How Twitch Co-founder Justin Kan Got Sober

I had like a star engineer at my company, Zach, quit, and I was like super distraught about it. And so, you know, that night I like just drank a fifth of Jameson. Like, I was fucking obliterated, you know, like lying on my floor, like screaming and crying to myself about what a failure I was. And so that's one way of dealing with your problems. But it's not a very healthy way. And it's, it's ultimately, you know, like, I think drinking to avoid your experience just like kicks the can down the road.

Welcome to Imposters, the show where I talk to some of the most respected names in business and entertainment about their personal challenges and how overcoming them has shaped their careers for the better. I'm your host, Alex Lieberman, co-founder and executive chairman of Morning Brew. Today's guest is Justin Kan. Justin is best known as the co-founder of Twitch, the hugely popular livestreaming platform that was bought by Amazon in 2014. You might also know him from Justin.tv, his own personal livestreaming channel that ultimately inspired Twitch. These days, Justin is a partner at GOAT Capital and runs the startup incubator Zero F. He also runs a popular YouTube channel and hosts his own podcast, The Quest Pod with Justin Kan, which explores the personal stories behind leaders in business, sports, music, and beyond. And while Justin has had the kind of success that most only dream of, he's had his challenges too. In March of 2020, Justin had to shutter his legal software startup Atrium after 3 years of hard work and $75 million in investor funds spent. Throughout all of these highs and lows, Justin has also dealt with a drinking problem, something he admits to have struggled with for almost 23 years that impacted both his personal life and his work. A few years ago, he got sober, a significant health and lifestyle decision that changed his relationship to his work. So, you know, you've, you've tweeted a fair bit about this. You've even built a product around your sobriety and building new habits. I want you to talk me through just how alcohol has been such a large part of your identity for a lot of your life and just take me through kind of the journey of that.

Sure. Yeah. So I love drinking. You know, I drank forever since I was a teenager, and I used it as a coping mechanism for myself. I mean, it was like drinking was a big part of my life, actually. Like, as a you know, in high school and then in college, you know, I kind of threw a lot of parties. I wanted to you know be popular. I always wanted to be popular when I was a kid. So, like you know, alcohol for me was like a mechanism of. Becoming somebody who I didn't feel like I was in the world. You know, I was like, when I was drinking, you know, I probably discovered it really when I was in high school and then really in college when I was drinking. I was like, oh, I can like be the confident person that I always wanted to be, right? Like, I was very shy. I was an extrovert, but I was shy when I was a kid. So like, when I first discovered alcohol, I was like, oh my God, this is incredible, right? Like, I can just go and like talk to people and like— It was like instead of being Clark Kent, I turned into Superman. And so, I discovered drinking and drank probably all throughout college, like 4 nights a week, 5 nights a week, something like that. I was like been drinking a lot. And that continued into my adult life. I graduated, I started my first startup. I was in the first batch of Y Combinator back in 2005. Started my first startup and I've continued Drinking, and it became, you know, it was also like a crutch. Like, it wasn't just, okay, I'm gonna like go party. It was like, I feel upset about something, right? Like, uh, something's not going my way in the world. Like, my company's failing, or we didn't— we— someone quit, or we lost this hire. And like, for me, drinking became this mechanism of being able to be avoidant, uh, from reality, right? Like being able to escape the present. Like, oh, I feel upset, I feel guilty, I feel angry, whatever it was. It's like, oh, I'm just going to get fucked up. And that's like a way to, you know, it was a way to unwind. It was a way to disconnect, right, from my present moment experience.

Despite his frequent drinking, Justin's career did take off after making about $200,000 off of his first startup fresh out of college. Justin then went on to develop Justin.tv as an idea around 2007, a program where Justin literally livestreamed his His entire life. Justin.tv wasn't a huge hit right away, but it was the foundation for what eventually became the immensely popular livestreaming platform Twitch, launched in 2011. Justin then sold Twitch to Amazon in 2014 for close to $1 billion. Today, Twitch is valued at $15 billion. At the same time Twitch was taking off though, Justin had another startup he'd founded with his brother called Exec. And it was failing. That was one of a number of challenging moments that led Justin to drink even more.

