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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

stripe.com

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#51

Post by skeeter2020 »

jesuscript wrote: post #38
benjaminwootton wrote: post #18

“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 are doing what any company does whether the slow down in the economy impacts them or not. They lie and say it impacts them and use it to do a purge. I worked at companies that were in no way impacted by the 2008 financial crisis (in fact, business was booming). Leadership managed to use it as an excuse to do a hiring freeze and plead with existing employees that they are the lucky ones and they need to work hard…

>> because we have record unemployment

I inferred that you meant record ^low^ unemployment?

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#53

Post by iterati »

pid-1 wrote: post #20

> 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…

And, of course, the leadership aren't suffering their mistakes.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#57

Post by malfist »

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

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#59

Post by skeeter2020 »

mkl95 wrote: post #42
benjaminwootton wrote: post #18

“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.

You can break some records while failing to achieve your goals. Companies set unrealistic OKRs all the time.

I think's actually required to set unrealistic OKRs, but they're called "stretch" goals, like if only you'd try a leetle bit harder...

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#60

Post by anonymouse008 »

> 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.

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