I Sold Twitch 9 Years Ago For $1B… What I’m Doing Now | Emmett Shear Interview

TL;DR

Emmett Shear, co-founder and former CEO of Twitch (sold to Amazon for ~$1B), discusses his frameworks for building companies – including deep user interviews and the “just solve the problem” mentality – and his current focus on writing to share his worldview.

Key insights

• Creativity is like a faucet: most people lose it because they install an internal sensor that suppresses “bad” ideas; Emmett never got that sensor installed and generates ideas freely.
• “Have you tried solving the problem by solving the problem” is a counterintuitive but powerful reminder to avoid hacks or symptom-treating and instead directly address the core issue when it is actual
• The key to understanding users is not asking what features they want, but why they do what they do – specifically their underlying motivations (love, money, fans) – and treating their reality as base