Twitch’s New CEO Tries to Strike the Right Chords

Can Dan Clancy—the former NASA and Google engineer who lives in rural Washington and plays folk songs on his livestreams—make Twitch profitable without alienating creators?

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I will start with John Denver,” said Dan Clancy. “There’s one note that’s kind of high, so I mangle it a little. But that’s OK. Part of doing this is being comfortable mangling a note or two.” Clancy, CEO of the $45 billion livestreaming platform Twitch, then launched into an emphatic keyboard rendition of Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

When Clancy, 59, livestreams on Twitch under the username DJClancy, he usually plays guitar or piano and serenades a modestly sized but gently encouraging audience, often numbering in the low triple digits. As is apparent from the first mangled notes of Denver, or his endearingly off-key cover of “Angel From Montgomery,” Clancy is something of a character.

With his 6-foot, 3-inch stature, collarbone-length flowing white hair and penchant for earth-tone short-sleeved shirts, Clancy looks like the kind of person you’d trust to take a group of third graders on a guided nature walk. He lives on a 12-acre property in White Salmon, Wash., roughly an hour east of Portland, where he kayaks, bikes and plays music with his wife, Sienna, and his two grown children, ages 25 and 21—all of whom live on the grounds. Multiple friends and colleagues described him to me as “professorial.”