Discord cuts 17% of employees to ‘sharpen its focus’

Discord today joined the list of companies laying off employees in 2024, which includes likes of Unity and Amazon. The company announced in a memo to employees that it is laying off 17% of its staff, or about 170 people, across several departments. According to CEO Jason Citron, who wrote the memo, this is part of Discord’s efforts to improve its efficiency.

Citron writes in the memo (which The Verge published): “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. 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.”

This is similar to Twitch CEO Dan Clancy’s claims earlier this week that Twitch’s layoffs were part of an attempt to make the company more “sustainable.” Discord last year launched several monetization features, including a marketplace and new subscription features.

According to Citron, Discord is offering five months of salary to laid-off employees, with an additional week for year at Discord, as well as five months of benefits and access to their healthcare through the end of the year. He ended with, “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.”