Dan Clancy‘s populist approach to tech leadership is going under the microscope. In an interview with Bloomberg, the Twitch CEO shared findings from his Dan in a Van tour, which took him around the U.S. for a series of meetings with prominent streamers.
Clancy took over as Twitch’s CEO in March 2023 after the departure of longtime head Emmett Shear. Shortly after ascending to Shear’s former post, Clancy got some face time with some of Twitch’s top creators. Those meetings, which included streamers like Maya Higa and SpawnOnMe, gave Clancy a chance to show solidarity with aggrieved community members. He took crowd-pleasing positions on topics like advertising as he crisscrossed the country in search of popular support.
According to Bloomberg, the Dan in a Van initiative included meetups with more than 80 streamers across 15 cities in just four weeks. As he rode around in the titular conveyance, Clancy hosted Twitch streams of his own, in which he played music and answered questions from viewers.
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Those broadcasts earned him the respect of former Twitch exec Marcus ‘djWHEAT’ Graham, who knows a thing or two about the public perception of platform decision-makers. “Dan is bringing the empathy Twitch was missing for years back into the limelight,” Graham wrote on X.
This was the fight that I fought for the last two years I was at Twitch. Dan is bringing the empathy Twitch was missing for years back into the limelight. I’ve always said, “community only works when leadership is committed”.
This is leadership committing again. https://t.co/NoHmi5ZQ7C
— djWHEAT (@djWHEAT) October 27, 2023
As the Twitch community flocked to Las Vegas for the annual TwitchCon gathering, Clancy took a moment to reflect on his campaign. “It’s all input,” he said about his meetings with streamers. “So many people understand a problem. It doesn’t mean they understand the solution.” Clancy added that one-on-one, on-camera interactions felt “easy” for him. “There’s a different world where I could have been a creator,” he told Bloomberg.
Clancy’s U.S. tour also took him to the Streamy Awards in Los Angeles, where he talked with award-winning creators. When he spoke with record-breaking streamer Kai Cenat, the Bronx native implored him to lift a ban that prevented iShowSpeed (real name Darren Watkins, Jr.) from going live on Twitch. Within weeks, Speed was reinstated.
Between Clancy’s 2019 arrival at Twitch and his 2023 ascension to the CEO role, he was often tasked as the bearer of bad news. He put his name on a controversial decree that announced the end of Twitch’s popular 70-30 revenue split. In his new role, Clancy has space to provide a more optimistic voice, and he seems to be loving that freedom.
