Anele Andeshmand - On Running the Twitch Partner Program, What Makes a Good Streamer, and the Importance of Community

I give me an option. They're like, Okay, we can either build your brand of computer or we'll get you a car. But I was like, no funk that. I want a computer. I want it right now. Well, guys, today's a happy day and Neil Angishman is in the house. How'd I do with your last name? We practiced a few times, pretty much killed it every time, murdered it. You're superstar. How are you doing today? Doing great? Thanks

for stopping by. A Neil is the head of strategic partnerships at Twitch, a small, tidy, little company you may have heard of. You've been there, what five years, going on my sixth right now. Yeah. We were just talking actually before we started recording, about how people who work at Twitch just are celebrities in their own right. It's a small culture, you know, like it's grown a lot quite over the last three years. And uh yeah, there's like a prestige with like working with Twitch, right, and

I think even attached to that. A lot of employees at work at Twitch in some capacity were made into like a meme, a Twitch emote you have not for the right reasons, but you know, I'm I'm there as well. And so for people who don't know what an emote is, break it down. Imagine a emoji that you can put into any chat room within Twitch. All it requires is

just a simple text code. So for you, taught, if we wanted to have you as an emote, and maybe it's a picture of you smiling, or you've thrown the peace sign, whatever, maybe we can put in a code and we can put that code to be t T Carrier whatever. Maybe. And if you're the type it either with all capitals or all lowercase boom, your face would show up. And that shows up in every single chat room and people make memes out of it, just like anything else in Internet. People just me So you're kind

of a celebrity in the streaming world. I mean your faces for sure. When I first got high, They're like, yeah, you know, as an employee benefit, you can upload your own emoticon or your own emoji, your own emo to the like the back end, and you can make it into like an actual email that can be used throughout the website. I'm like, fuck, yeah, dope. They're like, okay, but we need a picture of you looking straight at the camera. And I'm one of those guys that like

never takes like a proper photo. I'm always like goofing off and everything. So I had one picture I'm wearing a white beanie and I put that up and ironically enough, because the picture was scaled down so tiny within chat, it kind of looks like I'm wearing a turban. So people haven't been able to like miss miscontact that for for other things, and I won't go into people really use your amount. It gets highly used. I remember the first time I saw it in a chat, I was like,

what is that? Is that a Neal? And Colin was like, yes, that's a Neil. Yeah. My little cousins when they found out that I was working at Twitter, like, you're the fucking anil, My cousin and Neil is the Anneal and my guess yes, I'm so start treating me like it exactly. So you're your role at Twitch is actually very very important. One of the reasons that Twitch is a household name is because of the streamers that we watch so avidly on the platform. These streamers are going hours and hours

a day. For the majority of the partners, it's their full time job, and you are the person. You're basically the thread between them and the platform. So you are the middleman. You're the one dealing with both Twitch and the ninjas of the world. How does one get this role? I mean it kind of seems like the dream job. It is a dream job, and to be perfectly honest with you, like I'm I'm humbled to be in that

every day doing what I'm doing. I love people, and I think the number one thing that I would look at when I'm looking at hiring for this role, even for myself, has always been attitude. I think that you have to have a highfinity and high drive to want to help people out because this is a very selfless role.

There's a lot of times where you're advocating for things that might go against the grain, both politically within the company or even extra only to the community, and you always have to kind of have a very headstrong mentality with understanding that what you're doing is for the betterment of the community, for the betterment of the platform, and having that holistic view is probably like the most integral

part of like succeeding within partnerships for me personally. In terms of like hiring, I look at attitude number one. Number two, I would look at people who have a background and like being able to develop other people, whether it be within a management role, whether it be within working within content and working within communities, volunteering, because I feel like a lot of those traits translate well over to whatever you want to do within partnerships as well.

We've gotten to the point where we're not wearing multiple hats anymore like we used to be back in a day, so the roles are very concentrating, really well defined. So maybe someone who's really good at charity can stay within the domain of charity, whereas someone who's got a high affinity of like wanting to help people out, maybe a little bit shy and want to work more on the back end. They have opportunities to do that was like a program manager. So there's a little bit of something

for everybody. And again, I think the core root of it is like as long as you got the right attitude and you have that drive for it, I would say like that's like the baseline for being a candidate for partnerships because I mean, you guys have to have so many people applying for roles at Twitch every single day. Twitch is hands down one of the most successful companies

out there. When you think back to how you landed the role, what were the steps that you took in your own Because you got the job when you were fairly young, So did you have a background in streaming or were you just a gamer who found out about this platform because you were using it and you were like, I'm going to apply for a job there. How did you land there? And I don't even know where to begin. I'll give you the condensed versional, at least what I

would as seem to be the most condensed version. When I was younger, actually competed in gaming. When I was like fifteen sixteen, I played a game called Counterstrike. Never heard of him. It's a just kidding. Colin plays at all the time. Oh my god, it almost caused multiple divorces. But this isn't about me. We could talk about that off the record. But I played a ship ton of counter strike when I was in high school. Actually, funny story.

So my mom and I'd give me an option. They're like, Okay, we could either build your brand new computer or we'll get you a car. And if I got a car, I can go get a job and go make some money and then buy a computer. But I was like, no, funk that I want a computer. I want it right now. So I got a computer ended up dropping like three racks in two thousand and five, which was like a ship ton of money for computer. Also, let's just a lot of teenagers would have chosen a car. Yeah, I'm

an idiot, but looking back, but it worked out. It did. It was the best decision I made. But your parents were probably like thinking they scored because they're like, we don't have to get this kid a car. Yeah, let's go get a three thousand dollar computer. That's fine, he's not going out anymore. So I got into programing, and I was finking for about a year. It really sucked. That wasn't good. Why why did you get into programing, because back then I don't even think it was it was.

