from Hacker News

Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

by infrawhispers on 11/3/22, 1:37 PM with 1217 comments

by gzer0 on 11/3/22, 7:47 PM

  * Severance pay. We will pay 14 weeks of severance for all departing employees, and more for those with longer tenure. That is, those departing will be paid until at least February 21st 2023.
  * Bonus. We will pay our 2022 annual bonus for all departing employees, regardless of their departure date. (It will be prorated for people hired in 2022.)
  * PTO. We’ll pay for all unused PTO time (including in regions where that’s not legally required).
  * Healthcare. We’ll pay the cash equivalent of 6 months of existing healthcare premiums or healthcare continuation.
  * RSU vesting. We’ll accelerate everyone who has already reached their one-year vesting cliff to the February 2023 vesting date (or longer, depending on departure date). For those who haven’t reached their vesting cliffs, we'll waive the cliff.

While layoffs in general suck, the terms of this one are quite substantially better than many other companies.

by thunkle on 11/3/22, 3:40 PM
I work for Stripe and got laid off this morning. Sucks because my manager was only told this morning, and didn't have a chance to talk about how well I was doing or take any part in the decision making. We'll at least I'll get a break. I worked nights and weekends all of October.
by abeppu on 11/3/22, 6:17 PM
I know this isn't new or unique to Stripe, but the language used in these announcements to distance leadership from their choices is always so slimy. "We're not 'firing' or 'terminating' anyone; some people are just 'impacted' by our announcement that we have to 'say goodbye'." It makes repeated mentions of those who are "leaving" (the subject is the former employee) and avoids active verbs where the founders are the subjects. Not "we're terminating", "we're laying off", etc. Even the first statement taking responsibility covers the "decisions leading up to [this step]", rather than the step/mass layoff itself.
by jasmer on 11/3/22, 2:50 PM
This is the part I don't like.
Stripe is a hugely successful company and they have no urgent material need to let people go. This is an optimization effort.
I actually do believe that 'pruning' is a healthy thing for organizations, to enable them to be nimble and dynamic - however - obviously this comes at great social cost.
The benefits of 'pruning' come at the cost of externalizing regular, creating real human challenges.
One somewhat obvious solution might be to 'reallocate' people for a while, and have them do 'window dressing' (like in Japan) while this happens. Some would argue this doesn't get you to the pruning, because there needs to be an element of existential churn, but I suggest otherwise.
At minimum, growing companies should 'find stuff' for people to do. Stripe is 100% looking to the future, there is no doubt, so maybe we can try to find a way to make this work on their future endeavours.
I feel that the whole 'California' project elides the negatives: homelessness in Los Angeles has reached impossible levels, there always were enormous problems with equality at least partially due to lack of civil resources, adverse school funding etc..
This is not a 'model' to brag about.
I think we can do better.
by tempsy on 11/3/22, 1:48 PM
I feel bad for employees that have waited a decade to cash out.
No reason why Stripe couldn’t have gone public in 2020-2021 at a huge valuation but from past interviews it sounds like the decision to remain private was just a founder preference thing because “focus” or something. Now the IPO market is completely frozen and its valuation is likely cut in half from peak, at least.
by anonym29 on 11/3/22, 3:45 PM
I would like to offer some tips for those faced with the potential of layoffs that I have compiled. I understand much of these come too late for those already affected, but for those worried about the prospect, these can help to ease the pain if it does happen:
• Check if your company pays out unused PTO, sick days, etc as cash. If they do, do not use any of the applicable type(s) unless you are going to lose it.
• Have a LinkedIn, fill out all the fields, add 500+ random people in your field. Once you have done all this, you get ranked way higher in the algo for recruiters who are searching (you will be granted a visible "All-Star" status, so you will know when you've reached this). After that, go add every recruiter in your field/industry you can find (ideally 500+). Internal recruiters are better than external recruiters / headhunters, but don't neglect the headhunters, especially the "rockstar" ones from more prestigious staffing firms. Finally, add a bunch (500+) of people in your field (who you should now have mutuals with, via the recruiters). Always respond politely to all recruiters even if you're happily employed. Try to be friendly with them, not strictly professional. Build up a rolodex of recruiters. You now have a list of people you can ask for work if you do get laid off. Recruiter-sourced candidates have MUCH better odds of being hired than cold applicants, provided you're not a known name in your industry. If you do this, you'll be able to schedule 40+ interviews in about 3 days, which take place over the following week or two, if you really want to pack them together.
