Jay Peters is a news editor covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
Discord co-founder and CEO Jason Citron is stepping down and will be replaced by former Activision Blizzard and King exec Humam Sakhnini, according to a press release. Sakhnini takes over on April 28th. Citron will stay on the board of directors and serve as an advisor to the CEO.
“As we enter our next phase, I’ve been reflecting on how I can best contribute to Discord’s long-term success,” Citron says in a message shared with employees and posted to Discord’s website. “The job of a CEO is constantly evolving, and over the years I have continuously ‘hired myself out of a job.’ Usually that means delegating work and then taking on different leadership challenges. However, as I look at what is needed of Discord’s CEO over the next few years, I realize that it’s time for me to literally ‘hire myself out of a job.’”
When we interviewed Citron on the Decoder podcast last year, he said the company had grown to about 870 employees and over 200 million monthly active users.
Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord’s other co-founder, will remain at the company as chief technology officer.
“I look forward to working with Stan and Discord’s talented team to scale our business while staying true to the company’s core mission and the special connection it has with player communities,” Sakhnini says in a statement. “We’re still at the beginning of gaming’s impact on entertainment and culture, and Discord is perfectly positioned to play a central role in that future.”
The leadership shift is happening as Discord is reportedly exploring an IPO. In an interview with GamesBeat, Citron said that Discord didn’t have plans to announce about potentially going public, but noted that “as you can imagine, hiring someone like Humam is a step in that direction.”
