Discord confirms it’s moving toward ‘becoming a public company’ as it hires a former Activision executive as its new CEO

Discord co-founder Jason Citron has announced that he is stepping down as CEO, and will be replaced in the position by former Activision Blizzard executive Humam Sakhnini. Citron will remain with the company, however, as a member of its board of directors and an advisor to the new chief.

Citron’s resignation comes a little over a month after the emergence of reports that Discord was making moves toward becoming a publicly traded company, and that is indeed what’s going on: The outgoing CEO said Sakhnini was hired “to lead Discord through our next chapter of growth and someday becoming a public company.”

“As we enter our next phase, I’ve been reflecting on how I can best contribute to Discord’s long-term success,” Citron wrote in a message to Discord employees that was also shared on the company’s blog. “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’.

“One thing I know for sure: our company is bigger than any one person. Its future depends not just on me, but on a strong leadership team, a clear vision for what comes next, and all of your incredible talent, care, and hard work. Today’s Discord has all of that. It’s by far the best version of the company we’ve ever had. We have a clear strategy, new business lines to grow into, love and passion from our users, and an incredible team of people working tirelessly to deliver for them.”

Sakhnini definitely seems like a fellow who knows his way around bankers and boardrooms. His LinkedIn page says he spent eight years at business consulting firm McKinsey and Co. before joining Activision Blizzard as chief strategy and talent officer in 2009. In 2016, following Activision’s acquisition of King, he became that company’s chief financial officer and then president, a position he held until 2022 when he became vice chairman of Activision Blizzard’s board. He left that role in 2023, not long after Microsoft finished its takeover of the company.

“I’m incredibly excited to join Discord at such a pivotal moment,” Sakhnini said in a separate statement. “Discord stands as a massive, foundational part of the gaming ecosystem that millions of players, developers, and publishers rely on every day. What Jason and Discord co-founder and CTO Stan Vishnevskiy have built is truly remarkable—a platform with an undeniable product-market fit where hundreds of millions of people connect around their passion for gaming and shared interests.

“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. 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.”

Like just about every gaming and gaming-adjacent company in existence, Discord botched the Covid-19 pandemic by grossly overextending itself in unsustainable conditions, after which it laid off a large number of employees in pursuit of—you guessed it—”more agility.”

In May 2024, Discord announced a new plan that sounded a lot like its old plan: Focus on being a place for people to hang out while they play games online. Whether that focus will hold up once the company is in the hands of institutional investors whose only priority is making numbers go up is a wide-open question and one that, like my compatriot Joshua Wolens, I have grave doubts about. But it seems now that, for good or ill, we’re going to find out.