Discord lays off 170 people, blames growing too quickly

Discord has become a mainstay for many online communities in recent years, but its relative success hasn’t shielded the platform from the financial woes plaguing the tech industry. Like other companies making sweeping cuts to their workforces this week, Discord is laying off 17% of its staff, or about 170 people.

In an internal memo obtained by the Verge, Discord CEO Jason Citron blamed over-hiring — echoing explanations that other tech CEOs have offered for recent layoffs. The cuts were announced during an all-hands meeting on Thursday.

“We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020,” Citron said in the memo. “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.”

Discord saw massive growth during pandemic lockdowns, but still isn’t profitable, the Verge reports. Last August, Discord laid off 4% of its staff — nearly 40 employees — as part of a company-wide restructuring. Many of the cuts affected those in marketing, design and entertainment partnerships.

It’s been a particularly brutal week in tech layoffs; in the last few days, video game engine Unity cut 1,800 jobs, Amazon-owned Twitch laid off roughly 500 employees and Amazon let go of “several hundreds” of Prime Video and MGM Studios staff. Audible, the audiobook company also owned by Amazon, cut 5% of its workforce.