There, he met his eventual co-founder Justin Kan at age eight,[6] and the two were bonded by their accelerated math classes and playing Magic: The Gathering.

[12] After Justin.tv launched in 2007, the site quickly began building subject-specific content categories like Social, Tech, Sports, Entertainment, News & Events, and Gaming.

[20][2] On November 19, 2023, Shear was named as the interim CEO of OpenAI,[21] following the removal of Sam Altman by the board two days earlier.

[4] It was previously reported that Shear had threatened to resign as CEO if the board could not provide evidence to support Altman's removal.

[22][23][24] In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, via Twitch, Shear donated the initial US$1 million to start a SF New Deal, a non-profit organization which ordered meals from San Francisco eateries and delivered them to people in need.

The organization was started by his Yale college classmate Leonore Estrada, who owned the Three Babes Bakeshop in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood.