Why not start as you mean to go on, yeah? Discord is probably one of the most popular chat services in the world, but even this monolithic communication tool is not immune to the dreaded “L” word. It turns out it, too, is about to lay a chunk of its workforce off.
According to a report from The Verge, Discord has announced it will be letting 17% of its staff go – the equivalent of 170 people – across numerous departments.
Company CEO Jason Citron has said the layoffs are an effort to help “sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization.” It’s up to you to decide whether that means anything or not.
Quick growth is to blame
The unfortunate impact is allegedly the result of a fast-expanding workforce, “increasing 5x since 2020,” Citron goes on to say. He then adds that, as a result, “we took on more projects and became less efficient in how we operated.”
This comes hot off the heels of Twitch saying it was letting 35% of its staff go and, just before that, Unity also announcing significant job cutbacks. I’ve said this in a previous post, but this really doesn’t bode well for the gaming industry for 2024.
Discord has around 196 million monthly users, according to one source, and is often a go-to for gamers. It’s such a shame that a sizeable portion of the company is being let go, especially after all the grim news about layoffs we saw in 2023.