Just within the past two months, six Twitch executives have departed from the company. The employees who left include its chief operating officer, chief content officer and head of creator development.
The reason? According to a Bloomberg report, there’s been a massive culture clash between the new executives and Twitch’s employees. Twitch staff, especially veteran employees, see upper management as unable to understand what makes the community so special. Specifically, they’ve call out the execs on not doing enough to provide for the streamers who make the platform possible; instead, they’re choosing to focus on ways to make the company itself more money.
This isn’t where the employee exodus began, however. In 2021, more than 300 employees left the company. That’s only going to keep growing unless something changes, considering more than 60 more have already left in 2022.
Twitch executives and the employee exodus
Over the past couple of years, Twitch has been hiring more and more talent to upper management positions whose visions for the company clash with veteran staff. A major example cited in the Bloomberg report is Twitch’s plan to allow streamers who are live for more than 40 hours a month gain financial incentives from running ads. Twitch employees pushed back against this idea, confusing the executives further.
Many of these executives didn’t come from gaming or livestream backgrounds, instead coming from non-gaming tech giants like Facebook and Twitter. Initiatives they push that will negatively impact (or at least, not benefit) the platform’s streamers — who, let’s remember, are the core Twitch users — are met with resistance by more seasoned staff who understand their audience better.
As one former Twitch employee put it: “The customer was the content creator. If you’re not passionate about the product, you’re not really looking at it from the customer’s lens. And so you don’t have the same level of empathy.”
The company’s response
Twitch responded to Bloomberg’s requests for comments on this matter via a spokesperson. The response reads:
The common thread for all employees is a drive to serve our community—from staff members who started as streamers themselves, to those who integrate themselves into Twitch culture when they start at Twitch. Serving a community as dynamic as Twitch’s means there isn’t always one clear solution or answer, and as a result we have always believed in being experimental and innovative—even when that means launching a bold product or experiment that might have short-term risks, but will ultimately help us build the best possible solution.
Twitch, via a spokesperson
It seems that Twitch is in a state where the executives want to expand it beyond simply being a streaming platform. The problem is, unless they put their community of streamers first, Twitch’s top staff will continue to lose sight of what makes the platform unique in the first place.
Where will Twitch go now that these executives are gone?
A massive employee departure is far from the only problem Twitch has had to deal with since the Amazon buyout. Just last year, a hacker stole and leaked the entire Twitch source code online. There was also the massive proliferation of hate raids that targeted marginalized streamers which prompted massive outcry from the Twitch community for better support.
With top-level executives leaving Twitch because they fail to recognize the importance of taking care of its streamers, it begs the question: where is Twitch headed, and can it become the for-creators service it needs to be? Considering how long Twitch’s employee retention issue has been going on, it may never happen. We’ll just have to wait and see.
What do you think the resignation of these Twitch executives means for the company? Let us know!