It was like a cool thing. It was like an underground community, you know, like there's websites. I got fragged they can go into that, like shared wars and tournaments from like all around the world. And back then it was like a little underground society, like you only heard about these tournaments happening like Sweden, and you would hear about like the World Cyber Games, and that was like the pinnacle of like events. You know, nowadays we got a ton of events going on on like on a

monthly basis. Back then you only had one or two worldwide. I did it for about a year and I realized, look, my grades are failing. I'm not doing well. I need to grow up. I need to focus on what teenagers care about, which is like going to school and getting a job and meeting a girl and all this other teenage ship. I end up going into school for premed I did that for like three years, and my mom and dad had to sit down with me with my brothers and we were like, what do you really want

to do? And I'm like, I want to go become a doctor and They're like, no, you don't. We know you don't want to be a doctor, we know you hate it. What do you really want to do? And that was like my breakthrough moment of like being very honest with myself. What good parents? I feel like the majority would be doing the polar opposite, especially in a space that your parents probably were not familiar with and

did not understand. They did it and they totally had to read on me, like they knew me inside and out. So I think it was just like their own intuition. They knew that I wasn't happy doing what I was doing or trying to pursue what I what I thought

I wanted to do. Anyways, that caused me to like dial back, and coincidentally, at the same time, StarCraft two, which the franchise was like everything to me, was getting announced, and so I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get back into playing some video games when we play StarCraft two. And I really wanted to get good at

the game. So I went on YouTube and I started watching like sutorials and I found Justin TV, which was like the sister company of Twitch back in the day, and t like when I tell you like I was an avid fucking viewer, Like I was on that ship all day. I was up until like five six am watching like the Korean like Star Half League, which was like going on from like one am all way to like five am every fucking night, and then I would roll into class like half awake. But I did that

and I loved it. I fucking loved every bit of it. Now, what was it? What was it about that? Was it a learning experience? Was it you were just the voyeuristic element of it, which I think a lot of people

are drawn to that. Imagine picking up a new hobby that doesn't really have much of a culture, much of a community around it, and you find one little outlet, one little outlet, and there's like one place where we kind of feel like a sense of belonging and something that you can I should take away on a day to day, something you can learn from. And for me that was justin TV and watching like these Korean leagues

at the time. Plus you're interacting with other people in chat, so it's like this other like kind of shared experience that you kind of experienced with other people along the way, And for me, that was everything I told myself I'm like one or or another, I'm gonna find a way to get a job here. And that was this is

pre twitch Twitch. I didn't know how I was going to do that, but there was a bunch of like small little community events are happening throughout the Bay Area, and the Bay Area is not a very big hut for gaming like l A is, but the Bay wasn't any opportunity that there was an event like I volunteered, I spent some time throwing my own money into it, and then I got a job at Zinga, and that was like my big break because I was like my

first step into the gaming industry. And that is not necessarily the Pinnacle, like they're not like a true like hardcore game company, but it was in the gaming industry, and I met a lot of talented people there, made made a lot of friends, and I used actually my

salary at Zinga to bootstrap my own StarCraft team. So that was like how I actually really really got into like e sports and everything, and I learned a lot about getting sponsors and paying out teams and travel and hurting sheep because these guys were like, you know, their children, they're they're making a couple hundred bucks, a couple of thousand bucks, competing in in a in a small time game that hasn't really blown up yet, and you you just learned along the way and it was great. I

loved every minute of it. And anyways, over time, about a year of doing that while working at Singa, the right opportunity locked to my door Twitch and that interview process took like three months. It was at this point was it already Twitch? It was already Twitch. It was about a year into it, which was already kind of like a formed company. When you heard about Twitch for the first time, what were your initial thoughts. I was like, holy shit, I thought I can break in as a streamer.

It's actually stream For like two years, I wasn't good at it. It really wasn't. But you know, I love I love every bit of it. Uh And for for me, I say, Twitch had a really cool like gothic, like nerdy, like steampunk. Looked at it back then, and then like six months in or I think it was about a year after, they like reframed it into the whole Purple Company, which I absolutely loved because purposes the pem color. You know,

it's purple hoodie. You just know it's iconic. It was all Donald or not downhill, but it's all history from there. It was all downhill from their interview overhop. You know what I mean. No, I know exactly what you meant. So you got a job at Twitch where you initially were. Was there a partner's program in place when you first started? There was a partnership program. To get a partnership with Twitch back then, you required I think anywhere from five viewers.

Basically it was really hard. Yeah, you have to be like a big shot. I got hired to come in and review the applications for these people applying for partnership, which was like, by far, like the dopest rule ever did. I felt like I was Santa Claus because I'm looking at thousands of applications on a weekly basis, and I

felt like the dean of admissions out of college. And you're looking at people like showing out their entire life story, talking about why they deserve to be a partner, talking about how they came to Twitch, and like their story. Then you had other people that are like I just bought a capture card. I'm gonna be fucking awesome partner. Me, so you hear like you hear both spectrums or you hear the whole full spectrum of like white people deserve that. Why do you think they deserve to be a partner?

And for me that was like one of the best experiences because I learned about a lot about content and I learned all about our community and who these people are and what's like the pulsing community. What is a hot game? What games are they're playing? So I did that. I did that rule for about a year. I will look at who are people that are qualified to become a partner. Over time I start to realize, Okay, these guys aren't hitt five viewers are hit three, hitting four,

but they're really fucking good at what they do. They're really really good, They're really really talented. I made a few exceptions here and there, even though I wasn't supposed to, but made a few exceptions, and that actually ended up being like the best thing ever because we learned that it's not just all about viewership, it's about engagement too. Um And at the time, the reason why we looked at it from such a from a high viewership was

because a tech costs and operating costs. But you know, of course, over time, like you're able to kind of society that so we're able to look at truly content and look at what is meaningful content, what is engaging content, and what is what we define now is like those shared real time experiences for me like Twitch. You know, you see these different people from different walks of life all around the world, and they they run their channel

different ways. You know, there's no template, there's no cookie cutter format. So over time we were able to lower the viewership requirements so that more and more people can come into the funnel and get that opportunity to become a partner. So you you referred to yourself earlier when you said, you know, I wanted to start streaming and I wasn't good at it, and then there are these people that don't have many views, but they're really good

at it. What constitutes a good streamer consistency Number one. You've got to be consistent. I wasn't consistent, and that really is a magical sauce. If you come in on a on a weekly basis or on a daily basis, and you're coming at seven pm every day, you're communicating and guarantee you can rely on you to be live at that time, they'll come back during that period. It also opens up opportunity for people that otherwise may not be tuning into streams but maybe happened to be that

evening to come and find you. But consistency is like the biggest key second part, which is arguable depending on who you're talking to, but having fun. If you're not having fun, like people don't want to watch you. They look if it looks like you're having a miserable time, like why would anyone want to tune into that? And for me, it got to a point where like I was streaming just a stream for for that period and I wasn't having fun because I sucked at the game.

