Jason Citron

Jason Citron
Born	21 9, 1984
Birthplace	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Entrepreneur, technology executive
Title	Co-founder and CEO Advisor, Discord
Known for	Co-founder of Discord, founder of OpenFeint
Education	Full Sail University (BS)

Jason Citron (born September 21, 1984) is an American entrepreneur and technology executive who co-founded Discord, the instant messaging and social platform that grew from a tool for gamers into one of the most widely used communication applications in the world. Before Discord, Citron founded OpenFeint, a social gaming platform for mobile devices that was acquired by Japanese company GREE in 2011 for $104 million. Citron served as Discord's chief executive officer from its founding in 2015 until April 2025, when he stepped down and transitioned to the role of CEO advisor while remaining on the company's board of directors. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Citron developed an early interest in video games and technology that shaped the trajectory of his career. Over more than a decade and a half in the technology industry, he built two significant platforms centered on the intersection of gaming and social communication, with Discord ultimately reaching hundreds of millions of registered users and attaining a valuation of $15 billion. He was named to the Time 100 Next list in 2023.

Early Life

Jason Citron was born on September 21, 1984, in San Francisco, California. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he developed a strong interest in video games and technology from a young age. In interviews, Citron has spoken about how gaming served as both a hobby and a social outlet during his formative years, experiences that would later inform his approach to building social platforms centered around gaming communities.

Citron's childhood interest in games extended beyond simply playing them. He became interested in game development and programming, skills he would pursue through his education and early career. The culture of the Bay Area technology scene, which surrounded him throughout his youth, provided an environment where entrepreneurship and innovation in software were common aspirations.

Education

Citron attended Full Sail University, a for-profit university in Winter Park, Florida, that specializes in entertainment, media, arts, and technology. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the institution. Full Sail's curriculum in game development and related technology fields aligned with Citron's interest in video games and software development. The education he received there provided a foundation in both the technical and creative aspects of game and software development that he would apply in his subsequent entrepreneurial ventures.

Career

OpenFeint (2008–2012)

Citron began his career in the technology industry by founding OpenFeint in 2008, a social gaming network designed for mobile devices, particularly those running iOS. The platform provided a social layer for mobile games, offering features such as leaderboards, achievements, and multiplayer functionality that allowed independent game developers to add social features to their titles without having to build such infrastructure themselves. At the time, the mobile gaming market was in its early stages, and the App Store was still a relatively new ecosystem. OpenFeint addressed a gap in the market by giving smaller developers access to tools that could help their games compete with larger titles.

OpenFeint gained traction among independent iPhone application developers, who rallied around the platform as a way to enhance their games' social capabilities. The platform attracted significant interest from investors and industry players. In October 2010, Intel Capital was among the investors that participated in funding for OpenFeint, reflecting the platform's growing prominence in the mobile gaming space.

In April 2011, Japanese social gaming company GREE acquired OpenFeint for $104 million. The acquisition represented a significant exit for Citron and validated the concept of social platforms built around gaming communities. GREE, which operated a large social gaming network in Japan, sought to use OpenFeint as a gateway into the Western mobile gaming market. The experience of building and selling OpenFeint gave Citron both the financial resources and the industry knowledge to pursue his next venture.

Hammer & Chisel and Fates Forever (2012–2015)

After the sale of OpenFeint, Citron founded a game development studio called Hammer & Chisel. The studio developed Fates Forever, a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game designed for tablets. The game was an attempt to bring the popular MOBA genre, which had found massive success on personal computers through titles like League of Legends and Dota 2, to mobile platforms.

Hammer & Chisel raised funding from notable investors, including Benchmark and Tencent, the Chinese technology conglomerate with significant investments in the gaming industry. Despite the backing and the quality of the game, Fates Forever did not achieve the commercial success Citron had hoped for in the competitive mobile gaming market. However, the experience of developing a multiplayer game and observing how players communicated during gameplay proved instrumental in the conception of Discord. Citron and his team noticed that the existing voice and text communication tools available to gamers were cumbersome, unreliable, or difficult to use, leading them to pivot toward building a dedicated communication platform.

Discord: Founding and Early Growth (2015–2020)

In 2015, Citron and co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy launched Discord, a free voice, video, and text communication platform initially targeted at gamers. The platform was built to address the frustrations that Citron and his team had experienced with existing communication tools while developing Fates Forever. Discord offered low-latency voice chat, persistent text channels organized into servers, and a clean user interface that made it easy for gaming communities to organize and communicate.

Hammer & Chisel, the studio originally founded to develop games, pivoted entirely to focus on Discord. The platform quickly gained popularity among gaming communities, in part because it was free to use and offered a superior experience to existing alternatives such as TeamSpeak and Skype. Discord's server-based structure allowed communities of any size to create their own spaces with customizable channels, roles, and permissions.

By 2020, Discord had grown far beyond its gaming origins. The platform attracted a diverse range of communities, including those centered around education, art, music, and various hobbies. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this expansion, as people sought digital spaces for social connection during periods of lockdown and social distancing. In June 2020, Discord secured a new valuation of $3.5 billion in a funding round, reflecting its substantial growth.

However, Discord's growth was not without controversy. The platform had gained a reputation in its early years as a gathering place for certain extremist groups, including elements of the alt-right, who used Discord servers to organize. The platform took steps to address this issue by strengthening its moderation policies and removing servers that violated its terms of service. Discord's efforts to distance itself from extremist content and rebrand as a mainstream communication platform became a significant part of Citron's leadership focus.

