Fun & Games at Discord • Ross LaJeunesse

Head of Global Public Policy at Discord, Ross LaJeunesse, joins Niki in the studio to talk about how the app delivers today on the original promise of the internet - community and communication. He lays out how Discord fosters genuine servers-based connection, why it’s so important to small game developers, and what regulators should consider when they try to regulate Big Tech. Plus, he reviews just how huge gaming has become globally. 

“Discord is one of those places. It's community, it's belonging, and it's economic opportunity. It's a platform for entrepreneurs, creative entrepreneurs, small businesses.” -Ross LaJeunesse

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Transcript

Niki: I'm Niki Christoff, and welcome to Tech’ed Up. 

Today's guest in the studio is Ross LaJeunesse, one of my former Google colleagues and the former Head of Etsy's Global Public Policy. He's the current Head of Global Public Policy at Discord, an app that serves 200 million monthly active users and is rooted in the gaming culture.

Welcome to the podcast. 

Ross: It's great to be here. I love seeing you. 

Niki: Oh, it's so nice to see you too. And we'll quickly get into how we know each other. [Ross: Yeah] Which is, we were in a foxhole together at Google. [Ross: Right] We sort of were. You were like out trotting around internationally talking about internet freedom [Ross: Right] and internet governance.

Ross: Internet governance. The international community. Yeah, but, when I was in the office, where would we find ourselves, [teasingly] like, just outside the washrooms? [chuckling] 

Niki: With me slamming - [chuckling]

Ross: Sharing horror stories and complaining about certain colleagues or

Niki: No, I never complained about colleagues! Just kidding. 

Ross: Oh, that was the other Niki I knew. That's right. I forgot. 

Niki: [laughing] No, I was, like, slamming Coke Zeros and yelling at reporters. Which is what I mostly did. They actually - fun fact. So, we moved into an office at Google and it was like an open concept, except they put me in a glass cube [Ross: They did] with one of my teammates because all we did was like swear at reporters.  [Ross: Yeah] Anyway. 

Ross: Yeah. It was. I was, I was out there in the open. I was probably one of the people complaining about you people who are yelling and screaming. 

Niki: Compliance lawyers complained. [laughing]

Ross: Yeah. 

Niki: Anyway. So, we worked together back in the day. You went to Etsy for a while. You ran for United States Senate [Ross: Yeah] and you joined Discord, which is what we're here to talk about.

When did you join? 

Ross: I joined almost a year ago. 

Niki: Okay. 

Ross: Yeah. It's been a great year. 

Niki: So, one of the things I want to talk about, because I sort of know what Discord is [Ross: mm-hmm], but: Discord 101. Like, what is it? Because I think there's a community of people who are incredibly active on it [Ross: Right], but it's also growing, and it started growing during COVID.

So, I want to just talk about like, what is it? 

Ross: Great. It's a communications platform. So, text, video, voice, and it's mostly, I mean, folks do all sorts of things on it, but it's definitely got a strong focus on gaming. So, people will play games together online using Discord, or they'll be playing on a console, but they'll be talking to their friends on Discord while they're playing.

Niki: So, I wasn't using Discord [Ross: mm-hmm] and then during COVID, like many people, I fell into a crypto rabbit hole. But just to clarify, I wasn't like, I didn't become like a crypto bro. I started working as a consultant to the crypto industry [Ross: Gotcha] and they are on Discord [Ross: mm-hmm]. And so, I'd have to use it. 

Maybe none of this will make sense, but I was trying to use MetaMask, which is a wallet and I couldn't figure it out so I had to join a Discord server to figure out how to use this thing that was, like, so complicated.

So, for me, it was a place where I could get advice. It was actually an all-women Discord server. [Ross: Right] People in crypto because crypto [Ross: Right] is tricky if you're asking [chuckles] [Ross: a hundred percent] questions. 