I sucked that StarCraft. So I started to pivot to other stuff that I actually did enjoy. And when I did that, I actually saw the change in my beership where people want to tune in more. People wanted to be around me because I was having a good time and I was cheery and I was upbeat. Engagement's also very big, and I think those are kind of correlated with one another, Right, having fun and being engaged in

to community. If you're not talking to your community. More likely people are watching you because you have a high skill caliber, So maybe you might be really good at a game, or maybe you're doing something that might be funny or it might be a little cringe e, So people want to tune in because of that. But the magical sauce really is consistency and engagement, having the upea attitude,

having fun with with your content. When it comes to when it comes to folks like Tyler Ninja, I'm really proud of how far along he's come along, especially because he's one of the guys that have been streaming since just in TV days, so he's been at it for like eight years now. This guy has been committed, and you know, he hasn't always had this big break. So for people like him, I think, you know, it's really

the right opportunity. And I think games like Fortnite, H one Z one, pub g all have like eight to those opportunities because the battle are All format is exciting in itself in terms of content. But I think when you look at a game like Fortnite, where it's encompassing different types of cultures with the different dances and the and the skins and y'all fits and everything. Like you you kind of opened up a new world of opportunity with culture and for for Ninja, it also opened up

an opportunity for like sick plays. You know, he was

doing some really dope shit building. His building skills were like off the chart, and I think he was able to kind of show off his skill set and his engagement and the level that people weren't able to really see in the past, and that got the attention with the main stream media, and so artists like Drake start to see then caught attention and follow him on Instagram because he was posting his clips on there, and I think all that type of stuff aided in his discovery,

which ultimately led to where he's at now. That was gonna be my other questions. So I don't think it just ends at Twitch. So people are not only are they streaming on Twitch, they're clipping their videos, they're putting it on YouTube, they're putting them on Instagram, they're putting

them on Twitter. It's a full time job. So do you think had Ninja not been utilizing other social media platforms that he would be where he is today, Because maybe Drake wouldn't just be on Twitch randomly, but he saw a clip on Instagram or somebody tagged him because they know that Drake's a huge Fortnite fan, and somebody's like, oh, this is a sick play let me tag Drake. Now,

all of a sudden, Drake knows about Ninja. Do you when you are talking to and helping shape partners or giving them advice, are you advising them to use these other platforms as well? For sure? I think syndicase of your content, especially after your streams are over, are super important because it gives you the opportunity to be discovered in other places. And I think ultimately you want to

build up your brand. When you look at my team and look at what they're focusing on, they're focused on building up creators from the ground up, not only on the Twitch level, but holistically so well. We can't double into every side of their business. We do try to encourage them to to to to be effective and be smart about how they're syndicating their content and do it mindfully right. Don't just put it in every single platform

for the sake of putting it on there. Do it because you know you're gonna gage to the right audience. And I think for for people like Ninja, you know, gaming has really tried to take a presence in social media and Twitter and in Instagram over only the last few years. Really, I think it was really just the perfect storm for him Fortnite coming in Fortnite, being a game that is widely admired endored by all ages and

all cultures. I think it was a right opportunity. It was a perfect storm for from to come in and be able to capitalize on that. And I think I think it definitely did help out and his discovery with Drake. Whether there he would have whether Drake would have found him if he didn't do that, I don't know. You know, I think it's up in a year, it's arguable, but I would definitely say it did help out a ton.

I mean, he definitely had a huge following, a very specific following, but I think he kind of moved into mainstream because of that. Obviously, there are tons of really great streamers on Twitch, so we won't focus on Ninja, but I think Ninja is a really great talking point for Twitch because not only did he capitalize on a celebrity movement, did you sense that Twitch was benefiting from all of a sudden on a whatever. It was a week night at two am, the world is watching Twitch

because Drake, Travis Scott, who else was in that? Yeah, so all these people are playing Ninja Ninja. You can tell is almost beside himself as he's doing it. And I'm sure as a person who's involved in the partnership program, you probably had an influx of celebrities saying maybe we should jump on this totally. For me, it was it was a wonderful moment. It was a wonderful evening, and I was so happy that all that was happening at once.

It was overwhelming of course too, But I think the thing that really made me happy about that entire experience, from the actual stream happening to even after the fact and getting hit up by different people was it was a shifting culture. I think gaming has always had this stigma from I guess pop culture where it's like, you know, you're some kid that lives in the basement eating hot pockets.

So the whole South Park reference, you know, the wild reference where you're sitting at home, living in a basement eating hot pockets, ship like that. So for me, one of the things that I've been very passionate. I was like moving away from that stigma and really kind of unveiling the mask behind the community and showing like, yo, these are just people like everybody else. These are sucking, awesome people, are talented people, they're cool people, and they're

just like you and I. They're not any different. And it's weird to say that, Like gamers have always has this label of like, oh, you're a gamer, so thus you're this type of person. It's like, no, I'm not. Anyone's a gamer. Colin was a gamer for that matter, you know, like everybody is a gamer in one way or another, and it's a matter about like what you enjoy.

