particular game. I mean,
Speaker 1: burnard comes in different shapes and forms of different variations overall,
Speaker 1: I think to to to answer your question, yeah, we
Speaker 1: 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'mnderstanding where they're coming from, and try to ultimately understand
Speaker 1: what we can 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 burnout because it just becomeing more apparent
Speaker 1: in situations like the Drake and 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 subscriptions.
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 subscriptions in terms of the
Speaker 1: run numbers if you're looking at from a rosstandpoint, like inevitably, yes,
Speaker 1: it will. I think the issue is we need to
Speaker 1: do a better job on our end in terms of
Speaker 1: how we're presenting those numbers to you so you can
Speaker 1: better understand what are those changes, because naturally people do
Speaker 1: lose subscriptions on the day to day, even if they
Speaker 1: are streaming, people do churn just because their subscriptions expire.
Speaker 1: Some people said to not renew. They confuse that with
Speaker 1: the days that they take off from streaming, as people
Speaker 1: are unsubscribing to them or they're losing subscribers inevitably, Like
Speaker 1: anytime we take off, yes, you're losing traffic your channel,
Speaker 1: but we are trying to get creative with how we
Speaker 1: resurface content in your channel and also how we alive
Speaker 1: at that anxiety because ultimately that's my biggest pain point
Speaker 1: right now is like I hate seeing people. I feel
Speaker 1: like they have to be on behind a stream at
Speaker 1: all times. They have to produce content because if they don't,
Speaker 1: they lose momentum. It's a really shitty feeling because it
Speaker 1: really start saying your fear with their personal life, and
Speaker 1: how do you get out. You cannot get off the
Speaker 1: hamster wheel. There's just it's it's there's too much at stake.
Speaker 1: But I really think it's just about planning your time
Speaker 1: ahead of time so that you can say I'm blocking
Speaker 1: off these hours to stream. I can schedule this dinner
Speaker 1: and at this time if I want to do a breakfast,
Speaker 1: I'll just push my stream back and making sure that
Speaker 1: you're at least putting in the effort to fit those
Speaker 1: things in. Otherwise, if you just continue with your schedule
Speaker 1: and never plan for anything else, or really avoid being
Speaker 1: flexible in any way, you'll miss out on a lot
Speaker 1: of like really good opportunities to build relationship ups or
Speaker 1: put effort into your friendships. And that's really important. There
Speaker 1: was actually a clip recently of a live streamer talking
Speaker 1: about this, and he said something along the lines of
Speaker 1: I grinded for many, many years. I'm really glad that
Speaker 1: I kind of made it to the top of streaming,
Speaker 1: but I've had to make a lot of sacrifices. I
Speaker 1: basically don't have any friends or relationships or anything that sort.
Speaker 1: It was a very very slip. Yeah, it's always something
Speaker 1: that I wanted to kind of preach to all streamers
Speaker 1: because it's very very easy to get lost in the
Speaker 1: numbers and get stuck on like when is the optimal
Speaker 1: time to stream. I have to be consistent, I have
Speaker 1: to do this, I have to do that. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you have one life, and
Speaker 1: friendships and relationships are such an essential part of that
Speaker 1: your career can't be everything, especially on Twitch, because it's
Speaker 1: very volatile and sometimes for reasons outside of your control,
Speaker 1: so you have to make sure your happiness is tied
Speaker 1: to other things. I really hope for him and for
Speaker 1: any other people that are maybe very were consensive, they
Speaker 1: learned how to fit in friendships and relationships and manage
Speaker 1: their time. The shitty thing about the Internet really is
Speaker 1: that you can you can hide behind the screen and
Speaker 1: be whoever the fun you want to be. You could
Speaker 1: be a dick, you could be an asshole, it could
Speaker 1: be a racist, and a lot of people think 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 the other like microcossing 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 automatical list. Maybe you don't have
Speaker 1: moderais your channel. We have an automoti feature, so and
Speaker 1: you can dial that from like a one to four
Speaker 1: and 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, and so from a general perspective,
Speaker 1: there's definitely a ton of education, there's product features, but
Speaker 1: um when it comes to working with partner streamers, there's
Speaker 1: a lot more involvement. There's a lot more proactive empowerment.
