13 ms·

That's in the email: Severance pay. We will pay 14 weeks of severance for all departing employees, and more for those with longer tenure. That is, those depart

by memish 4y ago

That's in the email: Severance pay. We will pay 14 weeks of severance for all departing employees, and more for those with longer tenure. That is, those departing will be paid until at least February 21st 2023. Bonus. We will pay our 2022 annual bonus for all departing employees, regardless of their departure date. (It will be prorated for people hired in 2022.) PTO. We’ll pay for all unused PTO time (including in regions where that’s not legally required). Healthcare. We’ll pay the cash equivalent of 6 months of existing healthcare premiums or healthcare continuation. RSU vesting. We’ll accelerate everyone who has already reached their one-year vesting cliff to the February 2023 vesting date (or longer, depending on departure date). For those who haven’t reached their vesting cliffs, we'll waive the cliff. Career support. We’ll cover career support, and do our best to connect departing employees with other companies. We’re also creating a new tier of extra large Stripe discounts for anyone who decides to start a new business now or in the future. Immigration support. We know that this situation is particularly tough if you’re a visa holder. We have extensive dedicated support lined up for those of you here on visas (you’ll receive an email setting up a consultation within a few hours), and we’ll be supporting transitions to non-employment visas wherever we can.

eganist 4y ago
That's how they're supporting their employees, but this would've already been accounted for anyway (the vesting, potential bonuses, pay through Feb 2023, etc), so this isn't accountability so much as it's "we'll, we won't see the immediate benefit until March" Would've been a different story for instance if pc/jc were diluted with new grants to departing and existing employees.
- lefstathiou 4y ago
  What more do you want? They are paying out millions in cash ("out of the goodness in their heart"... ie they don't have to and people shouldnt expect) which is directly reducing the value of the equity, which impacts them more than anyone else by a huge proportion. Handing out equity grants makes no little sense to me and is unlikely what these employees want... "hey you're fired, here's some stock at our latest valuation pre correction".
  - eganist 4y ago
    I don't want anything; I have no intention of working for stripe. But in the face of fundraising headwinds, a decision to cut costs like this only improves (or stabilizes anyway) their ability to raise at a valuation closer to what they're looking for in this down market. The severance package here only deferred the benefit to the bottom line, but it wasn't a consequence for over-hiring and potentially disrupting lives. In other words, the layoffs actually benefit the founders directly, and it ends up becoming a perverse incentive to over-hire and lay off again with the next boom/bust. Successful accountability means people actually avoid doing shitty things.
    - ProAm 4y ago
      > the layoffs actually benefit the founders directly, and it ends up becoming a perverse incentive to over-hire and lay off again with the next boom/bust. Successful accountability means people actually avoid doing shitty things. This is exactly how business works. You should not be surprised. Their job is to ensure the company survives and that is really it. Everyone is expendable. None of these employees were guaranteed a long leisurely employment at Stripe. Businesses change overnight. But it's always a cyclical market. As the founders I would expect them to benefit themselves. There doesn't have to be consequences, only change and adaptation. It's just business, they aren't your family.
      - lefstathiou 4y ago
        To add to this, the lack of commitment is reciprocal. Employees can walk out the door any second... Stripe pulled these hundreds of employees from somewhere (I doubt they were all college grads). It's just business on both sides.
    - seneca 4y ago
      > The severance package here only deferred the benefit to the bottom line, but it wasn't a consequence for over-hiring and potentially disrupting lives. In other words, the layoffs actually benefit the founders directly... This is all complete nonsense. They're handing out millions of dollars they have no obligation to pay. Unlike cheap talk on the internet, this actually costs them quite a lot. This is extremely generous.
- sanjayio 4y ago
  This seems extremely generous to me. We don’t have to torture the founders because of economic conditions. It’s risky enough being a founder and this’ll have a downwind impact on them as well. For example, paying all these benefits means fewer hires, means less output, means their stock options might be worth less.
  - fredophile 4y ago
