# Kirby Grines
> Founder and CEO, 43Twenty; Publisher, The Streaming Wars at 43twenty
- Profile type: Person
- Profile status: baseline
- Last updated: 2026-05-03T00:00:00.000Z
- Canonical URL: https://thestateofstreaming.com/people/kirby-grines/
## Summary
Kirby Grines is the founder and CEO of 43Twenty, the streaming-positioning consultancy and content marketing agency, and the publisher of The Streaming Wars newsletter. His running editorial focus is engagement, frequency, and session length as the actual drivers of streaming-platform value — a frame that consistently cuts against the subscriber-counting consensus and pairs well with our CTV-OS, attention-economy, and platform-economics coverage.

## Profile facts

- Current title: Founder and CEO, 43Twenty; Publisher, The Streaming Wars
- Current company: 43twenty (https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/43twenty/)


## Career trajectory

- 2009-01-01 — Co-founder at float-left. Co-founded Float Left, an early connected-TV app developer; helped build some of the first Roku apps. Acquired by iMediaBrands.
- 2018-01-01 — Founder and CEO at 43twenty. Founded 43Twenty as a growth and UX consultancy; pivoted toward content marketing, SEO, and streaming-positioning services.
- 2024-01-01 — Publisher, The Streaming Wars (full website launch) at 43twenty. Newsletter expanded into a full content site offering curated streaming-industry news, original articles, and in-depth analysis.


## Media appearances

- 2024-09-01 — interview: A Conversation With: Kirby Grines, CEO, 43Twenty & Publisher, The Streaming Wars, The Desk (https://thedesk.net/2024/09/a-conversation-with-kirby-grines-ceo-43twenty/)
- 2025-01-01 — panel: StreamTV Show speaker — Kirby Grines, StreamTV Show (https://www.streamtvshow.com/person/kirby-grines-1)
- 2026-04-30 — article-quote: Roku/Samsung CTV-OS share post — frequency thesis applied to home-screen control, LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7453418573345091584/)

_This page uses only public-professional information: company-published bios, on-the-record interviews, public conference speaker pages, and public LinkedIn posts. No personal contact information, family details, or non-professional activity is included. No AI-generated portrait is used._

## Key facts

- Founder and CEO of 43Twenty, a growth and content-marketing agency working with streaming, media, entertainment and technology companies; the agency's name derives from 4,320 — the vertical pixel resolution of 8K video. — 43Twenty — About Us: https://43twenty.tv/about-us/
- Publisher of The Streaming Wars, an industry newsletter that expanded into a full website in 2024 covering curated streaming-industry news, original analysis and in-depth coverage. — The Desk — A Conversation With Kirby Grines: https://thedesk.net/2024/09/a-conversation-with-kirby-grines-ceo-43twenty/
- Co-founded Float Left in 2009 — an early connected-TV app developer that built some of the first Roku apps; Float Left was later acquired by iMediaBrands (the parent company of ShopHQ). — The Desk: https://thedesk.net/2024/09/a-conversation-with-kirby-grines-ceo-43twenty/
- Studied Interactive Multimedia Productions Technology at Columbus State (2001–2004). — LinkedIn (Kirby Grines): https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirbygrines/
- Posts a recurring frequency-not-scale thesis on LinkedIn: that engagement, session length, and habit formation drive platform value more than raw user counts — illustrated through Netflix's 325M-subscriber 'attention per user' framing and Fortnite's session-length erosion. — LinkedIn (Kirby Grines): https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7451970424638361600/
- On April 30, 2026, posted that Roku controls 28% of U.S. connected-TV platforms and Samsung controls 23% (citing new Parks Associates data), framing the home screen as the locus of CTV decision-making. — LinkedIn (Kirby Grines): https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7453418573345091584/


## Related

- 43twenty (Founder and CEO) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/43twenty/
- roku (Frequent subject of CTV-OS / engagement-products analysis) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/roku/
- netflix (Frequent subject of frequency-and-attention analysis) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/netflix/


## External coverage

- 43Twenty: 43Twenty — About Us (https://43twenty.tv/about-us/)
- The Desk: A Conversation With: Kirby Grines, CEO, 43Twenty (https://thedesk.net/2024/09/a-conversation-with-kirby-grines-ceo-43twenty/)
- 43Twenty: Kirby Grines — author archive at 43Twenty (https://43twenty.tv/author/kirbygrines/)
- LinkedIn: Kirby Grines — LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirbygrines/)
- StreamTV Show: Kirby Grines — StreamTV Show speaker page (https://www.streamtvshow.com/person/kirby-grines-1)

## Profile
Kirby Grines runs 43Twenty as a streaming-positioning consultancy with an editorial side that has become a tracked voice on its own — The Streaming Wars newsletter and full site (relaunched 2024) is the publishing surface where he tests the engagement-and-frequency thesis that anchors his recent commentary. The pre-history matters: his earlier company Float Left (co-founded 2009) built some of the first Roku apps before Roku had a category, which gives him standing on the CTV-OS layer most consultants don't bring.

The frequency-not-scale thesis is the through-line of his recent posts. Netflix at 325M subscribers, in his framing, doesn't need more users — it needs more attention per user, and growth at scale comes from session length and habit formation rather than geographic acquisition. He extends the same frame to Fortnite (players still there, session length down), to the Meta + YouTube engagement-products jury verdict on 'products designed to drive frequency, extend sessions, and turn usage into habit,' and to the Roku CTV-OS layer adding interactive home-screen experiences (games, trivia, event-based environments) that generate engagement in their own right rather than acting as a content-app traffic controller.

His same-day post on Parks Associates' new CTV-OS share data — Roku at 28%, Samsung at 23% — is a representative recent read: he doesn't restate the number; he reframes it as the home screen becoming the locus of CTV decision-making. That kind of framing is the citation-worthy material we pull when the underlying news crosses our slate.

## Tags

- streaming-positioning
- founder-ceo
- ctv-os
- engagement
- newsletter
- consulting
- the-streaming-wars

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