And I think with with the whole Drake and Ninja situation, what I loved about is that a lot of people who in the past would be quite about being a game or closet gamers, if you may start to come out and realize, like, hey, it's actually cool for me to share this information with you. It's like I love fucking video games. As a matter of fact, check out

my entire collection. Weren't really apparent or really present in social media before, and now they are and it starting to become a more of a widespread thing amongst culture. How would you define the Twitch community who? That's a

really good question. It's a melting pot, So it's a big melting pot of of everybody I look at I look at the Twitch community as one giant ecosystem, and there are people that have different interests, whether it be I r L content, cooking, music, specific game game communities, Like you may be into first person shooters, you might be into Battle Royale, you might be into strate teagic games. Everyone's got that thing that that they're really interested in.

And I think when you look at the Twitch ecosystem as a whole, the entire community, like they have these like subcommunities within them, and that's where like each streamer kind of has like a domain. So you look at people like Lyric for example, and I love Lyric. Lyric is what I would define as like a device streamer. He has a community that follows him wherever the funk he goes, whatever game he's playing. There are certain games that he might have much more vieweris in and other

games where he may not. But at the end of the day, his domain is variety gaming. So that's where a lot of streamers want to get to where they want to be focusing on playing whatever game they want because it gives them the liberty to play games and have fun with it, whereas other other streamers much more enjoy playing a particular game focusing on one genre as opposed to multiple genres. Everyone's got their specialty. I think

everyone's also got different aspirations. Some people want to break out from one particular game into variety, and some people who are variety really want to have one game that they focused on that's like their bread and butter. But when I look at the Twitch community, I don't really have a single definition for it because there's multiple definitions depending on what what community you're looking at. You know,

you can look at from a charity perspective. You can look at it from speed running, you can look at it from competitive I can go on and on about it. As somebody who works with the company, What are you doing to protect the streamers in a sense from trolls or people who are just coming on And a lot of these people have nothing really to do with Twitch, they're just you know, it's a free platform. Anyone can watch,

anyone can chat. What are the measures that you guys are taking to protect the streamers and the content creators on the platform. So I can't go into like all the crazy specifics, but just to kind of give you some context, we do have a safety ops team. These guys worked in day out to protect the community as

a whole. Doing anything on the Internet scary. And I think when you think about trolls and you think about toxic people, the shit you think about the Internet really is that you can you can hide behind a screen and be whoever the fun you want to be. You could be a dick, you could be an asshole, it could be a racist, and a lot of people they can get away with it. And it's shitty because a lot of people do it for the simple fact of

just like getting a reaction out of other people. They don't really have a purpose, they don't really have an intent. That's unfortunate. I hope culturally with the entire Internet, that's something that we start to pivot away from and change. It's a pipe dream, but I really, I really think that that's something that needs to happen as a whole. It's not just within Twitch, it's not just within YouTube, Twitter or any of these other like microcusing communities like

it's the entire Internet. And I think when you look at Twitch and what we're doing, we have a We have both product features that help prevent and protect streamers from malicious behavior happening and also behaviors and even activity. Again, I can't go into all the specifics in terms of what, but we do have product features that allow for you to moderate your channel automatically. Maybe you don't have moderates your channel. We have an automoti feature so and you

can dial that from like a one to four. You can adjust it to based on how how you want your chat to be controlled, how you want to conduct your community, And we also do a lot of education when you become a partner. A lot of what our team focuses on is empowering these streamers on how to be more vigilant not only with the content that they're putting on stream, but with their community, with their moderators, and how they're thinking about their content on a day

to day basis. Because every time you're playing a new game, you're welcoming a new opportunity for people to come in and say something toxic, say something rude about you, and it is a trained behavior. Training your community is a very difficult thing to do. So from a general perspective, there's definitely a ton of education, there's product features, but um, when it comes to working with partner streamers, there's a lot more involvement. There's a lot more proactive empowerment. We

do a lot of coaching and education around it. It's a cat and mouse game. Toxic people are always looking for new vectors to be able to kind of attack your stream and funk with you. And I think it's it's going to continue to be an evolving, iterating game where we have to improve upon and and basically do more to to protect not only our streamers but our entire community. For sure, trolls are everywhere. They're on Twitter, they're on YouTube, they're everywhere. If you're putting your stuff

out there, you are susceptible it's going to happen. But with the Twitch community, I know when I first started streaming, I was personally like, Okay, I'm not doing gaming content per se. So do you think it's because there are people that have been there since day one who don't really want to see the platform evolve into Because you guys are evolving into different platforms. I mean you're talking about cooking, you're talking about singing, You've twitched things now.

I mean, there's so many different lanes that you guys are moving into as you should. You're the number one streaming platform in the world and you've got fifteen million daily users, so why wouldn't you. But do you think that there's the community you have to be careful with them because they are so specific or is that just an assumption that I'm having. I think that with any kind of change, people are always to be resistant to it, and people act on different ways. It kind of goes

back to what else saying earlier. When you're on the Internet, people people act however they feel like acting. They might want to be a ship head one day, they might be cool about another day. But would change, especially in anything on the internet, like people always react negatively to it, even if it is for the betterment of everybody. We're

not trying to change the platform. What we're looking at is adjacent content, right, So if you're a gamer, you like food, you're a gamer, you like music, and so these are the things that we look at that are, like wonderree, adjacent to what is gaming content. So we're not deep anyway from what we are. We are a gaming platform. We're going to continue to be a gaming platform. That is our community, that is our bread and butter. But we are welcoming to everybody that is has an

interesting gaming content. We do have adjacent content that's also available for you to do, but our core focus is gaming. There are going to people who are going to be resistant to that. That's perfectly fine. I think you're going to find that everywhere. For us, it's really just about making sure that we have the most welcoming community, the most welcoming platform, and people feel like it's a safe

place for them to be themselves. So with the streamers, because you work with them so closely, I do want to talk about without into specifics, because so many people who don't understand the world world of streaming do not understand how these people make a living. So, you know, like my parents, for example, don't understand Twitch, don't understand how kids can spend all day long gaming and live

