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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#101

Post by cko »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #66
eganist wrote: post #47

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? Sinc…

i hate this trend of ceos saying they take responsibility. Reminds me of lord farquuad, "some of you may die, but that is a price i'm willing to pay"

"Today, effective immediately, I, Gavin Belson, founder and CEO of Hooli, am forced to officially say goodbye to the entire Nucleus division. All Nucleus personnel will be given proper notice and terminated. But make no mistake. Though they're the ones leaving, it is I who must remain and bear the heavy burden of their failure."

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#102

Post by jtaft »

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…

Many find the r word offensive. Can you please be kinder and express yourself differently?

https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-is-the-r-word-3105651

Your post brings up interesting view points, thanks for sharing.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#103

Post by BaseballPhysics »

jesuscript wrote: post #84
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That first point is key, and I think they're being... less than honest. The reality is there's very little evidence for an actual "broader slowdown". GDP growth in the US was decent in the last quarter despite a huge decline in home sales and headwinds from inflation, and unemployment remains at record lows. There's certainly some signs for concern, but the only real, persistent decline has been in the stock market (…

The stock market didn’t really decline. There was a speculative play at the beginning of the pandemic that allowed the shitheads that run that game to do a reallocation of capital from “pandemic hit” industries to tech. That’s why tech ballooned to stupid levels. I say speculative because while it may have been right to reallocate away from, say, Airlines stocks, there was no good reason to run up tech to those absur…

Yup, good points. The stock market has been pretty damn volatile, which is to be expected given the broader geopolitical context, the chaos of the post-COVID recovery, etc, but the stock of a ton of these tech companies just reverted to the mean, which is exactly what you'd expect if the changes during COVID failed to persist.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#105

Post by sdrinf »

tempsy wrote: post #36

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.

The second they go public it triggers a 6-12 months window after which all of their employees can cash out. This will, inexorably lead to an exodus of their most senior peeps, and when it happens, will probably be ground zero for the next gen of fintech startups.

Delaying going IPO this way, amongst other things, is about retention.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#106

Post by austenallred »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #64
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…

That first point is key, and I think they're being... less than honest. The reality is there's very little evidence for an actual "broader slowdown". GDP growth in the US was decent in the last quarter despite a huge decline in home sales and headwinds from inflation, and unemployment remains at record lows. There's certainly some signs for concern, but the only real, persistent decline has been in the stock market (…

> But, Stripe can't admit they made a major strategic blunder

They quite literally say 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.”

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#107

Post by ceejayoz »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #79
hnbad wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a company's culture effectively be killed overnight because one "low performer" was cut off. Not every impact an employee has is directly represented in their own bottom line. The company in question was able to stomach this because it would go on to undergo significant structural changes anway but it basically had to start building a new company culture from scratch and doing it top-down is much harder tha…

Could you expand on that? I'm curious to know how one employee can single-handedly carry the company's culture.

I've seen individuals who are the primary connection between two important departments; say IT and sales, speaking both languages enough to translate. On paper, not much work done; in reality, critical for smooth operation.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#108

Post by [deleted] »

tempsy wrote: post #36

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.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#109

Post by austenallred »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #77
austenallred wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they were planning on growing transaction volume more

I'm British, so I appreciate that there's a difference in approach across the pond, but I still think this is a shitty thing to do. They are still growing (and setting records it would seem). Just hold on to the staff and swallow the small dent in opex.

Pretty simple.

You plan on x growth happening, so you hire assuming x will happen.

Say x/2 happens. You now overhired. Even if x is still pretty good.

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