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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#301

Post by 650REDHAIR »

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 (…

Anecdote here, but I sell vintage clothing, electronics, and furniture on the side and have noticed a substantial downturn in sales this year. Lower than pre-pandemic levels.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#302

Post by theGnuMe »

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.

You've got taxes on that so 40% and then health insurance at Cobra rates. Granted it looks like they said they will pay that for 6 months. Not sure if that is taxable as well also not sure what the individual contributions are.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#303

Post by l33t233372 »

gizmo wrote: post #230
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…

Why act like the founders have to grovel and beg for forgiveness? They don't. If they had been extra cautious during covid in expectation for the economy to take a dive would stripe be in a better position today? Absolutely not.

And even still, why act like taking responsibility is the same as taking a punishment?

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#304

Post by tempsy »

roflyear wrote: post #269
tempsy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech jobs follow a bimodal distribution. Only a few pay the $400k-$500k Google level salaries you hear about for mid level employees. It might be relatively easy to find a $120k job but that doesn’t mean every laid off person can now walk into Google with ease when even big tech is laying people off or freezing hiring.

Not everyone needs to make $500k? I don't understand this argument. Many companies are hiring seniors right now for $200k base. Small, medium, and large companies. That is a great salary. Don't compare yourself to the .1% of software devs.

$200k base is maybe $10k a month after tax and retirement contributions.

A 2 bedroom apartment in NYC or another high cost area where these jobs are generally located will cost $4000-$6000

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#305

Post by tasuki »

YPCrumble wrote: post #263
zug_zug wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you slashing your own future stock grants, cutting your own salaries, diluting your positions with stock grants to everyone else? This sounds a bit emotional to me. Layoffs can be an emotional topic, but let's reflect for a moment. I guess the thrust of the remark is to put some sort of public "shame" on companies that perform layoffs (especially such fast ones) for the major inconvenience they cause for thousa…

> 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").

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#306

Post by zeroonetwothree »

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.

They also have the PPI, which measures costs to businesses. It's roughly equal to CPI: https://www.bls.gov/ppi/

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#307

Post by l33t233372 »

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…

You ask what they did to take accountability but then list ways they could take an arbitrary punishment. That doesn’t make sense.

They took responsibility by responsibly doing well by their former employees.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#308

Post by tasuki »

groffee wrote: post #173
nsxwolf wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would make it better in your eyes? A year's severance? 2 years?

It's not about the severance. It's about the empty platitudes they and all people like them spew. "they take responsibility" what does that even mean? It's meaningless. Are they taking a paycut themselves? Letting themselves go instead of their employes? Cutting down on bonuses to keep their people employed?

> "they take responsibility" what does that even mean? It's meaningless.

It means they're not blaming anyone else for this. The opposite of taking responsibility is assigning blame. They aren't assigning blame, they're taking responsibility.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#310

Post by conductr »

TomBombadildoze wrote: post #176
czbond wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Please. Stripe is privately held so let's look at a market comp, SQ. SQ 2021 Revenue: $17B SQ 2021 cash and short term investments: $5.3B Stripe 2021 Revenue: $12B Similar businesses, operating in the same market, with the nearly the same number of employees (about 8000). Barring exceptional circumstances, we would expect their financial health to be roughly similar. You said it yourself: > the leaders have to... [de…

> The economy is contracting and their share price is falling. They could afford to dip into cash and keep everyone on board but their investors are more concerned about propping up the valuation.

They're worried about surviving the contraction, nobody knows how long it will last and that cash only goes so far.

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