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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#391

Post by time_to_smile »

czbond wrote: post #147
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…

Ya know.... Founders and CEO's are responsible every day. They created the business for people to have jobs, they have to deal with it when the business cannot support the jobs. When things in the macro economy change, sometimes the business can't operate at the same level it was before. People like to on CEO's & leaders in good times, but employees often forget that while the employee can just go get another job, th…

> They created the business for people to have jobs

No, the created the business in attempt to get wildly wealthy and unfortunately they can't do this without also having to hire a bunch of people. They certainly don't create the business for the sake of employing people.

> People like to on CEO's & leaders in good times

In my experience the opposite is true, in good times people can't help but of CEO's & leaders, since easy employment and good pay make the fundamentally exploitative nature of their relationship less visible.

> employees often forget that while the employee can just go get another job, the leaders have to keep hundreds, thousands...

of thousands of dollars in their account even when they "fail".

The key difference is that if I don't get another job, I lose my house and ultimately the ability to feed myself. If I don't play the game I quite literally am sentenced to death. The CEO of that lays off thousands can very easily spend the rest of their days in comfortable retirement at any given point.

I need to sell my labor to live, CEOs need my labor to get richer.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#392

Post by [deleted] »

randomdata wrote: post #284
tempsy wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if frantically interviewing for a new job during the holidays when lots of tech companies are also laying people off can be considered a vacation.

Maybe if you're the janitor, but based on the quip about the salaries Stripe pays, the parent is presumably looking at this from a developer's perspective. That's a payout of around $73,000. If you are handed $73,000 and still need to frantically look for a new job, something strange is going on.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#393

Post by delaynomore »

tasuki wrote: post #305
YPCrumble wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the thrust of the remark is to put some sort of public "shame" on companies that perform layoffs I don't think that's what he meant. He is asking whether the CEO is just blowing hot air when they say "we take full responsibility..." or whether there are consequences to their bad decisions, i.e., responsibility for those decisions.

I'm not a native speaker, but I think taking responsibility does not necessarily imply consequences. The opposite of taking responsibility is assigning blame (eg "our underlings hired too many people it was their mistake").

>taking responsibility does not necessarily imply consequences

I guess that's the problem? These days leaders have no problem "taking responsibility" to make themselves look good when there's no consequence("hey I did what all good leaders do").

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#394

Post by whimsicalism »

orra wrote: post #215
heliodor wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who doesn't have cost increases?

I’ll rephrase what the other user said: businesses are not typical consumers. And CPI measures typical consumer price inflation. Hence, it's disingenuous for businesses to put up prices by CPI. In fact, businesses putting up prices is often a driver of CPI. Businesses face their own changes in prices, yes, but not by CPI.

Businesses price at willingness to pay.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#395

Post by theptip »

sanjayio wrote: post #141
sdrinf wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a problem that people are well aware of, it’s mitigated with stock refreshers. It’s not perfect but helps retention.

To some extent, but if you have been around since the early days it’s unlikely your golden handcuffs will be worth as much as your long-vested options.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#396

Post by xadhominemx »

austenallred wrote: post #106
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 (…

> 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 t…

There has not really been a broader slowdown in credit card processing volumes. Visa and MasterCard had good earnings and guidance last week. What’s really happened is exactly what BaseballPhysics said - the pace of Stripes share gain has slowed dramatically post-COVID.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#397

Post by theptip »

whimsicalism wrote: post #387
jedberg wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that in some cases there's really nothing else someone can do. If they are a recruiter, and the company is no longer hiring, keeping that person around doesn't help anyone, including that person. Honestly the way Stripe is handling this seems pretty good. They are telling you now that you have until March to find a new job. They are essentially doing what you suggest, without making them come…

> keeping that person around doesn't help anyone, including that person. Seems to me it obviously helps that person, but I generally don't understand corporate-speak so I might be missing something.

It’s better to get generous severance than to have to come in and do bullshit made-up work.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#398

Post by admax88qqq »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #361
nsxwolf wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I got laid off, my severance was basically enough to buy a bus ticket to the unemployment office. What they're doing here is incredible. (Almost felt compelled to name names here but took a breath)

I find it interesting that they're saying they're doing so bad financially they need to cut 14% of their workforce but are also doing well enough they can pay 14% of their payroll for 3.5 months of no work + Bonuses + PTO + Stock + 6 Months of Healthcare? Doesn't seem to add up

How much do you think 14% of their workforce costs to keep employed for another year vs 3.5 months + bonuses + pto + stock + 6 months healthcare?

Do you think their doing it for shits and giggles? Or do you think that they've actually done the math?

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#399

Post by waprin »

chasd00 wrote: post #227
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 (…

One thing that i think hits Stripe harder than most is all the people who quit their jobs to do their own thing. You know they all setup Stripe accounts for e-com and other invoice/payment functionality. I think reality is pushing them back to regular day jobs and those new Stripe accounts are going to sit with zero transactions.

The blog post literally says Stripe has higher transaction volume than ever.

Anecdotally my indie friends all report modest revenue growth this year while my big tech friends report more work for less money (due to equity grants decline).

From the data I see, the “reality” is not the failed indie dev but the failed inefficient big tech company.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#400

Post by tech_tuna »

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…

Exactamundo. This is why I always say there is one and only one company that ever matters.

You Inc.

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