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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#111

Post by eganist »

memish wrote: post #90
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…

That's in the email: 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 re…

That's how they're supporting their employees, but this would've already been accounted for anyway (the vesting, potential bonuses, pay through Feb 2023, etc), so this isn't accountability so much as it's "we'll, we won't see the immediate benefit until March"

Would've been a different story for instance if pc/jc were diluted with new grants to departing and existing employees.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#112

Post by jesuscript »

jtaft wrote: post #102
jesuscript wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No post body was provided.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#113

Post by boeingUH60 »

pastor_bob wrote: post #78
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…

Quoted post unavailable.

More like 1,000-acre mega-mansion - https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/stripe-co-founder-joh...

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#114

Post by tempsy »

sdrinf wrote: post #105
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.

I don’t think this is correct. Then your theory is that every tech company that went public in last 2 years have experienced a brain drain that Stripe has not.

Lock up periods aren’t set in stone. They probably didn’t need to raise money and could have done a direct listing and let employees cash out immediately.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#115

Post by wnolens »

pmoriarty wrote: post #75
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…

There are rarely if ever any serious consequences to top execs screwing up wealthy companies. Such execs are usually already so wealthy that they never have to work another day in their life, no matter what happens or how much they screw up. They can always find other prestigious, high paid jobs, and sometimes even get rewarded with huge amounts of money from the very companies they screwed over.

> sometimes even get rewarded with huge amounts of money from the very companies they screwed over.

This is the norm I've witnessed. They're rewarded for making bold bets, whether or not they pay off.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#116

Post by chipgap98 »

pastor_bob wrote: post #73

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

I'd wait a week or so to see how that changes. If you tell recruiting to pull down all of those job postings it kind of tips your hand that a big change is coming

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#117

Post by willcipriano »

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…

I have a term for this, that I think I may have coined. The pauper CEO. You'll find him during economic downturns or at the end of successful projects, turning out his pockets and shaking his head. He was rich when he wanted to hire you, fabulously wealthy during the time you put the long hours in and will be located in the poor house when it comes time for you to collect your share of the rewards.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#118

Post by lefstathiou »

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.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#119

Post by fullshark »

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 (…

I think the fact that they used "internet economy" and not "economy" in their letter is basically a shorthand way of conveying exactly what you say here, though in a less self-flagellating way.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#120

Post by buscoquadnary »

memish wrote: post #90
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…

That's in the email: 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 re…

Dude that is a freaking sick severance. Hell that is the kind of situation where is want to get laid off.
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