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> Protocol spoke with two Stripe candidates who received either verbal or written offers from the company and then had those offers revoked because of “shiftin

> Protocol spoke with two Stripe candidates who received either verbal or written offers from the company and then had those offers revoked because of “shifting business priorities.” Emphasis mine. Two people. How many people does Stripe employee? I don't care too much either way, but this post and the one yesterday seem to be a bit of a coordinated scheme. " Protocol also reviewed multiple online complaints detailing similar rescinded offers; the most prominent of these complaints was posted on Hacker News and received a rousing defense of Stripe from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong." Lol. How long until I see HN drama on the magazine rack?

lowkey_ 5y ago
I agree this isn't many, but from companies at a similar valuation / prestige level, I haven't heard of any product/eng offers revoked because of "shifting business priorities," and yet I've heard of a few from Stripe so far. (Only those bold enough to publicly speak about it). With most of these top companies, if you're shifting business priorities, you find a new org for the person you just hired, or you don't hire them to begin with. If Stripe consistently just rescinds offers instead, that's worthy of the bad press.
- ericmay 5y ago
  > yet I've heard of a few from Stripe so far As in yesterday and today? I know this [1] isn't 1-1 comparison but this was just a quick Google search for "Airbnb rescind offer" and I would argue that this is worse (assuming it's true) but you can certainly debate it. And not to pick on Google but I've seen quite a few rescinded offers and ghosts there too. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/r0t9rd/airbnb_rescinding_all_offers_for_2022_summer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/r0t9rd/airbnb_res...
  - lowkey_ 5y ago
    No, I know someone who also experienced this with Stripe a few months ago. Rescinding intern offers is also bad, but it's not nearly the same in impact as rescinding a full-time offer for a lot of reasons. I haven't seen this from Google or Facebook, but we should call them out if it happens!
    - MAGZine 5y ago
      I'd say rescinding intern offers is just as bad. To the company maybe it's not a big deal. They're an intern, afterall. Companies like to treat them poorly. For interns--it's a huge deal. They probably stopped interviewing at other places, and it's not necessarily so easy as just restarting the process. Batches might be full. Your schedule might only allow for internships in at one time of the year (summer), and the available positions for interns are often fixed-windows, especially at larger companies. At a school like waterloo, it could mean derailing an entire semester of school. These early jobs are also potentially big breaks. Getting to pick from any company in the bay is a luxury--one that interns don't have.
      - lowkey_ 5y ago
        Yes, but I'm talking about to the individual, not the company. Someone with a full-time job often has not just stopped interviewing elsewhere but resigned from their current job, and began planning a move for their family, and now will struggle to put food on the table. Possibly derailing an entire semester of school is just a bit different.
        ericmay 5y ago
        I'd say it's even worse than just derailing an entire semester of school. If you can get a job full-time at AirBnB you can probably get a good full-time job just about anywhere. So while it may be really bad (I doubt you'll be struggling to put food on the table unless you mismanage your expenses) you can probably land something somewhere else and you usually don't resign until after you've at least signed the paperwork for the offer - at least I wouldn't. If you get rescinded from AirBnB as an intern that might change your entire life trajectory and that's still true even if you find another internship. You might go from high-growth career opportunities to bottom of the barrel very quickly. Then when you apply for your next internship or job? Guess what now you're competing with all of those who didn't get rescinded offers. It has compounding effects. So I think we shouldn't really dismiss either. I'd say both are just about as bad as the other in their own ways.
        MAGZine 5y ago
user-the-name 5y ago
If you are able to find two people with this experience willing to talk to you for an article just like that, that is a lot. There will certainly be many, many more.
achow 5y ago
Except that journalists are looking for leads from various sources. HN is possibly best source for tech due to obvious reasons, so it is totally credible that Protocol picked up the leads from HN yesterday, got few further leads and actually interviewed them and published the story.
_Microft 5y ago
I would not call a news outlet picking up on a story "coordinated". Beside that, on one hand I agree that two cases are just two cases. On the other hand it seems to be more likely to find two cases if there is actually an underlying pattern than if they were happening by pure chance alone.
PeterisP 5y ago
One may be a random fluke, but two in a short time indicates that it's an intentional action which definitely should be called out. For an action like this (rescinding written offers after acceptance) it's not appropriate to say "just two cases", as this should be a "never happen" event not merely a rare occurrence - one case is already too much and should result in a formal public apology and assertion if it's an isolated incident that won't get repeated, but two cases - proving that it is not an isolated exceptional incident - is simply outrageous.