    If you're getting rid of 14% of your staff I expect you to be making a lot fewer hires and having less output, as a result of having less employees, is also not surprising. Those are completely unrelated to the severance they pay their employees. The general argument for high CEO pay is that it is a reward for their skill in the job. By that argument, if there is evidence that they're making mistakes that negatively impact the company shouldn't that directly impact them in terms of their compensation?
buscoquadnary 4y ago
Dude that is a freaking sick severance. Hell that is the kind of situation where is want to get laid off.
- dboreham 4y ago
  Even better in the UK where you don't pay tax on severance (at least, the first 30K).
imnotreallynew 4y ago
Goodness, I’d voluntarily take that deal anyday. 3.5 months of paid vacation at the salaries Stripe pays? Yes please. I just read the rest. On top of 3.5 months pay, they get accelerated vesting, cash payment for healthcare benefits, all unused PTO paid, and more. That’s incredible.
- antihero 4y ago
  Isn’t it mandatory to pay holiday accrued? Because it’s been, well, accrued…
  - shaftoe 4y ago
    No. It can say otherwise in your employee handbook.
    - ehnto 4y ago
      It should be in your contract, which means it was up for negotiation. Unless that's what you mean. While there's such high demand for tech workers, I would expect to see people being smarter with their contracts and picking up on things like that, start setting precedents. At the moment the precedents are still heavily employee biased, but you ask for whatever you want in your contract during negotiations. Negotiate your sick pay, negotiate your PTO, negotiate your vesting schedules and exit terms, negotiate your hours and time in lieu policies. Negotiate your Intellectual Property terms. That one is super common to see lopsided toward the employer. We don't have unions or award rates, so we also miss out on some of those protections, hence why we need to make sure it's in the contract. Even the nicest, fairest business owners I've worked for will start with industry standard contracts that do their best to shaft you, because it's industry standard and they don't see it as lopsided. But I've never had trouble negotiating for this stuff to be made clearer and fairer.
      - 0x0000000 4y ago
        > It should be in your contract, which means it was up for negotiation. Generally, employees in America do not have contracts. While plenty of things are open for negotiation during the offer/hiring process, I doubt you'll get an exception to a corporate policy on paying out on PTO if it's not something they already do. That said, IME, accrued PTO has always been paid on departure (voluntary or not). For this reason, most of the places I've worked heavily encourage (or even require) taking PTO, because it's a liability on their books.
nsxwolf 4y ago
The last time I got laid off, my severance was basically enough to buy a bus ticket to the unemployment office. What they're doing here is incredible. (Almost felt compelled to name names here but took a breath)
- esel2k 4y ago
  As a European the severance for a large company doesn’t sound all to different to what I am used to. Normally you have 3 months by contract plus some add a month per year tenure. Healthcare costs, career support etc is normal for larger/successful companies. Then certain countries (not the company) will pay 80percent of your salary for 2 years to find a new job. Happy that some companies also start to do this in the US, but yeah it sounds that this is not a given. It will generate a better transition and avoid serious mental problems/personal issues.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > some companies also start to do this in the US This is pretty normal in my experience. Having experienced layoffs (never as a target, always from the side) for the last 25 years. There are probably edge cases, but some amount of severance (based on time with the company, typicall), healthcare coverage, bonus acceleration, etc, is all completely normal. On HN, of course, you're mostly only going to see the edge cases posting, so it's easy to get a distorted view of normal.
    - anon14132 4y ago
      Yeah I have been laid off once, at Fortune 15 company. We got, at least, 2 month of severance pay. And 2 weeks extra for each year with company after first 4 years. It wasn't a tech company, so I always assumed that this is pretty common in mass lay offs.
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    > As a European the severance for a large company doesn’t sound all to different to what I am used to Note that Europe is a big place, and laws are not standard for layoffs/redundancy. I got laid off this year, and basically got one week's severance pay, plus my two weeks notice. In Ireland, I believe the standard amongst larger companies is one month per year served, but the cap is very low so generally tech companies will make much of the payout conditional on an NDA.
allisdust 4y ago
That's the most generous package I have seen in a while. Stripe seems to be nice even during layoffs.
wbharding 4y ago