these great lives and make six seven figures. When did this become a reality, Because I know when you first started in the in the streaming world, you were saying, like making five thousand dollars when did it start to become very very real when it comes to making a legit amount of money. I think as the new vectors for monetizing started to become more apparent is when it starts to become more of a reality and to kind

of like dive into that. You know, there's first party vectors like running advertisements and the stream selling subscriptions, which is effective like people pledging to you on a monthly basis and exchange for stuff like custom e moticons, a cool badge, and beyond that, we we we have plenty of other victors. We've we've launched a digital good called bits that you can earn both by purchasing and also

by watching advertisements. You know, there's merchandise or sponsorships. I could go on and on in terms of the first party, but what has really become a big phenomenon is the sense of acknowledgement. And you look at people who subscribe to channels. We've actually built in first party toolings for people to be recognized for that for the support. So if you were to subscribe to my channel, you're paying me five bucks to to to to to support me.

That gets recognized not only in my channel. But if I have overlays on my stream, I can kind of uncustomized that experience based on how I want. I can make it a big, you know, big party. I can make it something really well, or I can have it just be something that possible stream and I can technology recognize you and thank you for that personally. And for a lot of people, that's free fulfilling and that's something that they kind of get addicted to in terms of behavior.

And you think about that experience and you think about stuff like tipping tipping his third party. People do that through vectors like PayPal, and through that they can also added messages and usually some people will do stuff like Texas speech, so they'll put a message, it will read it out loud back to the streamer as they're streaming, and they can respond back to it live on stream.

Or maybe sometimes people will be really shitty and troll and see something inappropriate, but it's still read out loud and people do it for the ships and giggles. Is that to the discretion of the streamer. It's discussion stream so that do you guys have certain guidelines like you're not allowed to do this for any amount of money, So there are. We want streamers. We want to make sure that they're upholding themselves to a safe standard. We

don't want them hurting themselves along the way. We don't want you taking shots for subs because people are giving you money to to do so, like you're going to get yourself hurt and we don't want that happening. And and to that point, we have had celebrities reschedule interviews on this show because they're burnt out, they just went back to back on tour, or you know, they've been

shooting for thirty days straight with no break. I imagine that the world of dreaming is very similar, if not more intense, because you have all this pressure to put in. Like you said, consistency is really key. How much is too much? And is streaming burnout real? And do you step in and intervene as somebody who works on the partners side. For sure, I definitely acknowledge it as a real thing. And I think Burnard comes in different shapes and forms. That could be traveling too much for for

for different obligations. It could be streaming too many hours. It could be getting to hyper focus on one particular game.

I mean, Bernard comes in different shapes and forms in different variations overall, I think to to answer your question, yeah, we do intervene to what level I can go into specifics, but you know, we we don't want our streamers, we don't want our partners, our friends being affected by by burnout, and when they are, when they are affected by it, we try to intervene and try to help them out.

I understanding where they're coming from and try to ultimately understand what we do proactively in the future rather than being reactive. And I think that's the biggest issue is like right now we're all learning together, you know, still a brand new industry in terms of how people are monetizing content, in terms of the community growing, and so

there's a lot of work to be done. I we'll say, for from my personal standpoint, like this entire, like my entire commitment this year has been focusing on how do we minimize that bur now because it is becoming more apparent in situations like the Draking Ninja event really has evolved Twitch and it's kind of grown into like this mainstream levels becoming a household name, which I'm really proud about.

But as a result, people are kind of experiencing. It's like supernova explosion and growth as well, And so they're building up this anxiety of like, if I don't stream for X amount of hours or X amount of days, someone else is gonna take over. I'm gonna lose descriptions. I'm gonna lose momentum. How true is that? Though? I mean,

is it? There are so many streamers on Twitch. If you decide to take a week off, does that dramatically change your viewership or your subscribe options in terms of the run numbers if you're looking from a raw standpoint, like inevitably, yes, it will. I think the issue is we need to do a better job on our end in terms of how we're presenting those numbers to you so you can better understand what are those changes, because naturally people do lose subscriptions on the day to day,

even if they are streaming. People do churn just because

their subscriptions expire. Some people said to not renew. They confuse that with the dates that they take off from streaming, as people are unsubscribing to them or they're losing subscribers, And inevitably, like anytime we take off, yes, you're losing traffic here channel, but we are trying to get creative with how we resurface content in your channel and also how do we alleviate that anxiety because ultimately that's my biggest pain point right now, was like I hate seeing

people feel like they have to be on behind a stream at all times. They have to produce content because if they don't, they lose momentum. It's a really shitty feeling because it really starts, say, interfear with their personal life and how do you get out. You cannot get off the hamster wheel. There's just it's it's there is too much at stake. I think a lot of it is feeling irrelevant if you step away, is that the audience is fickle? What what do you think it? I

think there's multiple um, there's multiple multiple sizes. There's multiple things that kind of come into play here. One of them is definitely momentum, especially like if a new game comes out Fortnite. When it first came out, you know, early on it was a beta game and they experimented as a battle rail and it didn't really start to pick up momentum until you know, season one, passive, season two and starts to create new content around it, and at that time it starts to really build up momentum.

It soon as a game, and so people start to kind of hop on start playing Fortnite as a whole. And I think with streamers in general, Yeah, it's kind of like the slow, more feeling of like if I'm not live, I'm missing out, I'm missing out on capturing an audience. There's a lot that goes into it, really. Uh yeah, I mean, it's it's it's such a complex.