Speaker 1: We do a lot of coaching and education around it.
Speaker 1: It's a cat and mouse game, toxic people are always
Speaker 1: looking for new vectors to be able to kind of
Speaker 1: attack your stream and funk with you. And I think
Speaker 1: it's it's going to continue to be an evolving, iterating
Speaker 1: game where we have to improve upon and and basically
Speaker 1: do more to to tech, not only our streamers, about
Speaker 1: our entire community. I think that with any kind of change,
Speaker 1: people are always gonna be resistant to it, and people
Speaker 1: act on different ways. It kind of goes back to
Speaker 1: what I'm saying earlier. When you're on the Internet, people
Speaker 1: people act however they feel like acting. They might want
Speaker 1: to be a ship head one day, they might be
Speaker 1: cool about another day. But would change, especially in anything
Speaker 1: on the Internet, like people always react negatively to it,
Speaker 1: even if it is for the betterment of of everybody.
Speaker 1: We're not trying to change the platform. What we're looking
Speaker 1: at is adjacent content, right, it's a very 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 gonna 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 sels
Speaker 1: available for you to do, but our core focus is gaming.
Speaker 1: There are gonna be people who are gonna be resistant
Speaker 1: to that. That's perfectly fine. I think you're going to
Speaker 1: find that everywhere. For us, it's really just about making
Speaker 1: sure that we have the most welcoming community, most welcoming platform.
Speaker 1: People feel like it's a safe place for them to
Speaker 1: be themselves. How do you work work life balance? Because
Speaker 1: I look at your community of people, everyone's asking for
Speaker 1: a meeting with you. Everyone wants to see you. You're
Speaker 1: in l A now. I keep looking at the clock
Speaker 1: because I have anxiety, and I'm like, he's in l
Speaker 1: A for two days. I bet you he has five
Speaker 1: people to meet with. It's not easy I mean, I
Speaker 1: I think I I text a lot. Textas like a
Speaker 1: good good way to keep in touch, asked quick questions
Speaker 1: and so on, particularly for like startups that need help,
Speaker 1: like those text me stof just text me that. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, I do feel bad. I feel bad
Speaker 1: a lot. Like there's a lot of people I lost
Speaker 1: touch with, you know, in the last eleven years, like
Speaker 1: just being so focused on the on work as a
Speaker 1: mean personally, yeah, imbalance in life, Like I lost touch
Speaker 1: with a lot of really great friends from high school
Speaker 1: and college, and some of those are irreparable unfortunately. So
Speaker 1: I think these days I try to be a bit
Speaker 1: more conscious of it, try to check in to do events.