• Don't neglect contract work completely. Many companies have a surprisingly large hiring pipeline of contract -> FTE, provided you do a good job.
• How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
• Corporate Confidential by Cynthia Shapiro, if you're in an enterprise / corporate environment.
by benjaminwootton on 11/3/22, 1:41 PM
“On Tuesday we set a new record for total daily transaction volume processed.”
How does a company breaking records 36 hours ago conclude they need to lay off 14% of the workforce? Even with economic storm clouds on the horizon that seems very jumpy.
by o10449366 on 11/3/22, 1:31 PM
They've been doing "layoffs" for quite some time, they've just been trying to keep it quiet. I know multiple people (including engineers) that were let go in the past two months.
by anonymouse008 on 11/3/22, 1:57 PM
> We were much too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth in 2022 and 2023 and underestimated both the likelihood and impact of a broader slowdown.
This is one of the most interesting statements ever written. If you ran a 'Idea Fourier' on this signal, so many things fall out: cheap interest rates pushes crazy valuations and estimations, believing the low interest fantasy was a requirement to getting their funding in the first place, now how easy is it to just say 'oops, no take back-sies'
Interesting time to be alive.
by Nifty3929 on 11/3/22, 2:45 PM
Layoffs are not an indication of failure. Not on those who get laid off, those that remain, or senior leadership.
The universe is a dynamic, changing place. People [should] move in and out of jobs and industries in response to those changes in the world. This is a good thing, and much better than blindly doing the same thing forever, in the face of changes.
I don't know the specifics of Stripe's business at all, but they may have been correct to hire a lot early in the pandemic, and then correct again to lay off many people now.
by wanderingmind on 11/4/22, 1:03 AM
The hypocrisy of HN is mindblowing. I have seen thread after thread people vouching they won't hire candidates who jump multiple times to optimize their paycheck and benefits, but have no problem with mass layoffs in name of optimisation. You can't have two different scales for the two sides.
by lefstathiou on 11/3/22, 2:13 PM
I believe hyperscaling is a factor here. I don't see how a company can successfully multiply their head count and integrate thousands of employees a year (unless you're already at massive scale like Amazon).
When it falters, you're stuck with swarms of confused employees who havent been trained / integrated / given meaningful work and who may not even be in the office due to WFH which is difficult to recover from [I am curious what % were WFH in the layoffs]. At that point, whether you're growing or not, it's tempting to just get them off your payroll and start anew, only more slowly this time.
by rexreed on 11/3/22, 3:11 PM
Stripe stresses me out. I really cringe worrying about having too many financial eggs in the Stripe basket. But Paypal is no alternative and traditional CC processors are awful. How does one hedge their bets with Stripe? I worry one day we'll hit some transaction "trigger" and then all our money will get locked up in Stripe with no customer support recourse.
I fear being "too successful" with no recourse if I depend on Stripe too much.
by pid-1 on 11/3/22, 1:41 PM
> In making these changes, you might reasonably wonder whether Stripe’s leadership made some errors of judgment. We’d go further than that. In our view, we made two very consequential mistakes, and we want to highlight them here since they’re important:
> - We were much too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth in 2022 and 2023 and underestimated both the likelihood and impact of a broader slowdown.
> - We grew operating costs too quickly. Buoyed by the success we’re seeing in some of our new product areas, we allowed coordination costs to grow and operational inefficiencies to seep in.
https://stripe.com/br/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-em...
by gt565k on 11/3/22, 1:48 PM
I mean it’s a pretty damn generous package. Hell, I’ll take it and chill for a month or two before jumping into another job.
I’d love to get laid off with a quarter+ of a year paid for.
by eganist on 11/3/22, 1:54 PM
Hey pc, if you're around:
> John and I are fully responsible for the decisions leading up to it.
What are the two of you doing to show accountability? Are you slashing your own future stock grants, cutting your own salaries, diluting your positions with stock grants to everyone else? What's the consequence for this decision on your end that shows you're accountable for what happened, not just responsible for it? Since you have no intention of cashing out, the valuation cut is ineffectual as a consequence to you, and the support/severance package will probably have minimal impact on your own bottom line since it's all largely been accounted for (payouts of planned bonuses, existing unvested stock etc)
by MichaelZuo on 11/3/22, 1:19 PM
Stripe did seem to be somewhat overstaffed after the huge hiring spree in the last 2 years.