Discord: Expansion and Challenges (2020–2025)

Under Citron's continued leadership, Discord expanded its reach and capabilities throughout the early 2020s. The platform's user base grew substantially, and the company rebranded away from a gaming-only identity, adopting the tagline "Your Place to Talk" to reflect its broader community appeal.

Discord's rapid growth attracted acquisition interest from major technology companies. In 2021, reports emerged that Microsoft had been in talks to acquire Discord for approximately $10 billion, although the deal did not materialize. The decision to remain independent signaled Citron's belief in Discord's potential as a standalone company and its long-term trajectory.

As Discord's user base increasingly included younger users, Citron faced growing scrutiny over child safety on the platform. Discord introduced the Family Center feature, which allowed parents to stay connected with and monitor their teenagers' activity on the platform. In January 2024, Citron appeared before the United States Senate alongside other technology CEOs, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms, to testify at a hearing on child safety on social media platforms. The hearing reflected the increasing regulatory and public attention directed at social media companies regarding the safety of minors.

In a January 2024 interview with The Verge, Citron discussed Discord's approach to safety, moderation, and the platform's evolution in serving a broad and diverse user base, including the challenges of balancing open communication with the need to protect vulnerable users, particularly teenagers.

Discord also faced internal challenges during this period. In January 2024, the company announced layoffs affecting 17 percent of its workforce, a significant reduction that reflected broader pressures in the technology industry.

Stepping Down as CEO (2025)

On April 23, 2025, Discord announced that Citron was stepping down as chief executive officer after a decade leading the company. Humam Sakhnini, a former vice chairman of Activision Blizzard and executive at King, was named as Citron's successor, with the transition effective April 28, 2025.

Citron announced his departure through a blog post on Discord's website, in which he described the decision as "passing the torch" and expressed his belief that the company was well-positioned for its next chapter. He stated that he would remain on Discord's board of directors and transition to a role as CEO advisor.

The leadership transition was widely reported in the context of a potential initial public offering for Discord. CNBC noted that the change came ahead of a potential IPO, suggesting that the appointment of Sakhnini, who had experience leading public companies, was part of preparations for taking Discord public. The New York Times reported on the transition as a significant moment for the social chat application. GamesIndustry.biz highlighted that Citron had led the gaming instant messaging and VoIP platform for a decade.

Business Insider reported that Citron, then 40 years old, indicated he planned to spend time playing video games following his departure, listing three major titles at the top of his to-play list.

Post-CEO Activity

Following his departure from the CEO role, Citron remained engaged with the technology and startup community. In September 2025, it was announced that Citron would return to TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, the technology conference held in San Francisco on October 27–29, 2025. His appearance at the conference was framed as a return to the event where Discord had earlier connections to the startup ecosystem. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Citron was slated to participate in a session discussing the blueprint for building lasting companies and communities, alongside Tade Oyerinde of Campuswire.

Personal Life

Citron was born and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has maintained a relatively private personal life throughout his career, with most public information about him focused on his professional endeavors. His lifelong interest in video games has been a consistent theme in interviews and public appearances, and upon stepping down as Discord's CEO in 2025, he expressed his intention to return to playing games.

In January 2024, Citron testified before the United States Senate regarding child safety on social media platforms, an appearance that placed him in the public spotlight alongside other prominent technology executives.

Recognition

In 2023, Time magazine named Jason Citron to its Time 100 Next list, which recognizes emerging leaders across industries who are shaping the future. The recognition reflected his role in building Discord into a major communications platform used by millions of people worldwide.

Citron's work with Discord also brought him attention as a speaker and thought leader in the technology industry. His scheduled return to TechCrunch Disrupt in 2025, years after his earlier involvement with the conference, underscored his continued relevance in the startup and technology ecosystem.

The Senate hearing on child safety in January 2024, while not an award or honor in the traditional sense, placed Citron among a select group of technology executives called to address one of the most pressing policy issues facing the industry.

Legacy

Jason Citron's career is defined by the creation of two platforms that addressed the social needs of gaming communities. OpenFeint, his first major venture, was among the earliest platforms to provide social networking features for mobile games, and its $104 million acquisition by GREE in 2011 demonstrated the commercial value of social gaming infrastructure.

Discord, his more significant and lasting contribution, fundamentally changed how gamers and, eventually, a much broader audience communicated online. The platform's server-based architecture, which allowed communities to create customizable spaces with text and voice channels, became a model for online group communication. Discord's growth from a niche gaming tool to a mainstream communication platform used by students, creators, businesses, and hobbyists represented a shift in how people organized online communities.

The challenges Discord faced under Citron's leadership — including the platform's association with extremist groups in its early years, questions about child safety, and the difficulties of content moderation at scale — also reflected broader issues confronting the social media industry. Citron's responses to these challenges, including the introduction of safety tools like the Family Center and his testimony before the Senate, became part of the evolving conversation about the responsibilities of technology platforms.

The leadership transition in April 2025, with the appointment of a CEO experienced in leading public companies, positioned Discord for a potential new phase as a publicly traded company. Citron's decision to step aside while remaining involved as an advisor and board member followed a pattern seen with other technology founders who built companies from inception through significant growth before handing over day-to-day leadership.