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Kixeye CEO says his company is aggressive, but not racist (exclusive interview)

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 6 min

Last week was the worst ever for social gaming company Kixeye. A former black contractor wrote in a Tumblr post (since taken down but reprinted here) that he was subjected to racist comments during a stint at the company earlier this year. Will Harbin, chief executive of the hard-charging San Francisco company, said he investigated the matter and fired three employees and a manager for behavior that didn’t meet standards.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.