Ross: Well, you raised an interesting thing, which is the servers, the idea of the servers. So you can use Discord, just direct messaging friends or have a group direct message, but a lot of people will join something called a server, which is basically a community. Most of them are small and they're organized around certain issues. Like, the first server I joined on Discord was called Operation Politics. [Niki: mmmh!] Soon after joining that, I realized that there was really something special going on at Discord.

I joined this server, having already run for public office, and the server is talking about politics, mostly policy, but it has very clear moderation rules. You make fun of someone, you bully them, you start being abusive, you get kicked out of the server. [Niki: mmhh] And what was stunning about it for me was I joined, and I was a little frightened of joining, and I was, I was a newbie, so I used my real name.

And so, I started engaging.

Niki: I also used my real name when I did this. [Ross: Right] Okay. 

Ross: It's actually something you can do safely on Discord, which already tells you that it's something different. But I use my real name, and, and it was the first time that people were, y’know, talking about things like Trump, Biden, Republicans, Democrats, what's going on in D.C., and they weren't devolving into name-calling or being abusive because of the moderation rules. 

And about a week in, one of the members of the server, I don't know any of these people, said, “Are you the Ross LaJeunesse who ran for Senate?” And I remember the moment because I immediately tensed up. [Niki: mm-hmm!] Y’know, when you're running for office, the internet can be a dark and scary place.

Niki: That's a huge understatement. 

Ross: Yeah. 

Niki: The seventh circle of hell. A new circle of hell. 

Ross: The things that were said about me, about my husband, about my family as an openly gay candidate. I mean, it was just, it was horrible. And so, when someone said, “Are you the same, y’know, [Niki: laughing] it's not a common name are you the, are you,” but there are more than one of us in the U.S. by the way “are you the Ross LaJeunesse who ran for Senate?” And I, I remember just that immediate tension in my, in my neck and shoulders. And I said, “Yes.” And the reaction was, “That's amazing. We don't have a lot of people who have actually run for office on this server. We really hope you'll step up and contribute more.”

And I just thought, “This is the first time I've been able to talk about politics, not necessarily with people I agree, but with strangers and it hasn't devolved into name-calling or something abusive.” And this is - even when you go to the New York Times comments section. 

Niki: Oh, I mean, yes!! 

Ross: There's this sense of community, is what I'm getting at. 

Niki: So, I think that the idea of that sense of community gets to something I heard your CEO talking about, which is, when I think about places I might go to get information, I go to Reddit sometimes [Ross: mm-hmm] I think it's actually kind of useful [Ross: mm-hmm] if I'm looking for things.

Reddit is one to the world, right? You're broadcasting to the whole world. Twitter is one to like, I mean, I can't even talk about it. [Ross: Right] So, I had a similar experience to you. So, I joined. Shout out to BoysClub. It's this women-run Discord channel and organization to help people understand crypto and blockchain in an extremely male-dominated sector. And I could ask questions like, “Why doesn't this wallet work on my phone?” And they're like, “Oh, because it's not mobile optimized.” But if I had asked that on Reddit or, y’know, Twitter, I actually wouldn't have asked it. So, it did create a nice sense of community. 

I want to talk about the server. So, these servers are communities. We've had really positive experiences. Right now, your biggest server, I think it has 19 million users, is AI-related. [Ross: mm-hmm]

And I think that's because we're in this deranged AI hype cycle, like, everything. 

Ross:  [chuckling] We know AI has been around forever, right? And then it, it's just now that so many people are starting to pay attention to it. And I do think a lot of it has to do with the power of imagery. We know that from our YouTube days, right? The power of imagery and video. 

Niki: Well, this is actually, I mean, not to get on a tangent, but for this podcast, people are constantly saying, “Do more video because people want to watch it.” It's more captivating. We're in this moment in time, [Ross: right], where that's like big, but the company, you guys have actively and intentionally decided to pivot back toward gaming, which is [Ross: right] your roots. Why? How did that come about? 

Ross: You're absolutely right. The origins of the company, Jason and Stan, who are the co-founders, are active gamers. Both had started gaming companies before and the intention around Discord was to always build an app that would enable communication for people who are playing games.