When things were going poorly, yeah, that was— I drank more for sure. More nights, more times, but then also like more quantity, right? Like I remember I had like a star engineer at my company, Zach, quit, and I was like super distraught about it. And I felt like, oh, this was, you know, we're trying to navigate a sale at the time. It was like the wrong timing. And so, you know, that night I like just drank a fifth of Jameson and like I was fucking obliterated, you know. It's like lying on my floor like screaming and crying to myself about what a failure I was. And so that's one way of dealing with your problems, but it's not a very healthy way. And it's, it's ultimately, you know, like, I think drinking to avoid your experience just like kicks the can down the road, you know.

And I'd be curious, at the time, right, like, you know, you had such a long history with alcohol, like you said, starting back in high school. I think that's the first time when I drank also, probably trying to look cool as well. When you were drinking during your career, like, I guess, how did you feel? Like, did you ever kind of pan out and think to yourself, like, what am I doing right now? This is like, I'm not reaching my potential, any of these things? Or was it so much like you were sucked into basically making any feelings go away?

Well, I felt normal, actually, you know, which is the kind of insidious thing that I think is true of society, but like changing some because, you know, when I was in college, I actually had my first drink when I was 13. Actually, I was— I remember very clearly I was on my way to Like a school, like extended overnight trip, right? And it was when I was, uh, in the 8th grade. The, uh, feeling was actually normal, right? Like, it was like in college, you know, everyone was getting fucked up. Not everyone, but like the people I wanted to be like were all partying, they were getting fucked up, and that was like pretty normal. I was probably more on the side of like I don't think I realized at the time, but I was like getting more fucked up than most people more of the time, right? But, you know, it was pretty normal, like, uh, culturally. And then when I was in startups, you know, it was kind of like, oh, well, we're working hard, we're playing hard, right? Like, so we're like working all these hours and we're like, our whole life is— lives are revolving around these companies. And so all our friends are here, but then we're like having drinks after work. And then like, it's like, yeah. once in a while I'm like getting completely obliterated, but often I'm just drinking a lot, right? And that was just kind of like the culture of work, I would say, in a way, like at least that I had experienced. And then also startups and our startup particularly, you know? And so, it just felt normal, not like there was peer pressure. It wasn't so much like people were like, oh, you have to drink or whatever, but it was more like just, this is Yeah, it was

the culture.

Yeah, in this building a company at this age, at this phase of time, you know, this place in time.

Yeah, no, I, I think that makes sense. And so like, it almost sounds like there was 2 aspects to it, right? There was like the part that served some of your difficult emotions that you didn't actually have the toolkit at the time to be able to reconcile. And then there was the part that was just like, this is how the people that you wanted to surround yourself were behaving. So, why not behave in that manner? So, given it was serving you, right? While there were trade-offs of it, it was serving you for a while. At what point in time did you decide it was no longer serving you?

Well, so alcohol, it was interesting. It's kind of like alcohol is both— it was celebratory and when things were bad, right? I was just watching this documentary with Juice WRLD. I don't know if you saw that on HBO. At the end of it, like, one of his friends is like, well, on a good day, we would like drink lean, pop pills, and smoke weed. And on a bad day, we drink lean, pop pills, and smoke weed. And I felt like kind of the same thing. It was like, on a good day, I'm drinking and celebrating. On a bad day, I'm drinking and I feel like shit in the morning. I'm like, it's kind of like knocking out a substantial amount of my productivity, although I'm like, Pretty functional as a human being. Like, I was like, you know, I'm a high-functioning person. I think I'd like learned to adapt and be able to execute pretty well considering, you know, and I wasn't getting like fucked up at work during work hours or something like that. Right. So, um, so it was like kind of just, you know, it was like fine. But then as I got older and like learned some other coping mechanisms, I started to realize like, this is like not healthy, you know, it's not serving me anymore. When I really like looked in the mirror, you know, there was a health-wise issue. There was kind of like me starting to realize I was just trying to escape from things that I'm like, other issues that I hadn't really confronted or like been willing to face. And then there was just that like random reverse lottery of like once in an occasion I'd do something that was like really horrifying. And I was like, this is not the person I want to be, you know?

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And so You gave up drinking in 2019, right? When you publicly tweeted about it?

Yeah, 2019. Yeah. So that was like almost 3 years ago.

Tell me, how was it for you? How hard was the process of not drinking anymore after, you know, a few decades of it being a very effective tool?

