We realized pretty quickly that even though we focused on specific games, people were using Discord for all kinds of multiplayer gaming.

Discord became popular among gamers because it allows easy communication through voice channels, making it more efficient than previous methods like Skype or phone calls. I had a Discord server with close to half a million people, where they could engage with each other and share memes, creating a community around a common interest.

The breakthrough for Discord's growth came from inviting users to provide feedback rather than just promoting the app, which helped build a community.

We realized that existing communication tools like TeamSpeak and Skype were not effectively serving the gaming market, which created an opportunity for Discord.

The core learning from Twitch was that if they could help streamers make money, those streamers would create content that millions wanted to watch.

The launch of Discord coincided with the rise of WebRTC technology, which allowed us to reduce friction and improve interoperability in our communication platform.

At Twitch, we made a clear decision to prioritize the needs of streamers over viewers, focusing on streamers because they were the key to our platform's success, especially in the early days when there were only about 200 gaming streamers who mattered.

Twitch provides a stronger sense of community compared to YouTube, where interactions are more fragmented.

We built Discord with customization capabilities, allowing users to connect to external data sources, which turned out to be beneficial for various applications.