Pandemic hits; the whole world is shut in and goes online and the company saw, you know, a really pronounced growth in its user base. And I think, for a company to be successful, and Jason and Stan realized this, you should always stay focused on “What do our users, what do our customers want?” 

So, there was a period where I think the company was trying to focus on, “Okay, who are all these new users? What do they want from us? And what can we give them?” I remember, y’know, I was early days when I joined and I was watching some marketing videos and we had interviewed a number of the new users and we're trying to figure out how can we best serve these new users.

I think there's also been a realization that you can't be everything to everyone. And so, the company has recommitted to being the best place to talk, hang out with your friends while playing games, whether you're playing a game on Discord or you're playing a game on a console and just communicating with your friends on Discord.

And I think that is definitely the right way to go. We've seen our users welcome the refocus and I just think there's a, there's a great space for us to move into by doing that. 

Niki: And it makes economic sense, right? So, if you base your business model on charts during COVID and you’re DoorDash, y’know, it spiked like crazy. And if you're live ticketing, it went way down. It's sort of, like, aberrational. So, getting back after that time when you're getting to the core people; I mean, it makes sense. 

Ross: It makes sense. I mean, I will say that there's always, like I said, the first server I joined was not about gaming. So, there is something special about Discord in terms of its sense of community, even without the gaming.

I mean, in many ways, and I said this about Etsy too, we're old enough to remember the world before the Internet. {Niki: I mean!] Yes, let's face it. 

Niki: Way before. 

Ross: Well, alright.

Niki:  I mean, not before the internet, but before smartphones.

Ross: For me, it was before the internet. I'm older than you are. And so, remember the promise and the excitement about what the internet was supposed to do? 

It's going to connect people all around the world. There's going to be easier access to information. There'll be, you can build communities. There'll be economic opportunities as a result of this great and powerful tool. And now, we look at what's happened: the good, the bad, the ugly. 

And what I've been really focused on since I've been in the tech space, which is almost 25 years, is where are the spaces online? What are the companies that deliver that initial promise of what the Internet was supposed to be about in the first place? And I'm at Discord because I believe Discord is one of those places. It's community, it's belonging, and it's economic opportunity. It's a platform for entrepreneurs, creative entrepreneurs, small businesses.

And I believe in that. And I believe that we have a mission to serve those users the best we can, which is why my team exists. 

Niki: It's interesting that you say that it's almost like the original internet purpose.

I remember my stepmom was, quote, into computers. That's what we used to say. “Oh, she's into computers.” She always had, like, disk drives under her arms and she's, like, in the, [Ross: mm-hmm]  y’know, building her big desktop. But she moderated chat rooms. [Ross: amazing!] Yeah. This is like back a zillion years ago, but it's not unlike what you guys have now, right?

They were groups of people talking about whatever issue. She was a moderator, and it was way, way, way back. And I kind of think that is what this looks like, right? It's a community of people. It's self-moderated, except it's sitting on top of this enormous total addressable market of gaming.

Ross: Right. Well, it's not just the moderation within the servers. We have platform-wide community moderation and very robust trust and safety tools as well, but the community moderation within the servers is a key part of it. 

I,I personally believe that for many people they are seeking those smaller, more intimate settings online. They're tired of the mass, y’know, newsfeed of, of the X newsfeed or, or whatever social media platform you want to, you want to name. They're looking for real connection, a place to use the power of the internet, but not necessarily subject themselves to endless doom scrolling, or endless ads, or some jerk out there who's gonna call you a name because you don't look like them, or you don't act like them, or they don't like who you're married to, or [Niki: yeah] y’know, name the reason, 

Niki: I mean the worst thing that's happened to me is people sent scary clown emojis on Twitter when I was - 

Ross: I find clowns terrifying! So that's- 

Niki: That emoji is super terrifying.

Ross: Yeah, I've had slightly worse things. When you're running for office…

Niki: [chuckling] I'm sure you did! These, but it did actually inhibit my participation on Twitter I was like, “I don't -  I need this like I need a hole in the head.