Speaker 1: Events is a great way to get a bunch of
Speaker 1: people together the same time get to know each other too,
Speaker 1: and and and and and so on. But I don't
Speaker 1: have a core group of friends I'll hang out with,
Speaker 1: you know, just whenever you feel like relaxing, doing nothing,
Speaker 1: playing video games. Maybe you know you're really good at
Speaker 1: relaxing though, Like I noticed when you when you decide that,
Speaker 1: like we are at a wedding and we're going to
Speaker 1: just have fun, You're awesome at just removing work conversation,
Speaker 1: which some people are like every conversation is like a
Speaker 1: work conversation. You're really I think you're really good at
Speaker 1: separating the two. That's the hard part of being in
Speaker 1: San Francisco these days, and it's kind of always been
Speaker 1: that way since I moved there thirteen years ago. Everyone
Speaker 1: just talks about their projects and yeah, like guys, just
Speaker 1: go chill. I don't know. For me, I don't sleep
Speaker 1: a lot, so I'm trying to. I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: seven hours. I think it's very important to roughly sleep
Speaker 1: the human average, But I don't see a lot sigend
Speaker 1: up like you know, staying up late, texting, I bond with,
Speaker 1: connect with friends over video games. I'll you know, um,
Speaker 1: go go to events and stuff like that. Instead of
Speaker 1: being bothered by things in the community. I do my
Speaker 1: best to kind of change the standard and educate people,
Speaker 1: because that's the main you know, like that's where ignorance
Speaker 1: comes from, just not understanding or lack of education. So
Speaker 1: what I'll do is I'll say, okay, well, maybe like
Speaker 1: I look this way because I'm sick or it's not
Speaker 1: really something that's nice to call out. And the more
Speaker 1: that you can kind of fix those types of behaviors,
Speaker 1: but in a kind, loving, educational manner. The less likely
Speaker 1: those things are to happen within your community, and then
Speaker 1: the less people see that stuff, the less they want
Speaker 1: to make similar comments elsewhere. So I also try to
Speaker 1: set the standard, not only in a nice way, but
Speaker 1: sometimes in a funny way, like if I see a
Speaker 1: really really just dumb, rude comment, I will also make
Speaker 1: a joke out of it, And I think that in
Speaker 1: that same way, it kind of teaches a lot of
Speaker 1: other people a lesson on why they shouldn't make comments
Speaker 1: like that. It's so funny you say that because our
Speaker 1: last generation of the show, it was a radio show,
Speaker 1: so it was live and then we're also streaming it
Speaker 1: on Twitch and it was like our first taste of chat.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, I would I don't know
Speaker 1: how every every time the show wrapped, I would like
Speaker 1: cry to Allison, like they're so mean. And it was
Speaker 1: one mean comment, but it got under my skin, you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm a sensitive bird, and you know, like that's
Speaker 1: how humans are. It's like it's like people don't realize
Speaker 1: there's an actual human on the other receiving end of this,
Speaker 1: Like yes, we're entertaining you, and yes you're watching. But
Speaker 1: the other thing that I found that was really interesting
Speaker 1: was the troll If you called them out on the
Speaker 1: live stream, all of a sudden, they're nice. Like they
Speaker 1: would be like, you're a fucking idiot, and I'd be like,
Speaker 1: you know what, Dominic two two seven to seven eight
Speaker 1: seven basement, I am an idiot, how's your day going?
Speaker 1: And then he'd be like, oh my god, I love
Speaker 1: your show, and I'd be like, wait, so all you're
Speaker 1: wanted was a shout out, no, yeah, attention. They just
Speaker 1: want attention, And at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of cute. It's like a little kid at
Speaker 1: ing out and being crazy, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, like they just want your attention. They just
Speaker 1: want to play with you or talk or interact. So
Speaker 1: that's so we started responding exactly. So we started responding
Speaker 1: to the trolls, and they'd be like our best friends,
Speaker 1: you know, we're sending them holiday cards now it's and
Speaker 1: then other trolls. So then other trolls would come in,
Speaker 1: and the troll that bullied me last week was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: you better fucking get out of this chat. I'd be like,
Speaker 1: and they're offering to be my mod. It's like, dude,
Speaker 1: last week you were calling me a fucking idiot, but
Speaker 1: we cool now that's fine. So the other thing I
Speaker 1: want to touch on is how do you kind of
Speaker 1: like block out because obviously you're a very confident woman.
