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by tyre 1252 days ago
Stripe handled the layoffs incredibly well, in my opinion as someone who was laid off.

The package was more generous than it had to be. The founders took responsibility and were transparent about the business. It was handled reasonably.

I would work at Stripe again.

2 comments

How did the founders take responsibility?
They did an all-hands the day of the layoffs with everyone being let go. They walked through why they'd hired so quickly, the new information (both macro-economic and within Stripe) that caused them to reconsider, and where that led. They emphasized that this was their decision: they set the course for hiring at the rate at in the places that Stripe did over the prior ~18 months; they were the ones who decided on the layoffs.

Shit happens. They made a bet based on the information that they had at the time (in this case that COVID moving commerce hugely online would be a permanent shift, when it wasn't (or at least not as large.)) They mis-predicted the future and then had to respond.

I understand why they made the bet they did (and mostly agree.) I understand why they then decided to do layoffs (and mostly agree.)

They didn't blame anyone else or try to sidestep the difficult conversations.

They founders took responsibility and cut their salary so you could stay? They said they took responsibility took the credit for tough choices and fired you. Now you have 16 weeks / 4 months to get another position when no one is hiring and interviews take 2 months on average before the offer is pulled.

Depending on employees age, length of employment 16 weeks can be an extremely low amount and the courts could get a higher settlement.

1. I don’t know what their salary is but I think it’s like a dollar.

2. They talked through their decision making process in hiring at the rate Stripe did, then what changed that made them do layoffs. They were very direct that this was their choices and they owned them.

I don’t need them to weirdly punish themselves. They made a bet. They were wrong about the future. That’s fine.

I got 14 weeks which is a really long time.

What country are we talking about? The US does not offer any guarantee for severance.

If we are talking Ireland, as others have said the law appears to be exactly this.