Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#471

Post by twblalock » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

jasmer wrote: post #202

This is the part I don't like. Stripe is a hugely successful company and they have no urgent material need to let people go. This is an optimization effort. I actually do believe that 'pruning' is a healthy thing for organizations, to enable them to be nimble and dynamic - however - obviously this comes at great social cost. The benefits of 'pruning' come at the cost of externalizing regular, creating real human chal…

We expect our companies to be efficient and competitive -- and that is the correct expectation to have in a market economy! Giving people busywork will hurt companies, and thus the overall economy, in the long run. That will make everything worse, including school funding and homelessness and inequality. After all, if you want to redistribute wealth, you have to generate wealth!

It would also mean companies would be less likely to hire people. A lot of those people who got laid off never would have been hired in the first place if it was not going to be easy to get rid of them if market conditions changed.

Everyone who works for a startup should know that the market is very dynamic and companies that scale up might also scale down, and they should have a mercenary mindset about this. People who don't like that should work in different industries. People are expected to be adults about this stuff. And frankly the severance package the people who are laid off from Stripe are getting will add up to more money than most Americans make in a year.

I would never under any circumstances recommend the way Japan runs companies to anyone. Their economy is stagnant for a reason, and being an employee in Japan is terrible. You get lifetime employment at the cost of your own personal life, because the company owns all of your time.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#472

Post by ffggvv » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

TorKlingberg wrote: post #418

thunkle wrote: post #298

I work for Stripe and got laid off this morning. Sucks because my manager was only told this morning, and didn't have a chance to talk about how well I was doing or take any part in the decision making. We'll at least I'll get a break. I worked nights and weekends all of October.

> Sucks because my manager was only told this morning As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks. I wonder how they chose who to lay off. Most recent performance rating? Next level managers impression?

not at stripe but another similar company that recently had layoffs.

ones at my company were decided by the next level manager, based on the most recent perf review

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#473

Post by blobbers » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

thunkle wrote: post #298

I work for Stripe and got laid off this morning. Sucks because my manager was only told this morning, and didn't have a chance to talk about how well I was doing or take any part in the decision making. We'll at least I'll get a break. I worked nights and weekends all of October.

This is probably good for re-normalizing behavior.

The corporation is not your friend, and it can quickly turn on you. The bigger the corporation is, the less your realistic impact above replacement is. You may think you can climb the pyramid but it is very difficult to do so in a meaningful way at the mega corps.

If you want to work nights and weekends, do it for yourself or a small company where you can make a difference in outcomes.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#474

Post by neivin » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

TideAd wrote: post #448

anonym29 wrote: post #311

I would like to offer some tips for those faced with the potential of layoffs that I have compiled. I understand much of these come too late for those already affected, but for those worried about the prospect, these can help to ease the pain if it does happen: • Check if your company pays out unused PTO, sick days, etc as cash. If they do, do not use any of the applicable type(s) unless you are going to lose it. • H…

You say 40+ interviews. Is this something you've done? I did 10 last time I was on the market that was about my limit. 40 sounds like it would take inhuman stamina.

Doing even 10 on-site interviews is incredibly draining, especially if you're actually contributing at your full time job.

I interviewed around 2 years ago at about 10 places as well. 10 days of interviewing for 6-7 hours was so mentally exhausting that I just took a week of vacation after all the interviews were done.

I had my 10 interviews in a span of 3 consecutive weeks.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#475

Post by animitronix » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

thundergolfer wrote: post #388

willio58 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of money would make the stress of 3 jobs worth it to me. To constantly be letting down people around me would be depressing, don't care if I'm making 500k/yr.

A single Stripe E3 role (senior eng) can pay over $500k/yr.

And that's why they're having layoffs today

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#476

Post by colinmhayes » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #216

imnotreallynew wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goodness, I’d voluntarily take that deal anyday. 3.5 months of paid vacation at the salaries Stripe pays? Yes please. I just read the rest. On top of 3.5 months pay, they get accelerated vesting, cash payment for healthcare benefits, all unused PTO paid, and more. That’s incredible.

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.

Why not just collect the paycheck and chill with some open source work for a bit while casually interviewing? If you have expenses that don't let you do that fine, but the stripe severance is more than my yearly spend.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#477

Post by neivin » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

arnvald wrote: post #291

rexreed wrote: post #245

Stripe stresses me out. I really cringe worrying about having too many financial eggs in the Stripe basket. But Paypal is no alternative and traditional CC processors are awful. How does one hedge their bets with Stripe? I worry one day we'll hit some transaction "trigger" and then all our money will get locked up in Stripe with no customer support recourse. I fear being "too successful" with no recourse if I depend…

Been there with Braintree. One day they told us “your company profile is too risky, we won’t serve you unless you keep a deposit of $x million with us. We couldn’t afford that, so we migrated to another provider and then diversified - we integrated Stripe, Adyen and later a few local providers and we were able to dynamically switch between them. It was a lot of effort, but it made us more resilient and independent

Most large Stripe clients split traffic. It doesn't make sense to have Stripe be a single point of failure if you're processing enough volume.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#478

Post by ergocoder » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #396

austenallred wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In what world this person lives in?

What do you there is no slowdown? It slows down everywhere. A lot of companies' revenue is slowing down.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#479

Post by animitronix » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

ajb wrote: post #441

throwawaysleep wrote: post #329

It is far better to be a massive underperformer at three jobs than be a good employee at one. Layoffs that are large usually have nothing to do with performance as if they did, word would leak. This is why I feel no guilt over letting my teams down repeatedly. It doesn't matter unless you are bad enough to fire.

You're screwing over your colleagues, not just your employer. We just fired someone like you.

I want to interview him just to confirm I'm correctly screening out people like this guy

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#480

Post by pyr0hu » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

par wrote: post #367

tasuki wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worked nights and weekends all of October. Sorry to hear that. Why were you working nights and weekends?

Probably because they were scared of losing their job and were being asked to work harder.

Ah yes, jumping to conclusions without letting the parent commenter reply. Genius.