Though the bottom 14% is a pretty big amount to cut, almost certainly some decent performers in that group.
by DogLover_ on 11/3/22, 4:31 PM
Go to their job page: https://stripe.com/jobs/search
Almost 700 open roles right now...
by skidev on 11/3/22, 1:46 PM
14% seems like a very high number to me to axe at once, how have you got 1 in 7 employees that your business doesn't need to function when it is growing.
by dabeeeenster on 11/3/22, 1:55 PM
Grew tx volume 3x since the pandemic, but using the macro environment as an excuse to shave the bottom 14%. Just come out and say it.
by staunch on 11/3/22, 2:01 PM
They're paying severance, bonus, healthcare, etc which is the only way to do an ethical layoff. CEOs that wait until the last minute to do layoffs and then pay little to no severance are shitty people, and no one should trust to work for them ever again. CEOs that provide a softer landing for laid off employees should be rewarded by not having their reputations destroyed in the mind of current and prospective employees. It's a display of ethics and competence.
by dabeeeenster on 11/3/22, 2:11 PM
Grew tx volume 3x since the pandemic, but using the macro environment as an excuse to shave the bottom 14%. Just come out and say it.
by breck on 11/3/22, 2:36 PM
1) Any Stripers looking for work we have plenty (https://publicdomaincompany.com/) and it's as meaningful as it gets. breck7@gmail.com or 1-415-937-1984
2) Saving this in case I ever need to tell a portfolio company how to do a layoff.
by tinglymintyfrsh on 11/4/22, 9:34 AM
Speaking of layoffs: Meta needs to layoff 12% because they hired a lot of non-value-add, low-skilled, nontechnical employees just to meet DEI goals. They hangout in vast, empty offices and chat like they're on vacation and have nothing better to do. It's difficult to tell what most people do because they hired way too many people too fast without a clear understanding of how they're supposed to map to building the business. They need to cut 80% of building leases and 50% of CapEx spend too.
by jchonphoenix on 11/3/22, 4:46 PM
Stripe has barely trimmed their internal valuation. Their best public comp, Square, has lost 80% of it's market cap since the peak. Stripe on the other hand, has trimmed theirs 22%. The people most hurt by this are employees at refresher and offer time given their yearly vest schedule.
by CarbonCycles on 11/3/22, 1:55 PM
That was one of the better letters written by execs....also a generous package.
I feel bad for the folks who have been impacted.
by saos on 11/3/22, 2:22 PM
> we’re very sorry to be taking this step and John and I are fully responsible for the decisions leading up to it.
Fair enough but this seems to be common line every CEO is going for the two years.
The severance Stripe are offering is nice though.
by SevenNation on 11/3/22, 2:07 PM
> The world is now shifting again. We are facing stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding. (Tech company earnings last week provided lots of examples of changing circumstances.) On Tuesday, a former Treasury Secretary said that the US faces “as complex a set of macroeconomic challenges as at any time in 75 years”, and many parts of the developed world appear to be headed for recession. We think that 2022 represents the beginning of a different economic climate.
To justify the move, Stripe is pointing in every direction except their own operational situation. What's going on at Stripe?
> ... We provide an important foundation to our customers and Stripe is not a discretionary service that customers turn off if budget is squeezed. ...
Ok, so are you saying that business has taken such a dive so quickly that you're trying to get in front of it? Or are there more announcements like this on tap?
by malfist on 11/3/22, 1:56 PM
Yikes, that's a huge cut. Hopefully this is part of defaulting alive and they won't have to make another cut like that. Layoffs are painful for everyone involved.
I've been laid off twice, and it's always painful, hurtful and damaging to my mental health. Take care of yourself the best you can, there is a fair amount of research now that says layoffs can have lingering mental health affects for years to come. [1]
Some resources that might be helpful: flexjobs.com is a good curated job board for remote work. teamblind.com is a professional social networking site for engineers, it's generally super toxic, but the community comes together for layoffs and a lot of people will offer referrals.
[1]: https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/06/14/recession-layoff-scars
by pbiggar on 11/3/22, 2:02 PM
- 14 weeks severance
- 2022 bonus and PTO paid out
- accelerated vesting
- 6 months of healthcare.
