Emmett Shear is laughing his “rando Twitch guy” status off.
The former CEO of Twitch was briefly appointed interim CEO of OpenAI following Sam Altman’s ousting in 2023. The role lasted about 72 hours before Altman was put back in charge.
Thanks to the ongoing trial between Altman and Elon Musk, we now have the inside text exchanges from that short tenure. When then-OpenAI exec Mira Murati learned of Shear’s appointment, she messaged Altman:
“New guy is rando twitch guy,” she texted.
“Emmett?” Altman responded. “Yeah,” Murati wrote.
The text chain went viral on X, spawning dozens of memes on Wednesday. One user wrote that he caught “a stray.” Another called it an “all-time generational aura loss.”
Shear, who is now CEO of Softmax, briefly changed his banner on X to an image of Murati’s text. By 10 a.m. on Thursday, he changed his banner again to a photo referencing liquid-crystal phases.
“It’s an honor just to be nominated,” Shear posted on X. Musk responded with a flame emoji and a crying laughing emoji.
Shear did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
While Shear may be “rando” to Murati, he’s a mainstay of Silicon Valley. His startup, Kiko, was backed by Y Combinator in 2005 and later sold to eBay.
Shear then cofounded Justin.tv, a livestream of Justin Kan’s life. The platform later allowed other users to livestream their own lives and launched a gaming-themed spinoff, Twitch.tv. Shear led the company through its rebrand to Twitch and its sale to Amazon for $970 million.
Shear has stayed in Y Combinator’s orbit, sporadically serving as a part-time and visiting partner, according to his LinkedIn. (Altman, whose role he briefly took over, was previously the president of Y Combinator.) His latest venture, Softmax, is an alignment startup.
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