As has often been Stripe's way as a company, they are setting the bar for what other companies should strive toward. Has there ever been a more generous severance package posted to HN? As the owner of a (much, much) smaller company, I'm inspired by how the Collisons run their business, especially under adverse circumstances. Yes, they fucked up in estimating the future market, but they are in good company among CEOs and non-CEOs lately.
greenthrow 4y ago
That's not the founders taking personal responsibility unless they are paying for those benefits themselves. That's the company taking care of the employees, which is great. What GP was asking is how are the founders demonstrating accountability.
Test0129 4y ago
That is a remarkably generous severance package. My COVID severance when my company's local office went under was 2 weeks pay for 8 years of service. Healthcare terminated at the end of the month and they were sure to lay me off in the middle of the last week of the month. Well done stripe. Maybe others can follow your example.
- uncletammy 4y ago
  Brutal
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chasd00 4y ago
if you walk out on Friday and start a new job on Monday does the severance still apply? This setup is incredibly generous in my mind to the point where there's a lot of incentive to get laid off. If you got another job in a couple days and severance was still paid by Stripe then that+PTO+RSU+typical signing bonus is one hell of a payday.
- Someone1234 4y ago
  > if you walk out on Friday and start a new job on Monday does the severance still apply? If you "walk out" i.e. quit, then severance doesn't apply. Severance is for people they're laying off. But, yes, if you get let go on Friday, you can work elsewhere on Monday, unless Stripe has specific non-competes in place (which aren't legal a lot of places). > This setup is incredibly generous in my mind to the point where there's a lot of incentive to get laid off. If you got another job in a couple days When we're in an economic downturn, and a lot of other companies are conducting layoffs or hiring freezes that is easier said than done. Definitely was a rough experience in 2007/08 during the last big one.
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    The unemployment rate is at historic lows. Hard to compare to 2008
- bombcar 4y ago
  Severance is usually one large lump sum, but I suppose you could set it up that paychecks keep coming even though you're no longer at work. Depends how they set it up. But either way, they should still come even if you get hired immediately (except I guess hired back at Stripe).
fishywang 4y ago
while this is certainly great (at least in the us standard), it's still different from "John and I are fully responsible for the decisions leading up to it."?
scarface74 4y ago
This is what I hate about the internet rage machine. No research was done by people automatically assuming that the company was just going to send the employees packing with “thoughts and prayers”. That’s very generous severance and the company doing right by its employees. I don’t know how long the process is for non US citizens. But in my over 25 year career, and changing jobs eight times as a software developer, it has never taken me more than a month from actively looking to having a couple of offers. 14 weeks and bonus and paid out PTO is more than enough.
- throwaway9191aa 4y ago
  I had "trouble" finding work over the summer. But the actual details are that I was asking for $275k and $300k at two companies. Both gave me a verbal offers, but hiring froze. The third company, gasp, wanted me to come into their office (20 minutes down the street). I also lived through 2001 and 2008. I think the last 12 years of perpetual growth have created some amazing expectations from people. I can only hope that, once I get laid off, I'll have to "settle" for some $175k job in an office after my 3 months of severance runs dry.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    I have some health issues that started in the 2008 recession. So every time they flare up I think about that trauma. I kept my job through that but it was a very head-down situation. Just put up with this shit until the market recovers. Then the company had a good year and so a bunch of us stayed to get the bonus. So February 2010 saw nine of us who had quit in 8 weeks, sitting in a bar celebrating our exodus. I asked if it was worth it (staying for the bonus). One person said yes. Another said maybe. Seven people regretted staying. The bonus amounted to less than 20% of salary and we were under market at the time. We used to have coffee and discuss how much we hated our boss Mike (not a pseudonym. Fuck you Mike, you brown nosing ladder climber). My peer called our favorite table the Conspiracy Table.
  - jesuscript 4y ago
