Stripe is the latest company to conduct mass layoffs, letting 14%, or more than 1,000 employees go.
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison sent a memo to employees Thursday to deliver the bad news:
Today we’re announcing the hardest change we have had to make at Stripe to date. We’re reducing the size of our team by around 14% and saying goodbye to many talented Stripes in the process. If you are among those impacted, you will receive a notification email within the next 15 minutes. For those of you leaving: we’re very sorry to be taking this step and John and I are fully responsible for the decisions leading up to it.
Collison blamed the decision on a changing world, including significant financial headwinds that have become more apparent throughout 2022.
At the outset of the pandemic in 2020, the world rotated overnight towards e-commerce. We witnessed significantly higher growth rates over the course of 2020 and 2021 compared to what we had seen previously. As an organization, we transitioned into a new operating mode and both our revenue and payment volume have since grown more than 3x.
The world is now shifting again. We are facing stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding. (Tech company earnings last week provided lots of examples of changing circumstances.) On Tuesday, a former Treasury Secretary said that the US faces “as complex a set of macroeconomic challenges as at any time in 75 years”, and many parts of the developed world appear to be headed for recession. We think that 2022 represents the beginning of a different economic climate.
The company is taking a number of steps to make the layoffs as painless as possible, including a minimum 14 weeks severance pay, with employees with more seniority receiving even more. The company will also pay all 2022 bonuses and pay employees for all unused PTO. Stripe will also “pay the cash equivalent of 6 months of existing healthcare premiums or healthcare continuation.” The company will also offer career support, immigration support for those on work visas, and more.
No layoff is ever good, but Stripe certainly deserves credit for trying to make the transition as seamless as possible.