It was much less difficult than previous times when I had tried to stop drinking as much. I tried to slow it down previously a lot, like many times. And I tried to— I was like, okay, I need to like drink one drink only, or like only drink beer, or only drink on weekends, or whatever it was. But like, that never worked for me. And then there were times when I was like, okay, I need to dry out. I got like way too fucked up this month. I need to like dry out. So I'm gonna like take 30 days off, or like 100 days off, or whatever. And every time I'd be white-knuckling it because I was kind of like looking to get to the end. That sounds like a Very addicted situation, so I quit. I just said I'll just put on Twitter. I'll quit and tell all my friends, and then like the peer pressure will keep me on the path. And that was part of it, but but part of it, I think more of it was just like knowing that there was no like something to wait for at the end of the tunnel. Like it was just like oh this is the way it is, the new normal for the rest of my life. That was my commitment made it way easier. So after like a month or something, I didn't. You know, I stopped thinking about it. And after 2 months it was like, it's fine, you know? And then I haven't really thought about it since then. So it was, it was pretty easy for me in a lot of ways once I really committed to it.

Let's pause for a quick break, but make sure you stick around to learn about the practices and tools Justin developed to help him move himself and his career forward. For Justin, having the public accountability of his Twitter announcement made it easier to quit drinking. But it wasn't just the commitment that kept Justin on track this time. He'd also been developing a number of tools that helped him manage his anxiety and emotions that previously he had used alcohol to cope with.

You know, for me, the coping mechanisms were more like, I think really meditation and mindfulness practices, being able to like experience difficult emotions and sit with them and say like, oh, I feel guilt right now. And instead of immediately needing it to change and saying, oh, I need that experience to change that feeling of guilt. So unless, you know, I mean, there's obviously people who have much deeper depression, clinical depression or something, but I don't think I was in that state. It was, you know, so being able to just be with my emotions made it so that I wasn't so reactive to them. And And I didn't need it anymore.

Is there anything that, that's surprising to you that as you entered sobriety that you've learned or you noticed that you weren't expecting by being sober?

Well, there's a lot more hours in the day than I thought there were. Like, I, you know, now I can, I like work out every day. I can, I have, you know, spend time with my family every day. I have like A lot of productive hours, like much more, many more productive hours. And I think that's like, you know, before I didn't realize I was like wiping out like pretty substantial hours of my week drinking. So that's one thing, you know, you can go out at night and then have a productive day the next day, which is incredible to me. You know, I never thought that was like possible. And then also like, I, you know, just learning like I can go and like do stuff like have fun and like dance sober, which I never thought I'd be like. You know, it's like a confidence builder to be able to just like be out there in the world and like not need this crutch, you know? So for me, I think all those things were very surprising.

So much of what Justin is talking about are thoughts that have gone through my head as a co-founder. Thoughts like, you build a business, you have an exit, you don't feel totally happy right now. What's going on? What do you do next? Are you going to build another business because you genuinely want to, or are you going to build one because that's just what people want you to do? And how do you know if people want you to do it or if that's what you actually enjoy doing? For Justin, when he starts to ask these questions of himself, there are things that he falls back on to guide him on his next steps.

I think a lot of it is just thinking about like, what is, what is my joy every day? Like, what's the, What are the things that I love to do if no one was watching and it made me no money? You know, and like, how do I just do those things every day as much as possible? And the ironic thing is like, for me, a lot of things are the same things I was doing before. People saw me like building companies and investing in companies. And it's like, well, before I was doing them from a scarcity mindset, I was like, oh, if I don't, I need to be somebody and make this company successful because if I don't, then I'm like, no one's going to love me. And today, it's more from a— it's the same activities mostly, although maybe I focus a little bit more on the things that I like to do, but same types of activities. And it's like, well, I love to mentor people. I love to learn new things. I love to do deals. I love to learn about new spaces and industries. So, for me, incubating companies, investing in companies, that's like a vehicle to do that. And if I just focus on the reason, coming from a place of joy instead of coming from a place of scarcity, Life's a lot better.

Yeah, I love that. And so now just tell me, you've been creating a ton of content, which it seems like you really enjoy. You're actively investing and you're starting this— you co-founded this new gaming NFT business, Fractal, which the product hasn't come out yet, but there's a ton of appetite and a huge community around it. Do you think in kind of this part of your life, where you are now sober, where you haven't drank in 2 years, that you are significantly better equipped to build this thing?

