#192 CTO & Co-Founder Discord, Stanislav Vishnevskiy: Ship It

May 27, 2024

Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy discusses the social aspect of gaming, the growth of Discord beyond gamers, the importance of community, good and bad stress, leadership challenges, hiring practices, content moderation, and the evolution of Discord. Topics also include online socializing, collaborative projects, React, and authentic customer experience.

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Introduction

00:00 • 2min

The Impact of Discord on User Relationships

02:17 • 9min

Navigating Challenges in Building a Startup

10:49 • 11min

Gaming, Health Challenges, and Immigrant Upbringing

21:21 • 6min

Evolution of Gaming and Building Discord

27:02 • 16min

Hiring Engineers for Mission Alignment and Passion

43:05 • 3min

Evolution of Discord Beyond Gaming

45:42 • 16min

Exploring Passion, Perseverance, and Resilience at Discord

01:01:32 • 2min

Guest: Stanislav Vishnevskiy, CTO and co-founder of Discord

For many years, the conventional wisdom was the gaming was not social because it was something you usually did at home. “But people who play games are often the most social,” says Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy. “They’re spending 10, 20 hours with other people online, hanging out.” As a teenager, Stanislav logged more than 1,000 days playing his favorite video game and socializing with friends around the world, but with 200 million monthly active users, the social platform is appealing to a lot more than hardcore gamers. “People online who need to get together and collaborate ... [want] tp have control and create a place,” he says. “That’s not just a gaming need, right? That’s pretty much any community.”

In this episode, Stanislav and Joubin discuss “Discord moments,” hanging out online, IRC and AIM, Fates Forever, good and bad stress, leadership coaches, Claire Hughes Johnson, socializing online, heart surgery, Slack, Jason Citron, in-browser voice chat, Reddit, authentic CX, hiring slowly, Mitch Lasky, “playing moneyball,” React, content moderation, deprecation plans, and collaborative projects.

Chapters:

(02:09) - Discord’s scale and importance
(07:35) - What is Discord?
(09:43) - Hammer and Chisel
(13:18) - How Stanislav’s role has changed
(15:17) - Imposter syndrome
(17:47) - Doing stuff for the first time
(21:22) - Final Fantasy XI and Stanislav’s parents
(25:12) - YOLO
(27:02) - Games as social networks
(30:49) - The evolution of Discord
(35:58) - Inherent virality
(39:04) - Building the company
(41:39) - The COVID effect
(43:08) - Hiring for slope
(46:43) - Pivoting back to gaming
(51:27) - The Discord Store and Nitro
(54:30) - Emotional stakes
(56:09) - Midjourney and AI art
(59:58) - Virtual worlds
(01:01:30) - Who Discord is hiring and what “grit” means to Stanislav

Links:

Connect with Stanislav
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm