Leaders at Discord have decided to cut its staff by 17 percent, according to an internal memo first reported on by the Verge. Concerns over how the chat app has yet to become profitable have played a role in the decision. CEO Jason Citron said that staff across departments will be impacted once the layoffs begin.
According to the memo, Citron believes the company hired too many people since 2020. This, he wrote, led the workforce to take on projects that made Discord “less efficient.” He added that the company needs to sharpen its focus, however, he did not give any insight about any particular strategies moving forward except that the cuts “put us in the best position to continue building a strong and profitable business.”
Discord will continue to provide short term pay and benefits to the 170 staffers it is letting go. This also isn’t the first time the company has resorted to staff cuts. The company recently laid off four percent of its staff at the end of last year and before that, it made an undisclosed number of staffing cuts 2019.
The company has notably endured some internal struggles lately. Discord refused to have its CEO testify about its children protection policies when called upon by the US Senate Judiciary Committee. That came after a damning NBC News report on the issue, which claimed that children on the platform were being groomed and extorted. It also faced backlash for a small data breach that exposed the personal information of some users last year.
Discord is far from alone among tech companies which have recently initiated layoffs. Just one month into the new year, Duolingo and Unity announced they would be trimming staff. In big tech, Meta, Amazon and Google also have also announced plans to lay off hundreds of workers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/discord-lays-off-170-workers-in-latest-round-of-cuts-211541127.html?src=rss