As much as I’d hate to admit it, I’m a small business owner. I’d hate to admit it because I know absolutely nothing about business outside of some basic things. Now, for people who run big businesses that impact millions, if not billions, of lives, I expect them to know a thing or two about business. But, as 2023 and 2024 have been showing us, that isn’t the case. My newest point: Discord.
Discord’s pandemic growth
It was announced on Thursday that Discord will be laying off 17 percent of their staff. For those like myself who like a little less obscurity, that is 170 people across various departments. The move was justified by CEO Jason Citron to “sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization.”
According to a memo sent to employees, it was brought to everyone’s attention that Discord’s headcount grew too fast during the pandemic.
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.”
Discord CEO Jason Citron
Transactional hiring
Now, unlike other tech companies, Discord isn’t in any real dire straits. The goal for the company is to become profitable, but this will be at the expensive of 170 people plus the 4 percent they got rid of back in August 2023.
So, what really bothers me about this whole issue is that the employees Discord is shedding off feel purely transaction. This wouldn’t be much of an issue if you didn’t know how corporations like to treat everyone like family.
And speaking of corporate families, how much do you want to bet that the people leaving aren’t the ones that were just hired? Now, I’m not talking about your “old white guys”. I’m talking about experienced employees. The ones getting paid their worth only to be cut because suddenly they’re getting paid too much.
I almost want to take back the things I said about Discord last year.
Source: The Verge
