Discord is laying off 170 (17%) employees as its CEO says the workforce grew too quickly

• Discord is cutting 170 jobs — about 17% of its workforce — The Verge reported.
• CEO Jason Citron blamed the job cuts on the company's rapid growth and head count increases.
• It comes after major tech firms, including Google and Amazon, made hundreds of layoffs this week.

Discord is laying off 170 employees, which equates to about 17% of its workforce.

The messaging app told workers about the cuts in an all-hands meeting and memo, which The Verge obtained. CEO Jason Citron blamed the layoffs on the company growing too fast.

Citron reportedly told staff in the memo: "We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020." He added, "As a result, we took on more projects and became less efficient in how we operated."

The privately held company cut 4% of its headcount in August. Cofounded by Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy in 2015, Discord was valued at $15 billion in 2021, CNBC reported.

The announcement comes after major tech firms made sweeping layoffs this week.

Google is laying off hundreds of staff working on Google Assistant and members of its devices and services team, Semafor and 9to5Google first reported.

Amazon is also cutting several hundreds of workers across Prime Video and MGM Studios, a memo obtained by Business Insider showed. And 500 employees — more than a third of the workforce — are also being laid off at Amazon's Twitch, per a 6:00 a.m. memo sent by Twitch's CEO that BI also obtained.

The e-commerce giant slashed 27,000 jobs last year, including 18,000 in January alone, as a wave of major tech companies rectified their head counts following a hiring spree during the pandemic.

Data from job cuts tracker Layoffs.fyi showed that 35 companies have laid off a total of 5,586 tech workers so far this year.

Discord didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside of normal working hours.