Jason Citron

Last updated

Jason Citron
TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018 - day 2 (29582918137) (cropped).jpg
Citron at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2018
Born (1984-09-21) September 21, 1984 (age 40)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Education Full Sail University (BS)
Occupations
Years active2008-present

Jason Citron (born September 21, 1984) is an American businessman [1] who is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Discord, an instant messaging social platform. [2] He is also founder of OpenFeint, a social platform for mobile games. [3] [4]

Contents

Biography

Early life

Jason Citron was born on September 21, 1984, [5] in San Francisco, California, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family with a background in business and technology, later growing up in South Florida. [6] [7] [8] He became interested in technology after being gifted a computer by his grandfather, as well as his love of video games, citing Final Fantasy VI as his favorite game and that "I was a Squaresoft fanboy, and I still am." He learned how to write code in QBasic at the age of 13 with the help of a friend, with his first program being a text-based role-playing game. [6] He later attended Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Game Design and Development in 2004.

Career

Citron's career began with the founding of Aurora Feint, a mobile game development studio that later evolved into OpenFeint, a social platform for mobile games. [9] OpenFeint became a success, eventually being sold to the Japanese company GREE for $104 million in 2011. [10] [11] The following year, Citron founded Hammer & Chisel, a gaming company that aimed to create high-quality mobile games, releasing the game Fates Forever in 2014. [12] However, the company pivoted towards developing a chat service when Citron noticed the need for better communication tools for gamers, leading to the creation of Discord in 2015. Discord quickly became a popular communication platform, initially among gamers but later expanding to a wider audience. [13] By 2024, under Citron's leadership, Discord had grown into a multi-billion-dollar company with over 150 million active users per month.

References

  1. ↑ Patel, Nilay (April 22, 2024). "Discord CEO Jason Citron on why gaming and group chats are the future of the internet". The Verge. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  2. ↑ "2023 TIME100 Next: Jason Citron". Time. September 13, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  3. ↑ "Mark Zuckerberg, Jason Citron more tech CEOs make opening remarks at child safety hearing - CBS News". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  4. ↑ Browning, Kellen (December 29, 2021). "How Discord, Born From an Obscure Game, Became a Social Hub for Young People". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved May 1, 2024.
  5. ↑ Citron, Jason [@jasoncitron] (September 21, 2009). "Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes. Now I'm officially old. #25 ;-)" (Tweet). Retrieved May 9, 2024– via Twitter.
  6. 1 2 Newnham, Danielle (August 24, 2022). "Interview with Jason Citron, Founder of OpenFeint". Medium. Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved March 29, 2025.
  7. ↑ "Discord Was Once The Alt-Right's Favorite Chat App. Now It's Gone Mainstream And Scored A New $3.5 Billion Valuation". Forbes . Retrieved August 13, 2024.
  8. ↑ "Why a $10bn Discord sale might not be in tune with the messaging platform's fans". news.sky.com/. Retrieved August 13, 2024.
  9. ↑ Sielger, MG (April 17, 2009). "Indie iPhone App Developers Rallying Around OpenFeint". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 19, 2010.
  10. ↑ Rao, Leena (April 21, 2011). "Japanese Company GREE Buys Mobile Social Gaming Platform OpenFeint For $104 Million In Cash". TechCrunch . Retrieved June 21, 2017.
  11. ↑ Rao, Leena (October 21, 2010). "Intel Invests $3 Million In Mobile Social Gaming Platform OpenFeint". TechCrunch . Retrieved May 10, 2018.
  12. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (February 10, 2015). "Fates Forever mobile game maker toaster raises funding from Benchmark and Tencent". VentureBeat . Archived from the original on May 5, 2016. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
  13. ↑ "How Discord, Born From an Obscure Game, Became a Social Hub for Young People". The New York Times . Retrieved August 13, 2024.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.