Yeah, I think so. I think I'm more— it's ironic because being able to be more in the state of like, I don't need the world to show up any kind of way. I'm just accepting of whatever's happening. You'd think like, I have a lot of friends who are like, oh, well, you're going to lose your edge and you're not going to work as hard. You're not going to care as much. I think it's different. It's more like in that state, I'm less reactive to the world instead of the world coming in and being like, you know, like something happening. Like, I don't know, Discord server goes down, we can't add people to the server or something like that. Or like the product breaks the first day we go out instead of like the old Justin would've been like screaming at the world and then like, fuck, this is like everything's breaking, it's not gonna work. And like spinning myself up about like how I'm doing the wrong thing or I'm not good enough or I should quit or whatever. And today I think I can just be like, oh, well, that's interesting. You know, that's obviously a detriment to us being successful, but like, what can we do to make it successful? And we're just going to try our best and maybe it won't work. I don't know, maybe it won't work, but like, we're gonna try our best and see what happens. And it's a lot calmer. And I think it's like, it makes me want to give up less or put myself in situations where I'm like, oh, I need to be doing something different because it's so stressful, or Or toxic or tip-top. And, um, you know, for me, it's a better approach.

Well, it also just sounds like when you were drinking, when you were also younger, like, you just potentially were more reactive, uh, a little bit more emotionally volatile. And I think what you even mentioned there is like people perceive that as a necessity in order to feel a sense of urgency, because if you don't feel urgency, you're not gonna will your business into existence. And it sounds like what you're saying is like, you don't have to be emotionally reactive to build a really good business. Like, you can actually process the emotions and react to them and have urgency without being kind of a loose cannon.

Yeah, I think— I mean, that's my hypothesis. We'll see if it is true. I don't know. I don't, you know, I don't like— I don't want to— I don't know if you know about Conscious Leadership, but there's this, you know, this group, Conscious Leadership Group, and they Diana Chapman wrote this book, The 15 Commitments to Conscious Leadership. I love that book and it outlines like their hypothesis for what a conscious company is and like these 15 values, right? And I remember we got a coaching seminar from her and I asked her like, how do you know this works? Or like, why is this better? And she was like, well, the old way of creating a company from being fear-based, right? Like, you know, creating a, I don't know, Wall Street bank or something like that, right? Where there's a fear-based culture and like everyone's motivated because they're like, I'm not gonna— I'm gonna get fired, I'm not gonna get my bonus, or they're coming from a place of scarcity. She was like, that works. Like, it works. But we find that when, you know, people adopt these conscious values, then like usually they just enjoy it better. Like, they like their life a little, you know, they like it better. And I thought that was a very honest answer. And, you know, my answer is like, I, you know, like, I don't— to some extent, Maybe— I don't think it's the case, but it could be the case that being super wound up about your company is what's going to work best. But I'm not going to live that way. So we're going to run the experiment and see if this works.

One other thing I was just thinking about, and you talked about this before, and I'm personally interested in this, which is you were like, I assumed when I was— one of the reasons I drank is I drank because to have a good time at parties, I assumed I had to drink. That was connected to my experience. And being sober and dancing, I didn't equate as that wouldn't be fun. Just tell me from your experience what it's been like to go out, whether it's with people from work, whether it's Fractal or GOAT or Quest or any of your other businesses, or just personally, and engage in social situations without alcohol. What is it like?

I mean, it's, it's fine for me. Like, it's great. Like, I, I don't get peer pressured into drinking. I mean, I'm old now, so like, I don't get peer pressured into drinking, right? Like, people aren't trying to be like, oh, you got to take a shot or whatever. Um, but then it's also just like, instead of leaning into like, I've got to get twisted to like enjoy myself, I kind of just like lean into like, oh, what are the things that are enjoyable about this moment. I think I connect with people a lot more deeply and more genuinely. I'm more curious about people. I like to learn about people. That's one of the reasons I like entrepreneurship. I love to learn about people. And so I just really lean into that and it's great.

I'm just interested in your perspective, right? I do agree that a lot of startup culture There's a fair bit of just like work hard, play hard. And I personally experienced this like at Michigan, it was very much the mentality of the school. And then even, we built our business in New York City, so I can only speak to that, but there's very much a culture of just like working a lot and then going out with startup people, eating a lot, drinking a lot, and doing it like at bare minimum Tuesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night. Still hundreds of thousands, millions of people doing that, and I guess many of them being effective in building their business. But if some of them are considering taking some semblance of the path you took to either, whether it's the 50-day break or it's sobriety in general, what are thoughts you would have for people who are considering not drinking anymore after doing it and it being a way of them building their business and living for the last decade?

