The Social Radars Founder Mode: Emmett Shear, Founder, Softmax & Twitch
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Sep 23, 2025 
Emmett Shear, co-founder of Twitch and now CEO of Softmax, shares his innovative 'founder mode' approach to leadership. He discusses his pivot from OpenAI to launching Softmax, which focuses on AI alignment. Emmett dives deep into training AI agents to understand their collective roles and emphasizes the importance of building a virtuous, flourishing AI. He also highlights the significance of communication and org design in shaping product outcomes, ensuring decisions are synchronized across teams.
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From OpenAI Briefly To Founding Softmax
- Emmett recounts leaving OpenAI quickly and then founding Softmax to study alignment and social agents.
- He frames alignment as teaching agents to recognize and join a 'we' through rich simulations.
Environment Over Architecture For Alignment
- Softmax focuses on crafting rich learning environments rather than tailoring a single agent architecture.
- Emmett believes environment variety and social context are essential for agents to learn to be a 'we'.
Weekly Keynotes To Transmit Founder Mental Model
- Emmett describes shifting from coding to spending hours crafting weekly all‑hands keynotes to align the company.
- He used those presentations to implant his mental model so teams could decide as he would locally.