This is a phenomenal severance package and I hope one that will set the standard for companies doing layoffs. So many companies in the US do two weeks or less, with nothing else (not even healthcare) or even use it to claw back shares.
by break_the_bank on 11/3/22, 3:55 PM
In addition to normal things that suck about layoffs another thing I don't like about the layoffs from Lyft, Coinbase and Stripe is their equity policy. All of them went from fixing the 4 year grant on day one to a fixed yearly dollar value making the # of units you get every year variable. Obviously this only applied to ICs and not directors. Stock goes up you get fewer units, stock goes down you get more units. They said this is to help the employee during a downtime, but during downtimes they just end up laying people off.
by dmazin on 11/3/22, 2:01 PM
Reading this letter, seems like they're also going to try to cut cloud costs. A consultant who wanted to travel around companies and help them lower cloud costs could make a KILLING right now.
by testemailfordg2 on 11/3/22, 7:36 PM
I am suddenly seeing articles about multiple US tech companies doing layoffs / pausing hiring on HN as well, not sure why and how all this relates....Has global recession started???
by jongjong on 11/4/22, 4:26 AM
All these companies have way more employees than they need. 90% of employees mostly add complexity and the remaining 10% spend most of their time trying to refactor all the unnecessary complexity. So I'm not surprised by this.
I hope these layoffs will be good for the industry as ex-employees join competitors... Maybe in such competitive environment, people will care about writing maintainable code again. The effects of the corporate employment bloat are visible all around us.
by aliqot on 11/3/22, 5:20 PM
Guys.. There's no Edwin on this post :(
by maerF0x0 on 11/4/22, 12:17 AM
As a general comment about fears of layoffs and being rehired. Keep in mind the scale of these layoffs vs jobs reports. Sep Jobs report 263000[1] jobs added. The layoffs this year (according to layoffs.fyi) are about 195000-- less than a single month's added. Yes they're not the same job, yes they're likely at a lower total comp. But we're not talking about everyone having No job like in the great depression. We're talking about people having to shift into the sectors that are growing and maybe tighten up their budgets.
Now, as for where my real concern is imagine making even $15 an hour and finding out that necessities[2] are outpacing your already pay check to pay check life? I really feel for those folks who didn't over leverage themselves and are suffering despite working full time.
Remember that fear is a tool the capital class uses as leverage against those without options (or who believe they dont have options). Things like getting you to accept lower pay than they know they can offer, scaring you to take on excess load so they can fire your friends, and controlling the narrative and getting in front of it so they can profit when the masses shift sentiment. Focus on making yourself independent, resilient, and generally informed, and you'll have far more negotiating power.
[1]: https://blog.dol.gov/2022/10/07/september-2022-jobs-report-s...
[2]: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/consumer-prices-up-9-1-per... eg Fuel to get to work is up 40% .
by almost_usual on 11/3/22, 2:00 PM
That’s nice compensation for a lay off.
by DeathArrow on 11/4/22, 7:27 AM
In many EU countries if you are fired without being your fault or there is a mass lay-off, the law demands the company pays you some compensation. The law also demands the company to give you a notice period, so you are able to find another employment.
It seems many people are woved because Stripe has the generosity of granting severance pay to people they laid off.
It doesn't seem like a generosity to me, it's more PR on one hand and on the other hand they want the developers good will if there is going to be a market growth in the near future and they will go again on a hiring spree.
It's Stripe's management fault they did wrong calculations betting on explosive growth, going on a hiring spree to support that falsely accounted growth and the going to fire some hard working fault. But somehow they manage to turn this into a PR success and painting their mess as a win. It's not a win, it's a loss. And I would think twice before applying to Stripe in the future.
by Kairinz on 11/3/22, 3:13 PM
They were honest and that goes a long way. Sad to read about this, but still what they do for the people they lay off is pretty impressive.
by benreesman on 11/3/22, 8:03 PM
Stripe is a great company. I interviewed there once and they passed, and I still think it’s a great company.
Pat Collison is one of the great hackers of our age, and he embodied the YC motto better than most: “Make something that people want.”
I’m sure the cuts are painful, but as a person who is quite literally bereaved: life goes on, and Stripe will still be a great company 5 or 10 years from now.
by augasur on 11/3/22, 1:59 PM
As it is sad news for those who have been impacted, severance packages seems quite generous, with 14 weeks of pay and vesting acceleration.
by bogomipz on 11/3/22, 6:49 PM
>"Earlier today, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison sent the following note to Stripe employees."
