Discordthe company behind the VoIP and messaging platform of the same name, announced the dismissal of 17% of its staffyet another case of staff cuts within companies related to the gaming sector, motivated by CEO Jason Citron as a necessary maneuver to “strengthen our focus and improve the way we work together to give greater agility to our organization” .
The layoffs were communicated to employees during the day via a meeting and an internal memo, seen by The Verge. In total the cuts involve 170 people employed in various sectors of the company.
From Citron's words it is possible to understand that, although not in dire straits, Discord has yet to reach profitability and is currently looking for a way to revive user growth after the boom that occurred during the pandemic years. The problem is that during this period, like many other companies in the sector, Discord has grown its workforce too much in prospect of a market expansion that ultimately did not materialize, leading to the difficult decision to eliminate almost a fifth of its staff from the equation.
Unfortunately, this is one of the many cases of staff cuts that have hit the sector. At least 10,000 people were fired in 2023 and unfortunately it is clear that the trend will continue this year too, just think of the recent layoffs that occurred within Unity and Twitch.
The words of the Citron CEO
“Today we made the difficult decision to reduce Discord's workforce by 17%. This means we are saying goodbye to 170 of our talented colleagues. It's a decision we didn't make lightly, but one we believe will better serve our customers. our users, our business and our long-term mission”, reads the memo sent to The Verge editorial team.
“Our company has changed and grown significantly over the past few years. We should all be very proud of what we have been able to accomplish together to serve the millions of people who turn to Discord every day to spend time with their friends. ”
“At the same time, we face some hard truths. We've grown rapidly and expanded our workforce even faster, growing fivefold since 2020. As a result, we've taken on more projects and we have become less efficient in our way of operating. ”
“Today we are increasingly aware of the need to strengthen our focus and improve the way we work together to give greater agility to our organization. This is the main reason that led to the decision to reduce the size of our workforce. Also if difficult, I am convinced that this will put us in the best position to continue build a strong and profitable company that delivers great products to our users and supports our mission for years to come.”
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