lowkey_ 5y ago

I agree this isn't many, but from companies at a similar valuation / prestige level, I haven't heard of any product/eng offers revoked because of "shifting business priorities," and yet I've heard of a few from Stripe so far. (Only those bold enough to publicly speak about it). With most of these top companies, if you're shifting business priorities, you find a new org for the person you just hired, or you don't hire them to begin with. If Stripe consistently just rescinds offers instead, that's worthy of the bad press.

ericmay 5y ago
> yet I've heard of a few from Stripe so far As in yesterday and today? I know this [1] isn't 1-1 comparison but this was just a quick Google search for "Airbnb rescind offer" and I would argue that this is worse (assuming it's true) but you can certainly debate it. And not to pick on Google but I've seen quite a few rescinded offers and ghosts there too. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/r0t9rd/airbnb_rescinding_all_offers_for_2022_summer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/r0t9rd/airbnb_res...
- lowkey_ 5y ago
  No, I know someone who also experienced this with Stripe a few months ago. Rescinding intern offers is also bad, but it's not nearly the same in impact as rescinding a full-time offer for a lot of reasons. I haven't seen this from Google or Facebook, but we should call them out if it happens!
  - MAGZine 5y ago
    I'd say rescinding intern offers is just as bad. To the company maybe it's not a big deal. They're an intern, afterall. Companies like to treat them poorly. For interns--it's a huge deal. They probably stopped interviewing at other places, and it's not necessarily so easy as just restarting the process. Batches might be full. Your schedule might only allow for internships in at one time of the year (summer), and the available positions for interns are often fixed-windows, especially at larger companies. At a school like waterloo, it could mean derailing an entire semester of school. These early jobs are also potentially big breaks. Getting to pick from any company in the bay is a luxury--one that interns don't have.
    - lowkey_ 5y ago
      Yes, but I'm talking about to the individual, not the company. Someone with a full-time job often has not just stopped interviewing elsewhere but resigned from their current job, and began planning a move for their family, and now will struggle to put food on the table. Possibly derailing an entire semester of school is just a bit different.
      - ericmay 5y ago
        I'd say it's even worse than just derailing an entire semester of school. If you can get a job full-time at AirBnB you can probably get a good full-time job just about anywhere. So while it may be really bad (I doubt you'll be struggling to put food on the table unless you mismanage your expenses) you can probably land something somewhere else and you usually don't resign until after you've at least signed the paperwork for the offer - at least I wouldn't. If you get rescinded from AirBnB as an intern that might change your entire life trajectory and that's still true even if you find another internship. You might go from high-growth career opportunities to bottom of the barrel very quickly. Then when you apply for your next internship or job? Guess what now you're competing with all of those who didn't get rescinded offers. It has compounding effects. So I think we shouldn't really dismiss either. I'd say both are just about as bad as the other in their own ways.
      - MAGZine 5y ago

user-the-name 5y ago

If you are able to find two people with this experience willing to talk to you for an article just like that, that is a lot. There will certainly be many, many more.

achow 5y ago

Except that journalists are looking for leads from various sources. HN is possibly best source for tech due to obvious reasons, so it is totally credible that Protocol picked up the leads from HN yesterday, got few further leads and actually interviewed them and published the story.

_Microft 5y ago

I would not call a news outlet picking up on a story "coordinated". Beside that, on one hand I agree that two cases are just two cases. On the other hand it seems to be more likely to find two cases if there is actually an underlying pattern than if they were happening by pure chance alone.

PeterisP 5y ago

One may be a random fluke, but two in a short time indicates that it's an intentional action which definitely should be called out. For an action like this (rescinding written offers after acceptance) it's not appropriate to say "just two cases", as this should be a "never happen" event not merely a rare occurrence - one case is already too much and should result in a formal public apology and assertion if it's an isolated incident that won't get repeated, but two cases - proving that it is not an isolated exceptional incident - is simply outrageous.