Emmett Shear, the former CEO of the popular streaming platform Twitch, has been named the interim CEO of OpenAI, the non-profit research company behind the groundbreaking AI language model ChatGPT. Shear’s appointment comes on the heels of the abrupt dismissal of Sam Altman, OpenAI’s co-founder and CEO, just two days prior. Shear’s appointment comes after a weekend of negotiations and speculation surrounding the leadership change at OpenAI.
Who is Emmett Shear?
Emmett Shear is a prominent figure in Silicon Valley, known for his role as the co-founder and former CEO of Twitch, a live-streaming site. He co-founded Twitch in 2007 and played a crucial role in transforming it into a global phenomenon. Under his leadership, Twitch was acquired by Amazon for $1 billion in 2014.
Shear grew up in Seattle, where he attended the Evergreen School for Gifted Children. He met his eventual co-founder Justin Kan at age 8, and the two were bonded by their accelerated math classes and playing Magic: The Gathering. Shear received a Bachelor of Science with a major in computer science in 2005 from Yale University.
In 2006, Shear, along with Kan, started Justin.tv, a 24/7 live video feed of Kan’s life. The site quickly began building subject-specific content categories like Social, Tech, Sports, Entertainment, News & Events, Gaming, and others. Gaming, in particular, grew very fast and became the most popular content on the site. In June 2011, the company decided to spin off the gaming content under a separate brand and site. They named it TwitchTV. On August 25, 2014, Amazon officially acquired Twitch for a reported $970,000,000.
Prior to his tenure at Twitch, Shear co-founded Kiko Calendar, a calendar app, through the Y Combinator program in 2005. After leaving Twitch, he became a partner at Y Combinator, a well-known startup accelerator.
As Twitch CEO for 16 years, Shear helped shape the live streaming landscape but also faced challenges from competitors and criticism from streamers. After departing Twitch in 2023, Shear voiced concerns on a podcast about AI’s growing impact and estimated the risk of superintelligent AI at 2-50%.
Emmett Shear’s appointment as the interim CEO of OpenAI was confirmed after he received a call from the company. Shear accepted the role after consulting with his family and reflecting on it for a few hours. In a post on X, Shear expressed his belief that OpenAI is one of the most important companies in existence and that he felt a duty to help if he could.
The reasons behind Sam Altman’s departure from OpenAI are not entirely clear. However, there were concerns among some insiders that Altman’s involvement in another company, Worldcoin, may have been a distraction from his role at OpenAI. Additionally, there were indications that Altman may not have been the right fit for the company.
