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Discord Inc.

Real-Time Communication and Social Networking PlatformsFounded 2015
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Company data updated: October 2026

Founders

Who Founded Discord?

Jason Citron, Stanislav Vishnevskiy · Founded 2015 · HQ today: San Francisco, California

Who founded Discord?

Discord was founded by Jason Citron, Stanislav Vishnevskiy in 2015. It is now led by Humam Sakhnini.

Founders
Jason Citron, Stanislav Vishnevskiy
Founded
2015
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Number of founders
2
Current CEO
Humam Sakhnini (since 2025)
Where was Discord founded?
Discord was founded in San Francisco, California in 2015.
When was Discord founded?
Discord was founded in 2015.
Who started Discord?
Discord was founded by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy.
How old is Discord?
Discord is 11 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

Jason Citron sold his mobile gaming network OpenFeint to Japan's GREE in 2011 for a reported $104 million, then founded Hammer & Chisel to make Fates Forever, a multiplayer tablet game. The game did not catch on, but the team saw that gamers struggled with existing voice tools such as Skype and TeamSpeak. Citron and engineer Stanislav Vishnevskiy built a browser-friendly, low-latency chat app instead and released Discord in May 2015. Early traction came from Reddit gaming communities and titles such as Final Fantasy XIV and League of Legends.

Jason Citron

Co-founder 2015

Background

Jason Citron founded OpenFeint in 2009, a mobile gaming social network that he sold to GREE for $104 million in 2011, providing the capital and experience to found Hammer & Chisel and subsequently pivot to create Discord. His decision to abandon a funded mobile game when the chat tool showed higher engagement demonstrated a rare strategic agility that defined Discord's entire trajectory.

Role at Discord Inc.

Jason Citron co-founded Discord in 2015 and was its CEO until April 2025, when he handed the role to Humam Sakhnini and moved to the board as an advisor. He previously founded OpenFeint, a mobile gaming social network sold to GREE in 2011 for a reported $104 million, and then Hammer & Chisel, whose tablet game Fates Forever failed before the team pivoted to Discord. As CEO he led Discord through rapid pandemic-era growth, the end of acquisition talks with Microsoft in 2021, and a 17% layoff in January 2024. Jason Citron was born in 1984.

Stanislav Vishnevskiy

Co-founder 2015

Background

Stanislav Vishnevskiy co-founded Discord with Jason Citron in 2015 and serves as its chief technology officer, leading the platform's engineering, including its voice infrastructure and the 2026 age-assurance system.

Role at Discord Inc.

Stanislav Vishnevskiy is Discord's co-founder and chief technology officer. Before Discord he worked with Jason Citron and co-founded Guildwork, a gaming-guild tool. He led the engineering of Discord's low-latency voice and chat when it launched in 2015 and remains its CTO; in 2026 he publicly explained the company's age-assurance approach, saying more than 90% of users would not need to verify their age. Stanislav Vishnevskiy was born in 1989.

Discord Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Humam Sakhnini

Chief Executive Officer

2025 – Present

Instilled gaming-industry operational and commercial discipline, steering Discord toward profitability and institutional investor readiness while balancing community expectations around privacy and new age-assurance compliance protocols.

Jason Citron

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

2015 – 2025

Citron's effective, unconventional strategic vision transformed Discord from a niche gaming utility into one of the most culturally significant, widely used communication platforms in the modern world. Under his decade-long executive leadership, the platform experienced truly rapid, global user growth, rapidly expanding far beyond its original gaming roots to host study groups, corporate teams, and millions of diverse online communities, redefining how modern digital communities interact. After ten years of transformative growth, he smoothly transitioned to a key role as a Board Member and Advisor in early 2025. Citron stepped down as CEO in April 2025 ahead of a potential IPO, moving to the board as Advisor to the CEO rather than exiting the company entirely.

Keep researching Discord

Who Founded Discord? FAQ

Who are the founders of Discord?

Discord was founded in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy in San Francisco, California, bringing together their shared passions for video games, software engineering, and community building.

What technical problem inspired Stan Vishnevskiy to co-found Discord?

Stan Vishnevskiy, an avid MMORPG player (Final Fantasy XI), was frustrated by how existing voice chat tools (Skype, TeamSpeak) required sharing IP addresses (exposing players to DDoS attacks), consumed heavy CPU, and suffered from terrible audio lag.

How did the founders launch Discord to early users in May 2015?

The founders launched Discord by sharing it directly with gaming communities on Reddit (specifically the Final Fantasy XIV and League of Legends subreddits), offering a simple link where players could click and instantly join a browser voice channel without creating an account.

Why did the founders pivot from game development to communication software?

While their mobile game Fates Forever received critical acclaim, it was not a commercial blockbuster. The founders recognized that their proprietary VoIP chat system solved a universal frustration for hundreds of millions of gamers worldwide.

What early engineering choices made by the founders enabled Discord's large scale?

The founders chose Erlang/Elixir for its exceptional concurrency in handling millions of simultaneous voice connections, paired with a React frontend and high-speed Rust backend microservices, allowing tiny server footprints to handle large message throughput.

How did the founders fund the early development of Discord?

Early funding came from Jason Citron's personal capital, followed by seed and Series A investments from YouWeb incubator, Benchmark (led by Peter Fenton), Time Warner, and Tencent.

What was the founders' philosophy regarding user experience and intrusive ads?

The founders made a foundational pledge never to sell user data or clutter the user interface with third-party programmatic display ads, choosing instead to align platform monetization directly with user happiness through optional Nitro subscriptions.

What active roles do the founders hold at Discord today?

Both founders remain actively at the helm of the company: Jason Citron serves as Chief Executive Officer, driving corporate strategy, product vision, and partnerships, while Stan Vishnevskiy serves as Chief Technology Officer, overseeing engineering and technical infrastructure.

Who founded Discord?

It was founded by Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy. Stan is the technical genius who realized that existing tools like Skype and TeamSpeak were resource-heavy and awful for gamers, directly inspiring the lightweight, low-latency architecture of Discord.

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Content is for informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Data sourced from SEC filings, annual reports, and public records. See our full disclaimer and methodology.