>"Today we’re announcing the hardest change we have had to make at Stripe to date. We’re reducing the size of our team by around 14% and saying goodbye to many talented Stripes in the process"
We are "reducing the size of our team" and "saying goodbye"? I'm of the opinion that words matter and more so when they are from the company CEO. Is there some reason why a CEO who is "announcing the hardest change we have had make" is unable to use the language that reflects the reality? Can the person who is paid the big bucks to make the big decisions really not bring himself to use the word "layoff" in announcing layoffs? Is he really that cowardly? A CEO is supposed to be a leader. It takes him 8 paragraphs before he uses the actual word "layoff."
by donmb on 11/3/22, 2:10 PM
Just some pre IPO moves.. leading to more productivity and revenues.
by breck on 11/3/22, 1:57 PM
1) Any Stripers looking for work we have plenty (https://publicdomaincompany.com/) and it's as meaningful as it gets. breck7@gmail.com or 1-415-937-1984
2) Saving this in case I ever need to tell a portfolio company how to do a layoff.
by iwiser on 11/4/22, 10:21 AM
Folks from Stipe and other companies! I know that layoffs are brutal. We are primarily at tech-winter.
At the same time, we, Wise (formerly TransferWise) - actively looking for engineers, product managers, and engineering managers, designers. Many roles are open, and we are growing quite a lot! We have a product our customers love, and we care about our employees a lot! We are pretty good financially and have a clear vision of which one we are executing. If you are interested - you can browse the list of open roles here: https://grnh.se/1f3d39a91us and apply for them. You can write me directly, and I will try to answer anything as much as possible.
by pastor_bob on 11/3/22, 2:02 PM
They have almost 700 jobs listed on their careers page:
https://stripe.com/jobs/search
Seems like a move to just dump some redundant people and blame the macro situation
by hinkley on 11/3/22, 4:29 PM
Situations like this are part of my thesis on scaling employees vertically.
People get into growth mode and overhire and then have to lay off when the bill comes due. Or permanent attrition which is also stressful.
Productivity improvement via expensive tools and training is easier to pull back from when you get to the end. It slows the headcount ramp, which resides the fishtailing at the end.
Plus I just feel far better when I can say that the team can produce more functionality per month today than six months ago. Teams that slowly grind to a halt are one of my personal Hells.
by treis on 11/3/22, 1:43 PM
Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33450152
by arberx on 11/3/22, 2:41 PM
So many BS roles at all these companies. I imagine we see a lot more of this going into Q4 when next year's budgets are finalized.
by adam_arthur on 11/3/22, 3:20 PM
The Fed is telling you as explicitly as they're allowed to that they'll induce a recession to halt inflation, yet many tech cos aren't getting the message and continue to hire frantically.
Doing their new hires a disservice, when in many cases they'll likely have to be laid off within the year. Looking at big tech here, primarily
by sidcool on 11/4/22, 11:46 AM
They way Stripe is handling this is orders of magnitude better than how Twitter will do. Elon once said something along the lines of "It's not just important how smart one is, but also how good a person they are". So far I see he's handling it poorly.
by StopHammoTime on 11/3/22, 7:25 PM
How come CEOs never get fired during layoffs? Laying off this much of the workforce is an indicator they have done their job poorly (I.e. failed to adequately forecast industry trends and demand). Any normal plebeian would be out the door in two minutes if they did something similar.
by codazoda on 11/3/22, 2:45 PM
> If you are among those impacted, you will receive a notification email within the next 15 minutes.
That seems very cold.
by jupp0r on 11/3/22, 6:58 PM
Glad to see that Stripe has a pretty good package for the laid off employees. This is the right way to do this and I imagine the vast majority of people laid off will be able to find new jobs fast and pocket some of the severance pay.
by DeathArrow on 11/4/22, 7:17 AM
Well, people used to think that working for large companies is safer as they can whither economic downturns with more ease.
It seems that that doesn't matter since they are going to optimize for profit and cut costs if needed.
by bijection on 11/3/22, 6:14 PM
We’re hiring frontendy full stack engineers here at Farallon capital, located in the SF Financial district. If you’re departing Stripe and looking for new opportunities drop me a line at gw@farcap.com
by tannhauser23 on 11/3/22, 4:04 PM
6 months of health insurance is huge. Props to Stripes for offering that.
by codegeek on 11/3/22, 2:07 PM
A bit surprising considering they had 3x growth since 2020 according to this post. THen why the need to cut ? THe only answer could be "need higher returns for shareholders" because I honestly doubt their growth is at risk.