Speaker 1: You're inspiring others to be confident and just be themselves,
Speaker 1: but you are human, So how do you kind of
Speaker 1: block out the noise when you do see haters or
Speaker 1: trolls or how do you even continue to stream? Because
Speaker 1: I'm sensitive. I don't know. I definitely couldn't be a streamer,
Speaker 1: but how do you cope? I am so glad that
Speaker 1: for me it was like one step at a time
Speaker 1: in the sense that I started off I was really small,
Speaker 1: got to twenty viewers, a hundred was really exciting, triple digits,
Speaker 1: and like, my growth has been like slow and steady
Speaker 1: more or less. And because of that, I've kind of
Speaker 1: learned to deal with them one step at a time
Speaker 1: when you like, because you deal with that type of
Speaker 1: attention very differently when you have a smaller community than
Speaker 1: once you become like a larger name per se. I
Speaker 1: think I kind of just limit exposure to that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff because I recognize that it is so far
Speaker 1: out of my control the kind of stuff that people
Speaker 1: will comment or think of me or say about me.
Speaker 1: So I think I kind of just if I know
Speaker 1: that there's a certain area where a lot of people
Speaker 1: will just be saying a lot of rude things about
Speaker 1: me that and mind you, I think I'm specifically talking
Speaker 1: about comments that aren't criticism, just like there's a common
Speaker 1: term that's just like twitch thoughts or calling someone ugly,
Speaker 1: or commenting on things you don't like about them, you know,
Speaker 1: things that are related to like my looks that's not
Speaker 1: something that's ever going to change, or if you hate
Speaker 1: the way I sound, I can't change my vocal chords, right,
Speaker 1: So things that literally are out of my control, it
Speaker 1: only hurts me to continuously read that stuff. Whereas you know,
Speaker 1: if there's feedback like oh I didn't really like this
Speaker 1: thing that she said or this thing that she did,
Speaker 1: even if the feedback is kind of set in a
Speaker 1: rude way, at least I know that's something that I
Speaker 1: can think about reflect on. Was I happy with the
Speaker 1: way that I expressed myself in these situations? So those
Speaker 1: are negative comments like I'm more than happy to take
Speaker 1: and look at the ones that I can garner no
Speaker 1: value from reading, I just won't read them. Um, And
Speaker 1: it's not easy. It's definitely not easy, but you kind
Speaker 1: of try to learn to get out of those habits
Speaker 1: control yourself. Takes a lot of will power. But yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely limiting exposure to comments that are just bad and
Speaker 1: in chat moderators incredible well. Twitch chat moderation is like
Speaker 1: a key parts streaming, like if you have to have it.
Speaker 1: I did not know this in the beginning, so we
Speaker 1: had a lot of ship going on in our chat.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, this is scary, Like,
Speaker 1: somebody get these people out of here. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I'm like having I'm having PTSD. No, it's fine, I'm
Speaker 1: you're crying. I gotta say. I've also kind of grown
Speaker 1: up on the internet, so I think I was a
Speaker 1: bit more ready for these kind of situations. Have you
Speaker 1: seen all the jokes about like the way kids are
Speaker 1: on like Xbox Live lobbies, right, Like when you grow
Speaker 1: up gaming online interacting with strangers, you know, sometimes like
Speaker 1: it just goes down. People are yelling at each other,
Speaker 1: insulting each other for no reason. So I had my
Speaker 1: fair share that. Oh I me and my brother would
Speaker 1: banter a lot when we were younger. So you're ready
Speaker 1: for it a little bit, right, But no one's ever
Speaker 1: ready for the kind of stuff that you get when
Speaker 1: you're like a public figure on the internet. 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: focused much more on a micro level, so talking to
Speaker 1: individual partners. I'm out here in l A right now,
Speaker 1: wet with a few partners today and tomorrow from my team,
Speaker 1: and the entire partnership's department is kind of broken down too,
Speaker 1: different facets. So we have people that focus on individual
Speaker 1: communities like I mentioned earlier, people who focus on first
Speaker 1: person shooters, people who focus on fighting and communities like
Speaker 1: street fighter, and other people who focus on stuff like charity,
Speaker 1: and then beyond that, we also look at people who
Speaker 1: are broken up by regions. So we have a Twitch
Speaker 1: comedy in Europe, we have one in Latin America and Asia,
