Discord CEO, Jason Citron, has revealed in both an internal memo and during an “all-company meeting” that the popular instant messaging and voice chat platform will be letting 17 percent of its workforce go – amounting to a total of 170 layoffs.
In the memo acquired by The Verge, Citron elaborates on the actual reasoning behind the difficult decision, opening the message by clarifying that “This is a decision we did not take lightly, but it is one that we have conviction in to better serve our users, our business and our mission over the long term.”
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Under the sub-heading of “Where we are and how we got here”, a decidedly more succinct explanation is given by the CEO:
“Today, we are increasingly clear on the need to sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization. This is what largely drove the decision to reduce the size of our workforce.”
Faster than expected growth within the company appears to be another significant contributing factor to the layoffs, with Citron going on to say that “we grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020. As a result, we took on more projects and became less efficient in how we operated.”
The mentioned workforce expansion most likely stemmed from the burst of new user activity during the pandemic. This isn’t the first time Discord has had to let several of its employees go, either. Last year, the company implemented layoffs affecting 4 percent of its workers – a trend that has become increasingly prevalent in both the technology and gaming industries.
Citron ends the memo with an emotional sendoff to the staff left behind:
“It’s incredibly difficult to say goodbye to respected peers, many of whom have become friends. I’m hopeful that working on and with our product has reinforced that these bonds can be sustained and even strengthened beyond the ‘walls’ of any one place. Take care of yourselves and let’s look out for each other through this particularly challenging time.”
Source: The Verge
Written by Ryan Pretorius