I want to thank all of the talented and hardworking people at Blizzard for their dedication, creativity and passion. It has been a privilege to lead this team.

When Leaders Get Out of the Way

There's something quietly radical about a leader publicly crediting their team's talent instead of their own vision or strategy. We're used to seeing executives take center stage, but Morhaime's gratitude points to something harder to pull off than solo genius: building an environment where people actually want to bring their best work.

The phrase "privilege to lead" is worth sitting with. Most of us experience leadership as either a burden we're stuck with or a trophy we've earned. But framing it as a privilege—something you're honored to have access to—suggests a different relationship to power. It means you see the people you work with as the real source of value, and your job as protecting the conditions where they can do their thing. That's the opposite of the movie version of leadership, where one person wills everything into existence.

What makes this stick today is how rare it still is. In a world obsessed with founder stories and charismatic leaders, most people work under someone who either doesn't think this way or won't say it out loud. But everyone knows the difference between being managed by someone who actually sees you and someone just extracting labor. That difference often comes down to whether a leader sees their role as creating space for talent or claiming it for themselves.