Chat app Discord is laying off 170 people, or 17% of its workforce, The Verge reported Thursday. The situation has all the greatest hits you’ve come to expect: the company grew too fast, the CEO feels bad I guess, a lot of people are now out of work in an increasingly dire time.
In a memo to staff, published by The Verge, Discord CEO Jason Citron wrote, “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.”
According to the memo, laid-off Discord staff will receive five months of salary and benefits, alongside other services as “they transition into future employment.” Citron calls the whole situation “difficult” four times.
Stop me if you heard something like this Monday, when Unity announced its plan to lay off 1,800 people, or 25% of its workforce. Or if you heard something like this Tuesday, when Twitch decided to lay off 500 employees, or 35% of its workforce, alongside broader cuts at its parent company Amazon.
This brings the total number of announced layoffs in the gaming-adjacent space this week to 2,470 people, if you’re counting. If you thought 2023 was the year of layoffs, 2024 is already giving it a run for its money.