Speaker 1: so we have different representatives and these different regions and
Speaker 1: also have their own strengths. And for us, really that
Speaker 1: plus partners that we have is kind of broken down
Speaker 1: into each of those regions, and for us, we we
Speaker 1: serve some in different ways, you know, and Asia there's
Speaker 1: a lot of growing communities. So it's really about building
Speaker 1: up a presence not only for Twitch, but for the
Speaker 1: individual creators. Whereas in Europe and North America they're much
Speaker 1: more prevalent, they're much more present in terms of the industry,
Speaker 1: and so it's more about how do we grow them
Speaker 1: beyond mainstream, how do we get them connected with sponsors
Speaker 1: and advertisers that are non endemic to the brand. Every
Speaker 1: day is different, Every day is different, and the way
Speaker 1: that I'm working with the community isn't directly portrayed out
Speaker 1: to the public on a day to day, but more
Speaker 1: so in terms of events like E three, like packs
Speaker 1: being at those events. There's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: 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: at these events. That gives us a big operatorny to
Speaker 1: like communicate and reach out to partners so we've otherwise
Speaker 1: not been able to talk to in the past and
Speaker 1: really build up like a personal relationship and really forged
Speaker 1: that bond between the partnership team and the individual crewers
Speaker 1: because ultimately, the way I look at things, the partnership
Speaker 1: seems like Tron and the partners are really the users
Speaker 1: were fighting for them. What was the moment that you
Speaker 1: realized you had real influence? Oh, I went to a
Speaker 1: League of Legends finals kind of tournament. That was like
Speaker 1: the first time that I was really like overwhelmed by
Speaker 1: the amount of fans, Like there were people taking photos
Speaker 1: of the fact that it was like me and then
Speaker 1: like a bunch of fans and it became like a
Speaker 1: fire hazard level. And I think I was really touched
Speaker 1: by that because I woul't lie. The League of Legends
Speaker 1: community excuse a bit more toxic than most other gaming communities,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that's like mostly what you hear, just like
Speaker 1: the toxicity and the rude comments and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: like I mustn't be like that loved or enjoyed, but
Speaker 1: like showing up to an event and having like an
Speaker 1: insane amount of people like around me or want to
Speaker 1: take photo of say hi. I guess that's when I realized, like, wow,
Speaker 1: we did a thing when when I like me, they
Speaker 1: really like me. But hopefully everyone who listened got to
Speaker 1: understand the world of Twitch a little bit more, and
Speaker 1: also the partnership program and streaming and you've got a
Speaker 1: lot on your plate. I'm happy to have it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds for having me. It sounds like a really
Speaker 1: fun job. It is. It's a dream come true. And
Speaker 1: again like I'm humbled every day to be doing what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. So you're not leaving Twitch anytime soon, like ever?
Speaker 1: I know I want a job there too, now hiring
Speaker 1: are Well, let's talk off air. Thanks for stopping by.
Speaker 1: I am so excited for everyone to hear this interview.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you'll be back because something tells me
Speaker 1: you have your your hands and a couple of pots
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna want to learn about. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm just guessing. Alright, guys, Well, I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: the last ever podcast because I'm becoming a streamer out.
Speaker 1: It was a nice having yet, but yeah, we will
Speaker 1: let you go. Thank you for coming. We loved having you.
Speaker 1: This was so much fun. We hope you know. I'm like,
Speaker 1: thank you again, bye again, see you later again. Bye.
Speaker 1: All right, folks, that's all she wrote. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed hearing from Kevin Lynn, co founder of Twitch,
Speaker 1: Pokemon number one most followed female streamer, and of course
Speaker 1: A Neil, the director of Partnerships at Twitch. I hope
Speaker 1: you guys are having a lovely Wednesday. I am looking
Speaker 1: forward to hearing feedback from you guys, and I will listen.
Speaker 1: If you never want to hear this again, no problem.
Speaker 1: In the meantime to Loup Behind the Influences, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and t DC Media