We could probably talk about that for two hours. I guess the main question is as somebody who is dealing with these people on a day to day, it's almost like these are your children in a sense. I mean a lot of them, Like like you mentioned, you Ninja was around during justin tv ds, So a lot of these people you have seen grow from you know, zero followers to millions of followers. So there's a sense of responsibility to keep them on track and you want them

to continue to grow. But then there's this paternal feeling you probably have to protect them as well. Going back to earlier days and even today, do you feel like in a sense that sometimes you're almost like a casting director. You know, early on I felt like that. I think the scene has evolved quite a lot in the last year, um for the better, because before they're applying and they're like telling you why they should be a partner, What is it like now? How do people now apply to

be a partner. So the vector now is we have an internal system that's kind of automated half of the the trouble of like applying. So what you gotta do now is actually qualify for the metrics through what we have in our desperads, like twitch achievements. So if you have to attain seventy five years for about two to three weeks so that you're maintaining consistency, and it has to be raw numbers, so like you can't have that

from people hosteeing you, from people reading. It has to be numbers that you have been able to attain and retain on your own over over the two weeks two

to three week period. So for those people, once they've done that and once they've met a few other criteria, they actually get a little button that allows um to apply and once they apply, the same exact flow as how it is from the past, which it's like they get to tell us about themselves but now we've been able to reduce the valling with people who are getting zero viewers, are just applying for the sake of applying, and we're able to get in people who are actually qualified.

And it's a guided experience, so people that aren't qualified, they'll understand why they're not qualified. They'll be able to see what metrics you really need to attain to get to that point back, and they didn't have that. Sometimes it would take us weeks on end to get back to you because of theVolume of applications being so high. But now we've been able to cut that back and being able to keep it focused on quality over quantity.

And it's okay if you want to answer this. But I'm sure a lot of celebrities, because they hear about Twitch, are like, oh, I don't really know what twitches, but I'm gonna start streaming. Let me just make a call and become a partner. Is it like that for them or do they have to go through the process just like everybody else. They have to go through the process like everybody else, Because um, I'll be honest with early on, that was something that we out of excitement, We're like, yeah, okay,

let's get this guy on board. Let's get this gall on board. But what ended up happening is they get really excited, they do it for about a week and there are other work kind of comes into play and takes up their time, which is perfectly fine. But we ultimately we welcome everybody and we we want everyone to be on Twitch. But if we want people to commit, we want to be able to see that commitment from

them too. So I usually asked them, like, look happy that you're excited about it, like you see a stream for two to three weeks, just to make sure that, like you know, you're going to actually be sticking on board. And at that point, if you are meeting the criteria, then we can we can talk about partnership. How many partners does Twitch have on the platform today? I think today rough count is about so there's thirty thousand people

that are your children. How do you personally keep track of all of them and make sure that obviously you have a team, it's not just you, But what is a day to day like for you and your interactions

with the partners. In terms of interaction, I'm spending I'm spending less time communicating on a macro level nowadays and focus much more on a micro level, So talking to individual partners, I'm out here in l A right now meeting with a few partners today and tomorrow from my team, and the entire partnership's department is kind of broken down

too different facets. So we have people that focus on individual communities like I mentioned earlier, people who focus on first person shooters, people who focus on fighting and communities like street fighter, and other people who focus on stuff like charity. And then beyond that, we also look at people who are broken up by regions. So we have a Twitch comedian Europe, we have one in Latin America and Asia, so we have different representatives and these different

regions and also have their own strengths. And for us, really that plus partners that we have is kind of broken downto each of those regions and for us, we we serve them in different ways, you know, and Asia there's a lot of growing communities. So it's really about building up a presence not only for Twitch but for

the individual creators. Whereas in Europe and North America they're much more prevalent, they're much more present in terms of the industry and so it's more about how do we grow them beyond mainstream, how do we get them connected with sponsors and advertisers that are non endemic to the brand.

Every day is different, Every day is different, and the way that I'm working with the community isn't directly portrayed out to the public on a day to day, but more so in terms of events like E three, like packs being at those events. There's a lot of things that my team does not only from like a product standpoint, but also just like a from an interaction standpoint, and there's a lot that we do. We have usually parties of these events that gives us a big opperatunit to

like communicate and reach out to partners. So we've wise not being able to talk to you in the past and really build up like a personal relationship and really forged that bond between the partnerships team and the individual careers because ultimately, the way I look at things, the partnership seems like Tron and the partners are really the users.

We're fighting for them. Yeah, and and with thirty thousand partners and even dividing it up by games and style of gaming, whatever it is, how are you dividing your time like you're in l A. I'm sure there are thousands of, if not tens of thousands of streamers that are partners in l A. How do you decide who you're going to meet with and have get face time with? Because I'm sure everybody would love FaceTime with you? Is it just the top streamers they get the FaceTime like

any other industry. So from my particular role right now, because I am focused on strategic partnerships, I focus on a lot of the particular relationships that we have some people, A lot of it maybe top streamers, but it also might be large entities as well, So studios particular like networks and groups, organizations e. Sports organizations that work really closely with a lot of just like up and coming talent that are coming from off platform that have strategic

value some of its top partners. Some of it isn't, but it kind of varies. But my goal is like if I find out that there are partners in a particular region or a particular area and I'm gonna be out there, I usually do my dual diligence to like reach out to those individuals and let them know, Hey, I am in the area, because you'd be surprised there's a ton of partners here in l A. Yes, but if you're to look at Omaha, Omaha, Braska, there's not

that many people out there. And I'll usually try to reach out to those individuals and say, hey, I'm gonna be in town, it'd like to meet for coffee, for lunch, whatever, maybe just like I can get to know you better and better stand you and what we could be doing better for you. Because everyone's got a different need, everyone's got a different background in terms of how they came into twitch and what we can do to improve their

life is an iterating process. So do you find yourself advising a lot of the time and brainstorming with them what what they could do. It's a lot of listening, a lot of conversating, a lot of conversing. Should say it's not a word of conversating a lot of conversing, but I would say it's a two way conversation most of the time. Is there a question that you you keep hearing over and over that that is happening so often that you're like, wait, this is something that we

should probably address as a whole. Is there something that you're noticing streamers are concerned about or wondering like, how do I improve this or how do I Is there a common question, yes, but it's usually based on trend depending on what's going on in the communie at the time. It could be regarding a particular topic, it could be related to stuff that's happened in the past, whether it's

