What is Jason Citron's Net Worth?
Jason Citron is an American Internet entrepreneur who has a net worth of $1 billion. Jason Citron co-founded the online social platform Discord and its parent company, the game development studio Hammer & Chisel. When Discord raised money in 2020 at a $7 billion valuation, Jason and his co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy both owned an estimated 10% of the company's equity. So at that round, they were both worth $700 million on paper. In 2023 Discord raised another funding round at a valuation of $15 billion. Assuming that valuation is still fair and that Jason and Stanislav's equity stakes were not significantly diluted, they should both be safely paper billionaires.
Before Discord he founded the social gaming platform OpenFeint, which was acquired by GREE in 2011 for $104 million.
Early Life and Education
Jason Citron was born on September 21, 1987 in San Francisco, California into a family of businessmen. From an early age, he developed an interest in technology and gaming, and taught himself how to code using QBASIC. When he was 13, Citron created his first video game. He also did freelance work coding for various websites. For his higher education, Citron went to Full Sail University in Florida, earning his bachelor's degree in game design and development.
Career Beginnings
After graduating from college, Citron moved back to San Francisco and did game programming for various companies, including Double Fine Productions and Papaya Studio. His career really took off in 2009 when he founded OpenFeint, a social gaming platform for Android and iOS mobile devices. The platform allowed mobile game developers to add their own features to their games, including leaderboards and chats. By 2011, OpenFeint had amassed over 100 million users and 7,000 games. It was subsequently acquired by the Japanese gaming company GREE for $104 million. Following the sale of OpenFeint, Citron became an entrepreneur-in-residence at YouWeb, the incubator that had helped him launch OpenFeint. He also founded the game development studio Hammer & Chisel.
(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Discord
In 2015, Citron and fellow Internet entrepreneur Stanislav Vishnevskiy founded Discord, an online instant-messaging and VoIP social platform designed to facilitate communication between gamers. The platform allows chatting through text, voice, and video, and also supports streaming, sharing, and creating content. In 2020, Discord announced that it was expanding its focus to become a more all-purpose communication service. As a result, the platform doubled its monthly user base to around 140 million users. After raising $500 million in late 2023, Discord was valued at $15 billion.
Discord's increased popularity over the years has coincided with a significant amount of controversy. In 2023, the platform was used to publish classified United States documents detailing the state of the Russo-Ukrainian War and providing surveillance information on international alliances. This constituted one of the most significant intelligence leaks in modern US history. Discord has also received extensive criticism for enabling cyberbullying, far-right extremism, and the alleged sexual exploitation of children. Additionally, it has been accused of violating user privacy and data protection laws.
Personal Life
Citron is married to a partner whose name has not been publicly disclosed. The couple lives in Florida. Citron is an avid gamer, and plays "League of Legends," "Fortnite," and "World of Warcraft," among other games.
