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Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

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Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#651

Post by hnews_account_1 »

gurumeditations wrote: post #599
hnews_account_1 wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t worry. Online forums are always like that. They’ll pretend like they’ve never had a high pressure job that paid out handsomely if you applied yourself and hence motivated you to work harder. To them, they think everyone should have work life balance from the age of 23 just because they’ve discovered its importance at 32 years of age. Young people have to work hard. I don’t expect my reports to work on any eveni…

That is so willingly naive. A culture that allows something which grants an advantage eventually requires you do that thing by implicit force. Don’t fool yourself. This is 101 stuff and anyone who doesn’t understand this concept shouldn’t be in charge, because it doesn’t just lead to overwork but also to more pernicious evil things, see MeToo and others.

This is nonsense. You want to muzzle a hard worker because you think the rest of the workforce will not match up? What I count is the output, not if people are working evenings and nights or during the workday. Work output is capped by what I require so I hold all the cards and I’ll pay the guy who wants to work more.

Harrison Bergeron much?

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#652

Post by abeppu »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #569
abeppu wrote: post #525

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…

There doesn't appear to be any attempt to distance themselves. He basically said: "We hired too many people. The decision to hire them was ours. It was a mistake. We have to let them go. We are at least going to cover salaries/healthcare for a decent amount of time." There is probably too much business jargon, but that's how people actually talk in many companies (certainly in Stripe there is overuse of jargon). It's…

"Let them go" is itself a euphemism, in that if it is taken literally, it presumes "they" _would_ go if "let". The active party making an intentional choice describes their actions in a way that places agency with everyone else.

> The email is to the staff, not to you.

No, it's on the 'newsroom' section of their public website. Though it is _addressed_ to staff (or former staff) it is _for_ a dual audience.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#653

Post by tfehring »

tempsy wrote: post #114
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.

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.

Most tech companies have four-year vesting periods. Lots of people at my current employer, which IPOed in 2020, are still vesting shares from pre-IPO stock grants. As a result, those people have a very strong financial incentive to stick around.

Stripe is a rarity in that it issues one-year equity grants, which would make it more susceptible to brain drain after an IPO compared to companies with longer vesting schedules.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#654

Post by benreesman »

Stripe is a great company. I interviewed there once and they passed, and I still think it’s a great company.

Pat Collison is one of the great hackers of our age, and he embodied the YC motto better than most: “Make something that people want.”

I’m sure the cuts are painful, but as a person who is quite literally bereaved: life goes on, and Stripe will still be a great company 5 or 10 years from now.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#655

Post by ergocoder »

vorador wrote: post #509
ergocoder wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does sound wild. Letting people who are likely angry having access to company resources and financials being able to make real damages to Stripe's customers. Companies want to keep high performers. Voluntary layoffs is a very dumb move.

This is such an adversarial read of things. Some companies do offer employees to quit in exchange for some compensation. It's win-win, the company reduces costs and the employee doesn't work at a place they don't want to be at. The whole "the employee can cause damage to the company" view is ridiculous – guess what, the employee can already do damage to the company while employed there, yet they don't.

It is not a win for the company to have low performers stay and high performers leave.

> The whole "the employee can cause damage to the company" view is ridiculous – guess what, the employee can already do damage to the company while employed there, yet they don't.

Yeah, because they don't know they will be fired. They aren't angry employees.

Laid off employees are angry.

Let's talk about being obtuse.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#656

Post by hnews_account_1 »

truncate wrote: post #603
hnews_account_1 wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t worry. Online forums are always like that. They’ll pretend like they’ve never had a high pressure job that paid out handsomely if you applied yourself and hence motivated you to work harder. To them, they think everyone should have work life balance from the age of 23 just because they’ve discovered its importance at 32 years of age. Young people have to work hard. I don’t expect my reports to work on any eveni…

I just reached my 30s, and have pretty good WLB. Good WLB is just part of the picture though. You can work 5 hours a day and be miserable, and you can work 12 hours a day and be happy. It's also nice to have flexibility and independence I think. Being forced to work 12 hours always sucks over voluntarily working 12 hours. I'd not recommend 23yo to stay chill in job, particularly if they have some ambition. At the sam…

Yes. Typically the guy who is working harder also happens to have varied interests. I’ve yet to see a work drone without an outside life who is doing 24/7 work. If I see them, I’d definitely limit them from work. I was the same 23 yo. I had an active social life and all the troubles of finding love etc. I did all right. Maybe a little worse than some of the folks I see today.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#657

Post by verst »

relaxing wrote: post #598
verst wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck finding a job in this economy now. It's tough for everyone, even the most skilled. Many companies have outright hiring freezes. I just read that Amazon now has a hiring freeze for all corporate jobs, previously this only impacted retail, stores etc

What economy are you in? I still see plenty of job postings on the East coast. Anyway, if you were looking for a break from Stripe’s culture you’re not gonna be happy at AMZN.

I work on cloud computing services (PaaS / BaaS) and infrastructure. All the big employers in this space have hiring freezes.

I used to get 20 recruiting emails from Amazon a month. Now they have a complete corporate hiring freeze. The saying here in Seattle goes that if you can't find a job you could always try one of the many Amazon roles because they were always hiring. Not so anymore.

EDIT: if parent comment is referring to Amazon job postings, the all up corporate hiring freeze was just announced this morning!

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#658

Post by rockostrich »

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.

Sorry to hear that. My company went through a similar deep cut in May 2020 and I also wasn't informed which of my direct reports were getting laid off. After I was informed, I fought for the new hire who joined a couple of weeks earlier who was let go over one of the underperforming engineers (who has since improved a lot after getting feedback and working with me on their issues). The new hire was already contributing more and it was clear they picked up on both technical and non-technical concepts very quickly.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#659

Post by musha68k »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #649
musha68k wrote: post #646

Looking forward to the released creativity though. Remember: especially when getting laid off in tech - eventually this will commonly be very good for personal growth. Lots of opportunities in the coming downturn as in full tandem with ever-ongoing neoliberal capitalism: software is still eating the world. Don’t be sad. Take the ticket - and maybe do something that’s more interesting / pressingly needed than… payment…

> Remember: especially when getting laid off in tech - eventually this will commonly be very good for personal growth. Lots of opportunities in the coming downturn as in full tandem with ever-ongoing neoliberal capitalism: software is still eating the world. This is true when you don't have a family to support and/or have a second more reliable income, but it is extremely stressful if you don't have a decent cushion…

It always does, I agree. Then again most people in that cohort probably have the corresponding level of financial means / literacy [to have a cushion]. Either way just read above that in this case specifically the severance seems generous enough. I’m not worried for the typical stripe worker here. This will be good for them if they don’t get bogged down by shock / sadness.

Re: Stripe laying off around 14% of workforce

#660

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

abeppu wrote: post #525

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…

Yup wimpy language is the reason why we don't have flying cars and much more interesting companies still.
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