trending right now on twitch? What is what is something that you're seeing a lot of the streamers and partners do. I think burnout is probably like the hot topic right now. Um I would say burnout and also work life balance. I start to see that become much more apparent more now than ever. And what's really cool and what's really encouraging to me is I'm seeing a lot of streamers actually get together that live in the same region, same area,

actually go out and planet trip or planet outing. It's do stuff personally and not have to worry about are they producing content around it, are they streaming the content or anything like that. They're just focus on having fun and being themselves. Because that balance is super crucial crucial to you as well. So how do you because it doesn't seem like a nine to five job at all, and these people are not streaming nine to five. So how do you set boundaries for yourself and and have

a healthy work life balance. Because I'm sure you're in l A. You're going to be out all night tonight meeting with every single person that is in l A and wants to meet with you for every single coffee and every single drink. For sure, it's kind of two things. One, you have to have the affinity to like want to talk to people. If you don't, this job is definitely not for you. For me, I'm naturally extroverted, so being able to interact and go out and do things is

very natural and very easy for me. I don't necessarily burn out from it, and I think that aids meing being able to be successful and what I'm doing, and also kind of not have to worry too much about the boundary but to when it comes, it's actually defining boundary. I usually get myself a cut off time, So if I'm feeling tired, if I'm feeling like I'm low in energy, if I'm feeling like I'm not able to be as up beat as I need to be, as you give myself a cut off time. So whether they be midnight,

one am or whatever. That's usually like my boundary that I set for myself. You should tell people like, hey, to this point, like I need to go back and recharge. But from my end set of the boundaries is not so difficult as it is for streamers. And the reason why I say that is I'm working with one on one individual people and they understand the need for being able to like take a step back and recharge with yourself.

I think creators streamers in general based a much more widespread issue that I would like to help them out with, which is they're looking at it from macro level. They have hundreds of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people that they have to I hate to use this word,

but like a piece, you know. And it's really about setting the right boundaries for yourself for those creators, right, teaching them to say, look, you don't you're not gonna be able to make every single person happy, and if you are, you're going to bring yourself out of the expa to that. So you need to be able to be okay with putting your foot down in training your community to say, hey, this is when I need my me time, this is when I have my family time

and that stat I'll come back tomorrow. You'll continue to have me at that point, but like I need to be able to have my my boundary. So going back to to answer your question again, Like, I think it's fairly easy for me, just because the people that I work with are very understanding that and very respectable. Whereas with the people that I work with creators, for them, it's much more difficult because they were dealing with people

on the internet who are not exactly the most reasonable. Yeah, and I think you lightly touched on this, and this may be an uncomfortable question to answer, but why do you think you're so good at what you do? I I mean, you mentioned you you fucking love it. You're an extrovert. But there's there's something more because like I mentioned, and I wasn't totally serious, but it does feel like a casting director a bit, because you're you're spotting these stars and you've seen a lot of people come up

from nothing to being seven figure streamers. Yeah, why is this what you're gonna, I believe, continue to do and why are you so good at it? I appreciate that, um uh, it's something I strive to be better at every day. I think for me, this is the fact that, like I have an opportunity to do something I absolutely love. I love video games, I love people, I love helping

people out. I'm able to combine those three things into something really meaningful for me on a day to day and I don't want to lose that, Like it's such a special thing to me. It's like this is constantly evolving, it's constantly growing, and you've seen Twitch evolve over the last five six years, Like God knows what's going to

happen in the next five to six after this. I definitely think that there's life beyond streaming, and we want to help people think about that, but we also want to be able to build upon their business within Twitch as well. UM my goal is to keep people stuck on Twitch twenty four hours a day streaming. I want them to be able to have the life that they always want to have, but I also want them to be able to do that in a way that is

enjoyable for them and for a lot of people. I do see people who experienced stream or burnout, but also see that they love streaming, like this is something that they genuinely enjoy doing. It's just about teaching them and empowering them to set the right boundaries. And that's something that everybody has to kind of figure out in their different type of footing, because everyone's got a differentackgroun, everyone's

got a different type of lifestyle. So I see Twitch becoming a household name, see it becoming more mainstream than it has become. I see it becoming something that is a staple to to not only individuals, but even brands and organizations as a whole um, something that they embody and really really really embrace and represent on a day to day just like they do with other other content mediums. But beyond that, you know, we're we're thinking about the

future and we're not. We're we're not leaving anytime since we're here to stay. What do you think that's Twitch apart from every other platform the heart and soul. You will not you will not find another company that hires people that day and day out like their dedication. What they do, what keeps them going is to like make the lives of not only the community but the streamers better. Like everybody that works at Twitch gives a funk about streamers.

Everybody gives a funk about the community. Everyone gets a funk about making this the best place possible. That was true for me when it was employees. It's true for me now over a thousand employees. And I guarantee when it's ten thou whatever that number may be in the future, like it'll continue to be that. And usually when I'm interviewing people, I just nod because I have to just

agree with what they're saying. I can firsthand tell you that that is true because I was there when Twitch first started and when big things happened, and everyone everyone who works at Twitch, and I think this is the community who's also streaming and watching it. There's this unique passion that is so genuine that you can't fake that. And I think that's why Twitch is only going to continue to get bigger, and the streamers are going to continue to get bigger, and the opportunities are as well.

What do you think is a common misconception about streamers. I think people think that they make a ton of money off of playing hours of video game video games and and and that's it, and they go on and live a spalling life where they make it rain on themselves. It's a lot of work, it's a huge commitment. I think a lot of people forget that being a creator in general, streamer for that matter, you're not just a creator.