    Listen, Software Developers should not give up whatever we got so far. If we pushed for these salaries and quality of life, hold on to it. Don’t sit here and tell the tribe “some of you want too much”. Few professions earned this quality of life, doctors and lawyers, and I can promise they aren’t sitting around going “maybe we’re spoiled, maybe we oughtta curtail our expectations”. No, take the life you have and don’t go backward. Most people working aren’t given an ounce from their industries, many of them still fight for basic stuff to this day. Tech should not be okay with these levels of lay offs and still revere these companies. This is the stuff the car industry did when they just offshored jobs, and collapsed entire cities (Detroit). Why should we be okay with the same playbook?
ISL 4y ago
The 14 weeks of severance alone is probably worth ~$60 M [1] Scrounging on the web suggests that Stripe may be EBITDA-profitable but not GAAP-profitable. $60M (perhaps double that with all the other benefits laid out here) is easily enough to delay GAAP profitability by a quarter or two. That may not seem like much, but it has a huge impact on investor sentiment. [1] 0.148000200000*14/52
- pbreit 4y ago
  No it doesn't. Especially with a 14% reduction in by far the largest expenditure.
- fredophile 4y ago
  How does this delay GAAP profitability? They paid out 3.5 months severance and their full 2022 bonuses. If they hadn't laid these people off then in the next 3 months (1 quarter) they would have paid them 3 months salary and their full 2022 bonuses.
  - ISL 4y ago
    It delays profitability relative to simply laying employees off with more-traditional severance.
nathanappere 4y ago
How does this answer the parent comment at all?!
time_to_smile 4y ago
To parent's point: no actual consequences for the people making the decision despite the claims that they are "fully responsible". "Feeling super bad about this" is not actually a consequence. I worked at a company that had massive layoffs, leadership claimed it was the hardest day of their life, two weeks later they were literally laughing about the people they laid off when they realized they already had to rehire for some of the positions. Saying "we take full responsible" here doesn't translate to accountability, it means they want to start the conversation by absolving themselves of any guilt.
- hinkley 4y ago
  My feeling is that in a narcissist’s head admission of mistakes is a fate worse than death. So I start suspecting anyone who talks like this if narcissism. The orange toddler talked like this too.
ar_lan 4y ago
Jeez. This is an incredible severance package.
chrisdbanks 4y ago
Maybe you need to reread the question. I think he's asking how this will affect you personally, not what you're doing for the people being layed of. This doesn't answer that question at all or at least comes across as a politicians answer.
mrweasel 4y ago
> PTO. We’ll pay for all unused PTO time (including in regions where that’s not legally required). I'm sorry, but the wording rather funny. That sort of suggests that it was somehow an option to not pay for used PTO, even if they are legally required to.
cashsterling 4y ago
I want to say the same thing... this is a very generous severance package. At one startup... I got called into the HR office on Monday morning, laid off with no advanced notice, and was only offered two weeks severance provided I signed a non-disclosure agreement that banned me from saying anything negative about the company for two years (and there was a lot I could've said). That company also lied big time about their financials to get me to join in first place. So I learned some valuable life-lessons...
woodruffw 4y ago
I have no horse in this race, but an observation: the extraordinary value of this severance package is not a response to the GP's question. They asked how Stripe's leadership is personally demonstrating accountability, not what the corporation is doing to soften the blow.
allarm 4y ago
> Immigration support I was in a somewhat similar situation - got laid off in 2020, with a great severance pay etc. I was on a working visa which got canceled within a couple of weeks (not sure how it works in the US, I was working in a different part of the world). The market was low so it was difficult to find something quickly to get another job visa. On top of that I couldn't get back to my home country, since the borders were closed due to COVVID. I had to live for several months on short-term visitor visas and had to renew the visas constantly - it was a separate bueracratic hell. Eventually I found a job and got a permanent visa, but these months cost me and my family a lot. So here's the question - would it be (legally?) possible to put the visa holders on garden leave and pay them i.e. $1/m until they found a new job? Or at least do it temporary, for like 3 months or so. Because honestly, I didn't care at all about the money and stuff, the visa problem was absolute hell.
bluishgreen 4y ago
Immigration support should read like this if it is to align with even a grain of truth. "We know that this situation is particularly tough if you’re a visa holder. Basically you are fucked. Here is a dildo sign to show you in picture what your situation is. There is nothing called non-employment visa. So here is a picture of two dildos if you are still reading this"

