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

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#521

Post by celestialcheese » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #504

ohmanjjj wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They couldn’t IPO. Stripe is a bubble. They don’t want their financials under a microscope.

Genuine question, what’s the real value proposition of Stripe? They do have a slick integration process for outside developers, but is that enough for to justify the financial values attached to them in the recent past?

As one of the earliest stripe customers, yes, that was the reason why we switched to them from Authorize.net.

Developer docs and easy API integration was, and is still, their "stickyness". But the eco-system of new products they've added have grown that moat to make it easy and cost-efficient to offload more and more of the financial and subscription stack onto Stripe. It's a virtuous cycle

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#522

Post by lazide » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #500

TorKlingberg wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks. That's something I don't quite get. This adversarial relationship between employees and employers and management is stupid. Why not tell the workforce you have to cut costs, so if you're thinking of changing careers now is the time. Whoever is left presumably wants to stay.

Like the court system being adversarial, it’s that way because it’s the only thing that scales, for a number of reasons. The longer a company can avoid it/bigger they can be without it, the better everything is. At some point however, it’s inevitable.

To answer your second question, because the ones who leave are often the ones with the most options and lowest risk to themselves if they are unemployed, which highly correlates with those who are the ‘best’ (in most hiring managers minds).

So it’s pretty common for all the ‘high performers’ to bail (happens anyway, but to a lesser extent on it’s own the moment ‘growth’ isn’t the first thing on peoples minds), and the folks left behind to be those that don’t feel comfortable finding another position.

Either because they have a mortgage hanging over their heads, or don’t feel confident in their skills, or are preoccupied with other responsibilities (kids, older parents, etc) and have less free time/are less interested in doing extra hours, or just hate interviewing, etc.

It’s basically the equivalent of a hot/pretty boyfriend or girlfriend. They are able to find other options easier, so tend to be the first to bounce if they stop getting what they want.

If you’re a manager, that’s obviously not great. Especially if you’re shallow.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#523

Post by guax » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #482

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…

> they have no urgent material need to let people go Why doesn't the company reserve the right to optimize/choose to focus on profit?

They do, but it would be novel if for once, they choose decency instead of profit.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#524

Post by roflyear » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

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

Most interesting, is they seem to not care about the recent NYC law (see: https://stripe.com/jobs/listing/backend-engineer-enterprise-...), so yeah - they haven't updated this part of their business or paid much attention to it in a while.

Likely, everyone has been busy with the layoffs.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#525

Post by abeppu » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

I know this isn't new or unique to Stripe, but the language used in these announcements to distance leadership from their choices is always so slimy. "We're not 'firing' or 'terminating' anyone; some people are just 'impacted' by our announcement that we have to 'say goodbye'." It makes repeated mentions of those who are "leaving" (the subject is the former employee) and avoids active verbs where the founders are the subjects. Not "we're terminating", "we're laying off", etc. Even the first statement taking responsibility covers the "decisions leading up to [this step]", rather than the step/mass layoff itself.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#526

Post by jasonshaev » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #365

jtaft wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am honestly amused by this. There are so many denigrating words that have their origin in or deep connotations with intellectual disability, yet somehow “r-word” is the one that gets all the attention. Though, I must admit I’ve seen people going even further and claiming that “crazy” is an ableist slur. And I am not sure which is worse, being selective or being consistent but annoying.

"The origins of the latest epithet in vogue are harmless." The origin of the word is irrelevant. Words mean things and can be harmful, regardless of the origin of the word. The meaning and context of words can change over time, regardless of the origin of the word.

Bringing Charles Darwin into the conversation does not help your point.

"Is it worse to have some condition of your birth used as a casual insult -- a reminder of your misfortune? Or is it worse to be constantly patronized, often behind your back by throngs offended on your behalf?"

This is a false trade-off. The whole conversation started because someone used a harmful word, knowing full well it was harmful. If they refrained from using the offensive word they knew was offensive neither condition would have happened (casual insult or patronization).

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#527

Post by dimitrios1 » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

pugio wrote: post #502

Random shot here, but I work for a non profit interested in building a better kind of education (focused on programming, ml, and data science). We've been having a hard time figuring out how to hire qualified people to build top-notch educational content because we pay less than industry rates. The upside is that we do meaningful work, have good health care, decent pay, good work environment, (edit: also fully remote…

I think most of us graybeards here might agree that a focus on STEM, and programming particularly, is not in any way shape or form a better education. The treatment of the humanities as "lesser" has been catastrophic, in my opinion.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#528

Post by guax » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

anm89 wrote: post #499

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…

It's a business, not a charity. Their goal is to optimize.

No post body was provided.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#529

Post by cldellow » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #500

TorKlingberg wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> As a manager I find their really curious. I guess they were trying to avoid leaks. That's something I don't quite get. This adversarial relationship between employees and employers and management is stupid. Why not tell the workforce you have to cut costs, so if you're thinking of changing careers now is the time. Whoever is left presumably wants to stay.

Some possible reasons:

You may not get the number of volunteers you need, so you still have to do layoffs. Except now, more people have been stressing about it for a longer period of time.

The "low performers" who will have a hard time finding a new job elsewhere are unlikely to voluntarily leave. So you offer a buyout package to derisk the decision for them. But then the "high performers" who you'd rather retain might decide that yeah, it's easy to get a new job, so they'll take a sack of cash and go do something new.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#530

Post by selfmodruntime » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

pugio wrote: post #502

Random shot here, but I work for a non profit interested in building a better kind of education (focused on programming, ml, and data science). We've been having a hard time figuring out how to hire qualified people to build top-notch educational content because we pay less than industry rates. The upside is that we do meaningful work, have good health care, decent pay, good work environment, (edit: also fully remote…

Have you considered hiring outside of the US?