So is Stripe saying that they are cutting because they grew much faster during Pandemic and now are not growing as fast so they need to slash 14% of workforce to keep the same returns for shareholders ? Would love to hear from Stripe CEO directly.
by AtNightWeCode on 11/3/22, 8:17 PM
I guess Thursday is better than Friday but do things like this in the beginning of the week. It's custom.
by coayer on 11/3/22, 7:28 PM
Godspeed to any other college seniors looking for new grad roles! What a nightmare of a time to graduate.
by hsuduebc2 on 11/4/22, 2:11 AM
Does anyone in which fields these layoffs usually are? Probably mostly support/marketing right?
by musha68k on 11/3/22, 7:57 PM
Looking forward to the released creativity though.
Remember: especially when getting laid off in tech - eventually this will commonly be very good for personal growth. Lots of opportunities in the coming downturn as in full tandem with ever-ongoing neoliberal capitalism: software is still eating the world.
Don’t be sad. Take the ticket - and maybe do something that’s more interesting / pressingly needed than… payment processing…
The world is literally on fire, you are smart and hard working why not do something about that instead?
by Taylor_OD on 11/3/22, 4:02 PM
Let go of the most of the recruiting team and low performers. Prepping for an IPO?
by BhavdeepSethi on 11/3/22, 1:53 PM
14% translates to what number here? Anyone knows their approximate headcount?
by rboyd on 11/3/22, 2:14 PM
first one of these I’ve seen that included an alumni email account
by yohannparis on 11/3/22, 2:17 PM
Good controls of rumours to share the letter on their press page.
by kollayolla on 11/3/22, 2:06 PM
Tech workers need unions. This is becoming more clear by the day.
by Vervious on 11/3/22, 3:56 PM
Is it mostly engineering or other roles being laid off?
by anoojb on 11/3/22, 10:38 PM
I wonder how many of those let go have options that need to get exercised with some sort of tax consequences?
Not only is it psychologically disorienting, but now it's financially taxing...literally. Yikes
by tschellenbach on 11/3/22, 5:56 PM
Anyone else think that Meta will be next?
by corentin88 on 11/3/22, 1:22 PM
Is this confirmed? More sources?
by jonny_eh on 11/3/22, 8:51 PM
> we’ll be supporting transitions to non-employment visas wherever we can.
wtf is that even?
by pugio on 11/3/22, 6:02 PM
Random shot here, but I work for a non profit interested in building a better kind of education (focused on programming, ml, and data science).
We've been having a hard time figuring out how to hire qualified people to build top-notch educational content because we pay less than industry rates.
The upside is that we do meaningful work, have good health care, decent pay, good work environment, (edit: also fully remote-able), and job stability (we're funded by philanthropists and don't need to make a profit).
If anyone hit by the recent layoffs is passionate about good education and would like a change of pace, feel free to email me (address in profile) to start a conversation.
by poorman on 11/3/22, 4:51 PM
Any Java engineers that want to work on a blockchain, I'm hiring... https://swirldslabs.com/careers/
by kache_ on 11/3/22, 1:18 PM
Yikes.. hang in there stripe bros
Looks like we're going to see this eat through most software companies. Headcount planning is hard.
by throwawaysleep on 11/3/22, 3:54 PM
It is far better to be a massive underperformer at three jobs than be a good employee at one. Layoffs that are large usually have nothing to do with performance as if they did, word would leak.
This is why I feel no guilt over letting my teams down repeatedly. It doesn't matter unless you are bad enough to fire.
by throway20221103 on 11/3/22, 7:49 PM
Throwaway because of obvious reasons,
This process as Stripe reads as exceptionally cold and distanced to me. There's an ongoing downsizing at my workplace as well right now, and it's going a little like this:
* Change in strategy and its consequences announced together in all-hands
* Company strategy changed to focus less on rapid growth (something we'd been structured for) due to major changes in capital markets
* All personnell changes are made directly to support and enable this change in strategy
* No departures outside of C-suite had been determined at the point of announcement
* Immediately after announcement, groups of teams gathered in breakout sessions to learn of changes to their structure
* All changes are based on roles and not specific individuals
* Everyone gets to be considered for new roles if their existing role changes, or if they wish to change roles
* New managers to be decided about one week after announcement
* Changes to IC positions to be determined within two weeks after that
* Nobody will get a notice before a consultation meeting
* HR and leadership are holding all-hands about every third day during the process, for QA and updates
--
Mass layoffs by email just seems so immensely inhuman by this comparison. I wish everyone leaving Stripe as part of this all the best, and I hope you find great and inspiring opportunities <3
EDIT: Formatting