Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#22[deleted]
Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
High performers on redundant teams would almost certainly be transferred, assuming there isn't some odd middle management infighting going on.
I'd hope so, but it's a lot harder to identify the high performers, figure out where to transfer them to, cut low performers from the teams they're moving to, etc. Unfortunately much easier to just cut teams as the company cuts scope.
It’s very easy to have people who are widely regarded as high performers. But transfers are often limited when layoffs are happening and, in practice, execs often don’t want to transfer headcount to other teams even if it’s probably the right thing to do from an overall company perspective.
Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like everyone was in a hiring spree in 2020 and 2021.
This is my take on it. Everyone went crazy on hiring. Nothing is crashing, it's just the market returning to normal. Well, except for Meta. They're having a bad time lol.
Even that is mostly self inflicted
Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like everyone was in a hiring spree in 2020 and 2021.
This is my take on it. Everyone went crazy on hiring. Nothing is crashing, it's just the market returning to normal. Well, except for Meta. They're having a bad time lol.
You should see the financials from some Indian unicorns that raised hundreds of millions in 2020-22. $5-6M in revenue, $50M in expenses. No money anywhere.
VCs were way too exuberant and founders were more than happy to mop up the capital.
Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#26“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.
Because tech companies underwent an unprecedented hiring spree the last two years. Tech companies were so flush with cash due to the stock market (which also seeped into private valuations) that they basically green lit any headcount request that sounded remotely plausible. This allowed middle managers to grow their fiefdoms so they could add a little line on their resume: "Managed team of X at Stripe." Such spending is totally wasteful and unnecessary.
Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#2714% 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.
Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Though the bottom 14% is a pretty big amount to cut, almost certainly some decent performers in that group. I don't think you can only cut "poor performers" in any sort of bulk layoffs. You can avoid it in aggregate, but there will be enough mistakes, enough teams that need to cut a number but don't have enough poor performers, or even enough high performers who are just on teams that are deemed no longer necessary…
High performers on redundant teams would almost certainly be transferred, assuming there isn't some odd middle management infighting going on.
That's a pretty big assumption :)
There's always management infighting, especially in lean times.
Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#29“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.
Overstaffed in the support department. They realized that they could have just one person watching Hacker News for people having problems.
Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce
#30“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.
They hired 150% more people (yes the company grew to 2.5x since 2020) expecting metrics to grow 150% but metrics only are on track for growing 100%.