Well, I think that one of the things I always love to do is question my assumptions and break my context. And so, for the longest time with regards to alcohol, I had a set of assumptions like, oh, this is what you do if you're cool, if you're a founder, if you're a man, if you want to be the whatever, center of the party. I had all these assumptions and I never questioned them. And I think finally I kind of reached this breaking point where I was like, oh, this isn't working for me, which forced me to. But I guess I wish that I had— I mean, everything happens the way it happens, right? But like, I think I would have benefited from probably questioning my assumptions earlier in my life. And so if you're in that mode where you think, oh, this is like the way it's supposed to be, I just— I don't know, maybe it's something you want to like ask yourself if that's really true.

I have one last question for you, which is when you were building Atrium, I can't remember the exact timeline, but when you were building Atrium and then when you closed down Atrium, had you, had you given up alcohol yet or were you still drinking?

Yeah, I quit. I quit drinking like midway through.

So tell me, I mean, I'm sure it was like a really, an incredibly emotionally tolling process, right? How did you work through that when you didn't have the vice of alcohol in the stages of deciding to close it down, telling investors that, all of the things that suck about shutting down a business?

Yeah. Well, simultaneous to stopping drinking, I also started meditating a lot. And so, I think I had that practice of like, oh, I could just be present with my emotions. Oh, I feel really sad. I feel guilty. And then just being able to be with that. And I think that's the most powerful skill I learned, I would say, is being able to be present with my experience and not needing it to change. And by doing that, I was able to lay off 180 people and tell a bunch of people I lost millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars, and be okay and know like, oh, this is going to pass and I'm okay with it. I mean, it sucks right now. It's— this experience is difficult, but I can— it's very survivable. And it was, it turned out.

The failure of Atrium and its timing was like the ultimate test of a new set of tools Justin had accumulated on his path to sobriety. Shutting down a failing business is an incredibly painful reality For any entrepreneur to face, but instead of breaking down and getting drunk like he would have in previous years, he had finally learned how to handle intense emotions. Instead of trying to drown them out, Justin now accepts them. Justin's meditation practice has also allowed him to recognize that difficult moments will pass; they all do. It is still so commonplace in many industries, and. Even in society as a whole, for drinking to be the thing that we default to, to celebrate, to network, and to connect. Like I said in my conversation with Justin, it was very much a part of the culture at my school in Michigan and in New York City where I was working to grow Morning Brew. But I love that Justin gives us reason to pause and really evaluate that decision. Maybe to your own surprise, you may find yourself feeling more confident at the next social event, even without a drink in your hand. Maybe you'll learn that you're more capable of dealing with your emotional state than you realize if you just let yourself sit with it. Or maybe you'll simply become more aware of your own coping mechanisms and whether or not they're truly serving you. Now it's time for our self-care practice of the week. Justin taught us a lot about the benefits of meditation in terms of what it can do for us when it comes to handling stress and heavy emotions. Another great mindful practice to use the next time you're unexpectedly caught feeling anxious is box breathing. Box breathing is a method that has its roots in Indian Ayurvedic breathwork. but is so effective at calming anxiety that even Navy SEALs use it. And it's as simple as this. I'm going to demonstrate. Take a slow, deep breath in for 5 seconds. Hold that breath for 5 seconds. Slowly exhale for 5 seconds. And then hold your now empty lungs for 5 seconds and repeat the box. It's important to remember to breathe in through your nose and make sure you're breathing into your diaphragm. This kind of breathing can help you relax because of its regulating effect on the parasympathetic nervous system. It's easy to do, easy to remember, and studies have shown it can improve your attention, focus, and cortisol levels. So give it a try next time you feel your body going into fight-or-flight mode at home or in the workplace. Imposters is a production of Morning Brew. Imposters is produced by Michaela Heck. Our executive producer is Brian Henry, and our sound engineer is Dan Bauza. Alan Habercheck is the director of audio at Morning Brew. Sarah Singer is our VP of multimedia. Our theme song is by the mysterious and pseudonymous Breakmaster Cylinder, with other music from Breakmaster Cylinder and Dan Bauza.