by memish 4y ago

eganist 4y ago

That's how they're supporting their employees, but this would've already been accounted for anyway (the vesting, potential bonuses, pay through Feb 2023, etc), so this isn't accountability so much as it's "we'll, we won't see the immediate benefit until March" Would've been a different story for instance if pc/jc were diluted with new grants to departing and existing employees.

lefstathiou 4y ago
What more do you want? They are paying out millions in cash ("out of the goodness in their heart"... ie they don't have to and people shouldnt expect) which is directly reducing the value of the equity, which impacts them more than anyone else by a huge proportion. Handing out equity grants makes no little sense to me and is unlikely what these employees want... "hey you're fired, here's some stock at our latest valuation pre correction".
- eganist 4y ago
  I don't want anything; I have no intention of working for stripe. But in the face of fundraising headwinds, a decision to cut costs like this only improves (or stabilizes anyway) their ability to raise at a valuation closer to what they're looking for in this down market. The severance package here only deferred the benefit to the bottom line, but it wasn't a consequence for over-hiring and potentially disrupting lives. In other words, the layoffs actually benefit the founders directly, and it ends up becoming a perverse incentive to over-hire and lay off again with the next boom/bust. Successful accountability means people actually avoid doing shitty things.
  - ProAm 4y ago
    > the layoffs actually benefit the founders directly, and it ends up becoming a perverse incentive to over-hire and lay off again with the next boom/bust. Successful accountability means people actually avoid doing shitty things. This is exactly how business works. You should not be surprised. Their job is to ensure the company survives and that is really it. Everyone is expendable. None of these employees were guaranteed a long leisurely employment at Stripe. Businesses change overnight. But it's always a cyclical market. As the founders I would expect them to benefit themselves. There doesn't have to be consequences, only change and adaptation. It's just business, they aren't your family.
    - lefstathiou 4y ago
      To add to this, the lack of commitment is reciprocal. Employees can walk out the door any second... Stripe pulled these hundreds of employees from somewhere (I doubt they were all college grads). It's just business on both sides.
  - seneca 4y ago
    > The severance package here only deferred the benefit to the bottom line, but it wasn't a consequence for over-hiring and potentially disrupting lives. In other words, the layoffs actually benefit the founders directly... This is all complete nonsense. They're handing out millions of dollars they have no obligation to pay. Unlike cheap talk on the internet, this actually costs them quite a lot. This is extremely generous.
sanjayio 4y ago
This seems extremely generous to me. We don’t have to torture the founders because of economic conditions. It’s risky enough being a founder and this’ll have a downwind impact on them as well. For example, paying all these benefits means fewer hires, means less output, means their stock options might be worth less.
- fredophile 4y ago
  If you're getting rid of 14% of your staff I expect you to be making a lot fewer hires and having less output, as a result of having less employees, is also not surprising. Those are completely unrelated to the severance they pay their employees. The general argument for high CEO pay is that it is a reward for their skill in the job. By that argument, if there is evidence that they're making mistakes that negatively impact the company shouldn't that directly impact them in terms of their compensation?

buscoquadnary 4y ago

Dude that is a freaking sick severance. Hell that is the kind of situation where is want to get laid off.

dboreham 4y ago
Even better in the UK where you don't pay tax on severance (at least, the first 30K).

imnotreallynew 4y ago

Goodness, I’d voluntarily take that deal anyday. 3.5 months of paid vacation at the salaries Stripe pays? Yes please. I just read the rest. On top of 3.5 months pay, they get accelerated vesting, cash payment for healthcare benefits, all unused PTO paid, and more. That’s incredible.

antihero 4y ago
Isn’t it mandatory to pay holiday accrued? Because it’s been, well, accrued…
- shaftoe 4y ago
  No. It can say otherwise in your employee handbook.
  - ehnto 4y ago
    It should be in your contract, which means it was up for negotiation. Unless that's what you mean. While there's such high demand for tech workers, I would expect to see people being smarter with their contracts and picking up on things like that, start setting precedents. At the moment the precedents are still heavily employee biased, but you ask for whatever you want in your contract during negotiations. Negotiate your sick pay, negotiate your PTO, negotiate your vesting schedules and exit terms, negotiate your hours and time in lieu policies. Negotiate your Intellectual Property terms. That one is super common to see lopsided toward the employer. We don't have unions or award rates, so we also miss out on some of those protections, hence why we need to make sure it's in the contract. Even the nicest, fairest business owners I've worked for will start with industry standard contracts that do their best to shaft you, because it's industry standard and they don't see it as lopsided. But I've never had trouble negotiating for this stuff to be made clearer and fairer.
    - 0x0000000 4y ago
      > It should be in your contract, which means it was up for negotiation. Generally, employees in America do not have contracts. While plenty of things are open for negotiation during the offer/hiring process, I doubt you'll get an exception to a corporate policy on paying out on PTO if it's not something they already do. That said, IME, accrued PTO has always been paid on departure (voluntary or not). For this reason, most of the places I've worked heavily encourage (or even require) taking PTO, because it's a liability on their books.

nsxwolf 4y ago

The last time I got laid off, my severance was basically enough to buy a bus ticket to the unemployment office. What they're doing here is incredible. (Almost felt compelled to name names here but took a breath)