Ross: A hundred percent. I think all of us, whether we know it or not, are constantly doing, like, an assessment of is this something I want to do? Is this, do I get benefit out of this? 

And If you go to the right spaces, if you, if you are intentional about how you spend your time online, the internet is an amazingly powerful tool and can bring wonderful things to your life. But as we all know, if you're not intentional about how you spend your time online, you can end up doing anything from spending hours doom scrolling or, y’know, subject yourself to some pretty, horrible people out there.

Niki: Which leads us to something I'm sure your team works on. So, you’re global public policy. You're looking at all the big countries and markets where you operate. You're very popular with young people. I mean, that's the, you are heavily used by young people, people under 35.

Ross: Yeah. We are a free app, and are, y’know, 13+. And our user base does skew mostly, I'd say between 13 and 25. That's changing a little bit as more and more people come to the platform, sometimes seeking the community that I found on this server. 

We see people returning to Discord to play games together online. And that's a great thing. I think there's this misconception around gaming online. Especially among policymakers [Niki: mmh!], you ask a policymaker who is generally a little bit older, maybe not that familiar, as we've seen, not that familiar with technology or the internet, and then you throw gaming into the mix and you often do have to deal with the stereotype of, y’know, a white teenager in a basement somewhere playing a game by themselves.

Niki: First shooter. 

Ross: First shooter sometimes, whatever it is. And that is really not what gaming is. First of all, gaming is everyone. 3.3 billion people play games online. 

Niki: 3.3 billion?!! 

Ross: Billion! Play games online. Everyone. You can't have 3.3 billion and still have that stereotype. Y’know, I tell the story about my mom and I.

My mom is 78. She's up in Maine. My mom and I play Wordle together every morning. She beats me about half the time [Niki: laughs], which I love! Because what I'm really doing by playing Wordle with my mom online is I'm checking in on my mom every morning, right? And when she beats me, as she does about half the time, I'm like, “Good. Good.” [Niki: Yeah]Y’know, it's really a way to check-in. And that's not what people think of when we think of playing games online.

Y’know, and let's talk about Wordle for a second. 

Niki: Okay. [Chuckling]

Ross: No, really! It's fascinating to me. 

Y’know, people also think of games as these very expensive, high- quality productions. Wordle is the simplest thing around. Right. [Niki: I'm only laughing] [cross-talk] But it’s captivating. I not only play with my mom, I have a group of friends here in DC and around the country that I also play Wordle with, y’know, and as we've changed jobs and moved cities, it's a way we stay in touch. 

Niki: I'm laughing about Wordle because I am the only person, much like the only person who never made sourdough bread during COVID, I also have never played [chuckling] Wordle. My boyfriend plays it.

You're right ,people don't think of that as gaming, but if you go way back. So, again, I was listening to some comments by Jason, the CEO,  [Ross: mm-hmm] and he was talking about his first game he ever played, and this just really resonated, was Carmen SanDiego, Where in the World is Carmen? And I was like, “I played that!”  And I guess I played Oregon Trail. And then my parents bought a Nintendo that they couldn't figure out how to set it up [Ross: laughs], which has probably doomed, doomed me as being a proper gamer for life. [chuckling] But I hadn't thought about the idea: everybody's on their phone playing all sorts of games.

Ross: All sorts of games. It's a lot bigger and broader and there's a lot more variation in, y’know, the world of online games than you might think. And gaming is a great way, of connecting with people. Games have always brought people together. 

Niki: Gaming, as a market, is huge. It's 3.3 billion people.

Ross: It's bigger than film and music combined. 

Niki: Bigger than film and music combined. 

Ross: As an industry. 

Niki: Right now. And it's only getting bigger. 

Ross: And it's only getting bigger.

Niki: It's only getting bigger. And so, you're in the business of trying to explain to policymakers that a 78-year-old mom in Maine is playing with you and that there are ways you can potentially put Discord on top of the, all of these games. 

