Leap Forward
Leap Forward
David Rusenko
The Strange Origins of Live Streaming: Twitch's Michael Seibel & His Co-founder Justin Kan
40 minutes Posted Jun 24, 2026 at 8:00 am.
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Live streaming feels inevitable now. But it started as what Michael Seibel called a "dumb idea." In this episode, Michael traces the unlikely path from a post-Yale road trip to a 24-hour streaming experiment called Justin.tv. Years of pivots and spin-outs later, it grew into Twitch and created the $100 billion live streaming market that's now part of daily life. But first, it had to survive: the swattings, the stretches with only weeks of cash left, and a reality show built around one...