00:00So help us understand what Twitch does. What is a commercial upside of Twitch, especially if you have GTA 6
00:05coming?
00:05Is it advertising? Is it creator sponsorship? How do you stand in this business?
00:11Right. Well, really the way that what happens with Live now is in a world of endless feeds and AI
00:18-filled content,
00:20there's something very authentic about a Live experience, and that really is what brings us together as humans.
00:26It's interesting. One of the things that makes gaming so attractive is the community aspect.
00:30And what Twitch does is all of our streamers, which does everything imaginal, they go on every day and they
00:37stream live.
00:38And people come in to watch them and hang out with them, and they build a community.
00:41And when we think about GTA 6, I think what will be interesting is everyone's going to want to understand
00:48what this game is like.
00:49And the best way is going to be to watch it with other people and other people that you enjoy.
00:54What sort of impact do you expect from this launch for Twitch? Are we talking about new milestones and records
01:00and viewership? What will be your metrics?
01:02Yeah. For us, interestingly, we're not trying to look at these metrics about, you know, trying to hit that mark
01:09or that mark.
01:09We know it's going to be huge, and it's going to be huge because everyone's been looking forward to this
01:14game.
01:14And in general, whenever you have a great game that everyone's excited about, then all of the streamers on Twitch,
01:21just like everyone else, wants to play the game.
01:23And so all the streamers are playing the game. All the viewers want to play the game.
01:26And, you know, I think it's been 13 years and, you know, since GTA 5.
01:31And so I know, at least in my time in this role, there's never been anything like GTA 6 in
01:37terms of the excitement that is boiling up about what the game's going to be.
01:41I want to understand what defines success for Twitch, because I remember in the past you've said you're not necessarily
01:46profitable right now.
01:47Is that still the end goal or does Twitch have a different strategic value, especially given that you're a subsidiary
01:53of Amazon?
01:53Yeah, let's be clear. Our end goal isn't profitability. Our end goal is really driving value to our streamers and
02:01driving value to our viewers.
02:02And from an Amazon perspective, the business is in very good shape right now.
02:06We've done a good job looking at how the business runs, how we operate it.
02:10And so that was a number of years ago. And so that's not really a concern right now.
02:14The biggest thing that we are focused on doing is understanding that we think live streaming is a compelling format
02:21today where we just need to want to keep focusing on growing live streaming and helping expose it to more
02:28people.
02:29At Bloomberg, as it is, I mean, we're very much focused on the numbers.
02:31I have to ask, are you close to profitability? Have you surpassed that?
02:34Yeah. So we don't go through the details as a subsidiary of Amazon.
02:38We're not reported out separately, so I don't talk specifically about where we're at in that journey.
02:45But the thing that I do talk about is the fact that we've demonstrated that our business works.
02:51And I think that is sort of the thing that matters in all of this.
02:54Have you demonstrated that in terms of how your business works and whether you're profitable or not at any given
02:59point?
03:00It's just about whether or not you're still investing.
03:01Does it work better in some places than others? Where are your growth regions?
03:06So let's just say one thing. Yes, it does work better in some places than others.
03:10I think that's just because the more developed a market, the more developed the economy, then the ability to generate
03:17more income and more income for our streamers.
03:19Because in the end, what Twitch does is it enables hundreds of thousands of people to live a life they
03:25never thought they did.
03:26Because it's not just about Twitch the service.
03:28It's about our creators who are all, you know, funding their life by going online and streaming and getting support
03:34from their community.
03:35How does artificial intelligence affect all of that?
03:37Yeah. So for us, artificial intelligence really ends up being a tool.
03:44In no way, shape or form do we think artificial intelligence or artificial creators are going to substitute for the
03:50humans that dominate Twitch.
03:52People come to Twitch for human connection.
03:55I think we all yearn that connection, human connection, and that's what happens on Twitch.
03:59And so AI will help our creators in terms of be creative.
04:03They'll think of interesting things that are fun things to do with their community.
04:08And so it's more of something that will amplify the creative ability of our creator.
04:14Twitch has seemed a little bit more cautious on AI, though, releasing what, clipping tools.
04:18It's been a little bit more limited.
04:20Are we going to see big changes?
04:22I think we've been actually fairly aggressive.
04:24We've been using it.
04:25I mean, we've been using AI.
04:26My background is in AI.
04:28We've been using AI for the last, you know, since the last 15 years.
04:32So actually, I don't think we're cautious at all.
04:36We do do stuff around clipping.
04:38A big part of Twitch is what happens on Twitch doesn't stay on Twitch.
04:42And so a lot of times what our creators do is they do a live stream.
04:45They create clips and then they spread virally across the Internet.
04:48And so many of our creators become the world's biggest stars because what happens on stream spreads.
04:56And so the work we've been doing is trying to help it make it easier for them to get clips
05:00from their streams.
05:01How much collaboration is there between Twitch and Amazon, for example?
05:05Because we know a lot of these big companies use the content within their ecosystem in order to train their
05:12own AI.
05:13Right, right.
05:14So we collaborate closely with Amazon, but we are an independent subsidiary.
05:17So we work closely with Amazon.
05:20They leverage where we're appropriate, but at the same time, we're fairly independent.
05:25This, of course, is a Tokyo game show.
05:27Are you seeing anything interesting in terms of trends of where the direction is headed right now?
05:31In terms of, I think the direction is, you know, in GTA 6 is a good example,
05:37where more and more of these games are, you know, going to be more realistic and more lifelike
05:43and more feeling like it's really happening right now.
05:46Of course, for those people who don't game a lot, the magic of games is there's this narrative.
05:51And I think one of the interesting things talking about GTA 6 is that a lot of people aren't aware
05:56of this thing that's called role play.
05:59And what people do on live streams is they create a virtual world right now in GTA 5 where the
06:07same group of streamers show up every day and they have a job.
06:10They're a policeman.
06:11They're a criminal.
06:13They're a judge.
06:14And they go there regularly and every day it's like improvisational performance art.
06:20Some story emerges.
06:21And so what you're going to see is GTA 6 launches as a single player.
06:26But then next year they're going to launch multiplayer at some point.
06:29And so you're going to see this big bump with GTA 6, but then an even bigger one next year
06:33when they launch multiplayer.
06:34So here's the game player.
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