Ross: Right, an integration. Y’know, there are many different ways. Some games will integrate, or some games, this is where the economic empowerment comes in.

Y’know, we have a developer kit where people can make their games directly on Discord, and share them and distribute them that way. We aspire to be, as I said, THE place where people play games together online. And it's that communications ability adjacent to the game that brings people to Discord.

And that's really powerful. People want to play games with their friends together. 

Niki: And not just play games, but talk to each other while they're doing it. 

Ross: Exactly. Yeah. 

Niki: I actually read this article. It was called, it said something like “Discord Slangs”, which I didn't know that could be a plural. Anyway, I learned a couple things like B.M. stands for Bad Manners, like “You don't have to be rude,” which I thought was sort of interesting. [Ross: Yeah]

Good to go. 

Ross: Yeah. 

Niki: G. G. G. G. G. 

Ross: A lot of the communities are self-policing and self-moderating.

I think there are more people than we might think who are tired of being subjected to a lot of what we see online and are looking for something different. They're looking for real connection. They're looking for real belonging. And they find it on Discord.

 I have someone who's transgender in my family. And she was one of the first people to go to Discord. And she talks about it as a place where she was first able to be who she really is through her avatar and her identity. She established herself for the first time on Discord as her real identity and, and she was not subjected to abuse online in that world.

Y’know, Johns Hopkins has, has a really active transgender center and they're all on Discord. 

Niki: I didn't know that!  

Ross: Yeah. Yeah

Niki: So, okay, this is very helpful because I think a lot of people who don't use it, don't know what it is. The idea is also that you can have the same Discord groups, but play across a lot of platforms of games, [Ross: Yeah] which there are many.

What is, what are you facing as a challenge in Washington? So, you're here right now. [Ross: Yep] You and I are both sort of these, like, swamp creatures who kind of end up coming [both laugh] back here and explaining things, right? [Ross: Right] Back in the day, I remember we were both just constantly explaining net neutrality over and over and over. [Ross: Right] Right?  On Capitol Hill. [Ross: Right] 

So, what do you think the challenge is, other than just understanding who the potential user base is or who the users are? What are you facing, like, as a team? What story are you trying to tell?  [Ross: Right] Is it like Etsy where you're trying to say, like, this is mostly for small businesses?

What are you doing day in and day out? 

Ross: Right. I think there are a couple of things. The first thing you already mentioned, which is just explaining the basics to policymakers about what Discord is and what it isn't and making sure they understand what an incredible platform it is for economic empowerment and opportunity.

The folks who are building games online using our developer kit. The folks who are sharing their games online to reach our audience of over 200 million active users. The reality is that much like other parts of the Internet, we're seeing rapid consolidation. 

Most people, when they go online, they'll go to a few specific places. And so, if you are a small game publisher, your ability to find an audience is getting, is getting more and more difficult. And we want to be the platform where if you have a great new game, you can come to our platform and you have a ready-made audience of over 200 million active users who want to play the new cool game.

I've talked to some policymakers about, y’know, things like Angry Birds, right? Which was a Finnish company. I think the publishing house was, I think it was in bankruptcy when they launched Angry Birds. 

And I just posed the question: “In today's world, with the massive platforms, and with the platforms who aren't even gaming specific, moving into gaming, like HBO doing The Last of Us, Amazon doing Fallout, right? They're all moving into gaming in one way or another. So, if you are a small game publisher, say, y’know, maybe five or six people, and you've poured your heart and soul into this great game, How do you get it out there? [Niki: right] How do you get an audience?”

You come to Discord. 

Niki: And you can build your business without having to do, be acquired by a mega company. 

Ross: Right. Exactly right. It's explaining that there are still platforms online like Discord that are incredible engines of economic growth. So, be careful when you regulate.

I mean, there are lots of policymakers when they think of the Internet, they think of the big platforms. And so, they regulate and develop policy to address those platforms and the problems they see on those platforms. And similar to, y’know, my role at Etsy, it's explaining, “Just be careful, there are a lot of smaller platforms out there, some of which are doing amazing things. So, just keep us in mind.”

