Live game streaming platform Twitch to lay off 500 employees
Amazon-owned live game streaming platform Twitch is reportedly laying off 35 per cent of its workforce, about 500 employees, this week.
Chief executive officer of Y Combinator Michael Seibel will be replacing Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian to join company’s Board of Directors.
This latest announcement comes days after Ohanian, who is the husband of Tennis superstar Serena Williams, announced to quit from the tech firm’s board and urged to be replaced by a black candidate following the violent George Floyd protests.
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“In addition to his vast experience guiding companies in every part of the tech sector, Seibel has consistently promoted diversity and inclusion in the startup world,” Reddit said in a blog post while making the announcement.
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Apart from being the CEO of Y Combinator, Seibel also confounded Justin.tv, the interactive video platform that later transformed into Twitch.
Born in Brooklyn, Seibel graduated from Yale with a degree in political science.
Seibel led Justin.tv as CEO from 2007 to 2011, then co-founded and served as CEO of Socialcam, a popular social video app and another successful Y Combinator startup.
In 2012, Socialcam sold to Autodesk, Inc., and in 2014, Twitch Interactive sold to Amazon for $970 million.
Seibel started working part-time at Y Combinator in 2013, became a partner in 2014, and then CEO of the accelerator programme in 2016.
Protests erupted in parts of the US over the killing of African-American George Floyd, a 46-year-old man who died in Minneapolis on May 25 after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while the handcuffed man gasped for breath.
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