Discord co-founder Jason Citron explains why he pivoted away from making games at Hammer & Chisel to focus exclusively on communications software.
0:00 / 0:25exact quote · 25.1s
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“Like, I think we could have had a really good small to mid-sized business if we had focused on that game, but from the experience I had building Openfeint, I knew that, like, we, I had these powers that I could use to have positive impact on, like, tens or hundreds of millions of people, and I wanted to do something that was really big and important, and I knew that that game, in it, in that form, wasn't gonna get there.”
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More from Jason Citron
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Citron: Discord paused hiring for a quarter to train internal managers
“Rather than bringing in managers from the outside, we created our own manager training program and asked anyone at the company, we said, hey, does anyone want to try and learn management? So we stopped hiring for a quarter. And basically talked about and taugh…”
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Disclosure
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“We have no plans to run ads.”
Jason CitronMar 7, 2022▶ 1:10:43Discord: Jason Citron
Disclosure
Citron: Discord rejected acquisition offers because the team wanted to keep building
“The interesting thing about the experience we went through earlier this year, you know, I can't comment on any specific companies, but it was a really crystallizing moment because, you know, I was talking to some of the folks on my team about sort of what path…”
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AssertionSupported
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“After like three or four months, you know, they asked me to step aside and basically like, we're going to take the business in this direction. And so I left.”
Jason CitronMar 7, 2022▶ 30:35Discord: Jason Citron
Insight
Citron: Enduring gaming companies need their own distribution platforms
“Video game businesses that were around for a long time tended to have a distribution mechanism of their own that they could use to kind of Buffer the time between making hit titles, because it's a very hit driven industry.”
Jason CitronMar 7, 2022▶ 36:16Discord: Jason Citron
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Citron: Co-founder Stanislav Vishnevsky pitched the standalone idea that became Discord
“One of the engineers at the company, a guy named Stanislav Vishnevsky, came to me and was like, hey Jason, and we've been talking about this gaming communication thing for a while, and he was like, I have an idea for how we could build a communications app tha…”
Jason CitronMar 7, 2022▶ 45:25Discord: Jason Citron
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