 I think of my job as really representing our 200 million active users and the small game publishers who want to use our platform to get an audience. 

I had a great conversation with an economic development official in the Netherlands and when I talked about this, he immediately was like, “I've got a thousand independent game publishers in the Netherlands and I am worried about them. They are important to me.” He flipped over to, like, “I want to introduce you to them. How can you help them? And how can I help you help them?” Because he sees the power of this. 

Niki: Yeah. And I think, again, in our business, which I'm sure neither of, none of our parents thought we were going to end up doing this for a living necessarily.

Ross: Probably not. 

Niki: [chuckling] Definitely not for mine. 

Ross: Well, especially after going to, you know, we both went to the same law school and, y’know, the path at that time, at least for me, was “Okay, you go into big law, maybe you come to D.C. and you do some time on the Hill or something like that,” but, y’know, in 98? No. 

Niki: No. No.

But we ended up, we fell into tech. Obviously tech lobbyists, tech advocates, tech PR people, which I am, have this, a little bit of a, a reputational issue at the moment because of the big companies. However! 

Ross: Because of the big companies.

Niki: Reminding people on the Hill that the folks who can best comply with onerous regulations are the biggest companies. 

Ross: Well y’know this, we see some of the big platforms deliberately push forward onerous regulations knowing that they're the only ones who have the resources to comply. [Niki: Right] And what they're doing is they're using public policy as a weapon.

Which is fine. [Niki: laughs] All, all big, well, [Niki: I mean that’s the game!], big companies have always done that, right? Whether it's big oil or, you know, big conglomerates, they've always used public policy and politics as a weapon. It's a dangerous thing to do in the sense that if we want to hold on to the promise of the internet. And I really believe in that. 

That's why I'm, that's why I've stayed in tech. Y’know, I want to, I want to work on something that I believe in and where I can have real impact. And I can't think of a better place to do that than working at a tech platform like Discord.

I think they're making the world better. They're giving opportunity to people and they're building communities. 

So, that's very much what, what I talk about when I'm up on the Hill, or whether I'm in Brussels, or wherever I am is like, “Hey, we're here too. And we're important and let me tell you why.” And people get it.

So, it's a great line of work to be in when you're working at a place like Discord because when you explain who you are and what you do, policymakers are like, “I get it. I'm on your side. Let's work together.” Much better than being at some of the other places you and I have worked at. 

Niki: Yeah, which is, I mean, it's a, it's a different, when you have 500 in-house lawyers, it's a different game, so. [Ross: Yeah] 

I really appreciate you coming in here while you're in Washington, pounding the pavement, talking to everyone. I love watching your career. It's funny how far we've come from [chuckling]

Ross: I love watching yours. I'm so proud of you. Not that I had anything to do with it, but I'm so proud of what you've done.

I'm such a big fan of yours. 

Niki: I'm glad to see you back in the swamp. And also, I'm glad you came on and explained this. I do think, especially in Washington, when you're not using something, you don't actually understand how it works. So, explaining this, we'll put some links in the show notes, get people moving, they can find some servers they want to hang out on.

As we sign off, last thing, is there anything people should check out that you think is just extremely cool they may not have heard of?

Ross: Yeah, I think they should check out Mojiworks and Chef Showdown. It was developed on Discord. It was only launched in October of last year. They saw a million players on launch weekend alone by launching on Discord. And in under a year, they've had 14 million players already. 

There's a great example of what I was talking about earlier about a small game publisher that is able to reach a huge market, a huge audience by using Discord.

Niki: I love it. We'll put it in the show notes. People can check it out. They'll also understand then how to actually operate the app, which took me a minute to figure out. But then once I did, I really got it, and I had a very positive experience. 

Thank you, Ross, for taking the time to come in while you're in Washington.

Ross: Thank you for having me, Niki. I love seeing you.