You you play multiple roles and some that are assumed and some that are not assumed based on how your community is, and a lot of people will turn into these communities to these individual streamers for multiple things. Sometimes they're having a bad day, they need a place to be able to just reset and and and and have a good laugh, or someone that they want to watch play high caliber gameplay because they really they really want to get better and there's an opportunity for them to

be educated by that person. Everyone's got different reasons, and I think ultimately for streamers, they're really the ones that are wearing multiple hats. They're ultimately like their own little startup, and they don't really get the credit that they deserve. They really don't very well put. And there's a few just rapid fire questions that why kind of dug around for what people were interested to hear from you, And again you don't have to answer, but it would be

cool if you did. Who's your favorite streamer? You know, this is like asking to pick a favorite child, but You've got to have a favorite streamer that you just either it's because you love the story or you actually just love watching this person. Yeah, I man, there's so many different stories. Like favorite, like big Dude right now

stilly killing it. I would say Shroud. The reason why I say Shroud is when I first got hired a Twitch, Shroud was streaming Counterstrike um, and back then Counterstrike wasn't really that big of a game in the directory, and Shroud would legit like write me every two weeks telling me like why he deserves to be a partner and how he's like changing content on his channel to able to make him more engaging, to make it more fun um, and he would check in with me and it was

like the cutest ever and I fucking love every bit of it. He he obviously he got partnership and he's killing it, but like look at him now, you know he's really made something for himself. And I love people that have like not only that to nasty, but that commitment to be better, to improve upon themselves. I love

people like Tim and Tatman. Tim's also someone else that I partnered a while back, and Tim worked as a social worker before working or before streaming on Twitch, and I remember, I think it was like in February, February January he called me and I was like driving home from work and he was like, dude, I think I'm gonna do it. I'm like, do what. He's like, I think I'm gonna go full time. I think I'm gonna quit my job. And here's a day in March that

I'm planning on doing it. I'm kind of scared, but I think I'm just gonna go for it. Man, and he he hasn't looked back since, and he's been able to make something for himself too. In terms of current favorite streamer, I hate to do a shameless plug for him, but a buddy of mine from high school. His name is Joey Joey Cow. I think his channel name is Joey Chaotic. Shout out to Joey Chaotic. So Joey Joey is an amazing person. He's got a world of energy.

He prior to streaming on Twitch, was working at Tiffin Coo making a ton of money just selling rings and jewelry to people, and he just wasn't getting the fi filment that he needed and he came over my house one night and we're just talking about streaming, and I was like, dude, like, you're a b boy. He breakdances, he travels around the world competing, like he's done law content. I'm like, why don't you just go out there and just do something on twitch for the funk of it?

And within sixty days of him streaming for fun, he quit his job and like he's been able to make the full time living. Now he's living in Taiwan doing content. I think he's actually like back in the States right now this moment. But I would say my favorite guy currently at the moment would be my boy Joey. I love that. What is the one thing about streaming that you don't like that you wish you could just wave

a magic wand and change? Um. I hate the perception, or despise the perception that if you're not a partner, you're not a good streamer. I really want to get rid of that. Do you think that because it's so hard to become a partner now? I do think that it discourages people to even stream in the first place. And do is that I would argue that the barrier to its partnership is actually much slower than what it

used to be. I think it's more about the perception of Once you hit partner status, people assume that people are just gonna make your rein on you and that you're gonna make a fun ton of money and your set, and people look at partnership as a status and as an aspirational latter. I think attaining partnership is definitely a point that people should hit, and it should be something

that they aspire to do. But there's much more in the progression beyond just hitting partnership, And I think a lot of people are missing us true being a partner as being a good streamer, and that's not true. You could have thirty five viewers, you can still be incredibly talented. You may not be qualified to be a partner at that moment, but you're still someone who is incredibly talented.

You are a good streamer. And for people who aren't familiar, the biggest perk of being a partner is just very simply put, the opportunity to make money. Right, Yeah, now, there is there is monetization opportunities prior to partnership, Like we have an affiliate status, which is pretty easy attained

as well. You only need three viewers, so that that allows you to do a lot of the similar features as you can with a partner, just having a partnership, having a partnership with which has a higher level of support not only from Twitch as a company as a whole, but also with the opportunities that come with it. But again, I don't want people misconstruing that as I'm a good streamer. I'm not a good streamer. Another perfect segue to round

out this beautiful interview. What advice would you give someone, because Twitch can be a very intimidating place, what advice would you give someone who wants to dabble in streaming but they are scared shitless? What piece of advice do you give them to get them to do their very first stream. I would pick a piece of content or a game that they know for sure they'll enjoy, Have a friend or two watch, tune into a stream, and just have fun with it. Don't worry about what happens

after the fact. If you're really worried about people saying me, ship to you like, have a friend moderate for you, in fact, maybe even high chat initially, just just so you're not really thinking about it. But get yourself in the most comfortable state as you can pick out a favorite game that you like to play, maybe have a friend play with you. Don't worry about all the wells, the bells and whistles of like having a cool set up in your camera set up and overlays and all ship.

Just just do it. You wouldn't have fun. Do it, didn't have fun, and then one day you'll just be making millions just like that, Just like that. Well, thank you so much for stopping by. I feel like I could talk to you for another Like every topic we touched on, I feel like has lots of players, so we had to kind of keep it high level, but hopefully everyone who listened got to understand the world of Twitch a little bit more, and also the partnership program

and streaming. And you've got a lot on your plate. I'm happy to have it. Yeah, it sounds for having it sounds like a really fun job. It is. It's a dream come true. And again like I'm humbled every day to be doing what I'm doing. So you're not leaving Twitch anytime soon here forever. I know. I want a job there too. Now hiring we are, Well, let's talk off air, all right, well, thank you guys for listening. Hope you guys have learned a thing or two I

su did. Yeah, we're going to talk to other people from Twitch as well, which I'm really excited about because the world of Twitch is just there's just a lot going on and it's really cool and you guys are disruptors in the best way possible and I think it's very very cool what you guys are doing. So yeah, we'll howk on. Thank you, Thanks guys, thanks for listening. Tootles Behind Influences a production of I Heart Radio and t DC Media