esel2k 4y ago
As a European the severance for a large company doesn’t sound all to different to what I am used to. Normally you have 3 months by contract plus some add a month per year tenure. Healthcare costs, career support etc is normal for larger/successful companies. Then certain countries (not the company) will pay 80percent of your salary for 2 years to find a new job. Happy that some companies also start to do this in the US, but yeah it sounds that this is not a given. It will generate a better transition and avoid serious mental problems/personal issues.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > some companies also start to do this in the US This is pretty normal in my experience. Having experienced layoffs (never as a target, always from the side) for the last 25 years. There are probably edge cases, but some amount of severance (based on time with the company, typicall), healthcare coverage, bonus acceleration, etc, is all completely normal. On HN, of course, you're mostly only going to see the edge cases posting, so it's easy to get a distorted view of normal.
  - anon14132 4y ago
    Yeah I have been laid off once, at Fortune 15 company. We got, at least, 2 month of severance pay. And 2 weeks extra for each year with company after first 4 years. It wasn't a tech company, so I always assumed that this is pretty common in mass lay offs.
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  > As a European the severance for a large company doesn’t sound all to different to what I am used to Note that Europe is a big place, and laws are not standard for layoffs/redundancy. I got laid off this year, and basically got one week's severance pay, plus my two weeks notice. In Ireland, I believe the standard amongst larger companies is one month per year served, but the cap is very low so generally tech companies will make much of the payout conditional on an NDA.

allisdust 4y ago

That's the most generous package I have seen in a while. Stripe seems to be nice even during layoffs.

wbharding 4y ago

As has often been Stripe's way as a company, they are setting the bar for what other companies should strive toward. Has there ever been a more generous severance package posted to HN? As the owner of a (much, much) smaller company, I'm inspired by how the Collisons run their business, especially under adverse circumstances. Yes, they fucked up in estimating the future market, but they are in good company among CEOs and non-CEOs lately.

greenthrow 4y ago

That's not the founders taking personal responsibility unless they are paying for those benefits themselves. That's the company taking care of the employees, which is great. What GP was asking is how are the founders demonstrating accountability.

Test0129 4y ago

That is a remarkably generous severance package. My COVID severance when my company's local office went under was 2 weeks pay for 8 years of service. Healthcare terminated at the end of the month and they were sure to lay me off in the middle of the last week of the month. Well done stripe. Maybe others can follow your example.

uncletammy 4y ago
Brutal

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

chasd00 4y ago

if you walk out on Friday and start a new job on Monday does the severance still apply? This setup is incredibly generous in my mind to the point where there's a lot of incentive to get laid off. If you got another job in a couple days and severance was still paid by Stripe then that+PTO+RSU+typical signing bonus is one hell of a payday.

Someone1234 4y ago
> if you walk out on Friday and start a new job on Monday does the severance still apply? If you "walk out" i.e. quit, then severance doesn't apply. Severance is for people they're laying off. But, yes, if you get let go on Friday, you can work elsewhere on Monday, unless Stripe has specific non-competes in place (which aren't legal a lot of places). > This setup is incredibly generous in my mind to the point where there's a lot of incentive to get laid off. If you got another job in a couple days When we're in an economic downturn, and a lot of other companies are conducting layoffs or hiring freezes that is easier said than done. Definitely was a rough experience in 2007/08 during the last big one.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  The unemployment rate is at historic lows. Hard to compare to 2008
bombcar 4y ago
Severance is usually one large lump sum, but I suppose you could set it up that paychecks keep coming even though you're no longer at work. Depends how they set it up. But either way, they should still come even if you get hired immediately (except I guess hired back at Stripe).

fishywang 4y ago

while this is certainly great (at least in the us standard), it's still different from "John and I are fully responsible for the decisions leading up to it."?

scarface74 4y ago

This is what I hate about the internet rage machine. No research was done by people automatically assuming that the company was just going to send the employees packing with “thoughts and prayers”. That’s very generous severance and the company doing right by its employees. I don’t know how long the process is for non US citizens. But in my over 25 year career, and changing jobs eight times as a software developer, it has never taken me more than a month from actively looking to having a couple of offers. 14 weeks and bonus and paid out PTO is more than enough.

throwaway9191aa 4y ago
I had "trouble" finding work over the summer. But the actual details are that I was asking for $275k and $300k at two companies. Both gave me a verbal offers, but hiring froze. The third company, gasp, wanted me to come into their office (20 minutes down the street). I also lived through 2001 and 2008. I think the last 12 years of perpetual growth have created some amazing expectations from people. I can only hope that, once I get laid off, I'll have to "settle" for some $175k job in an office after my 3 months of severance runs dry.
- hinkley 4y ago
  I have some health issues that started in the 2008 recession. So every time they flare up I think about that trauma. I kept my job through that but it was a very head-down situation. Just put up with this shit until the market recovers. Then the company had a good year and so a bunch of us stayed to get the bonus. So February 2010 saw nine of us who had quit in 8 weeks, sitting in a bar celebrating our exodus. I asked if it was worth it (staying for the bonus). One person said yes. Another said maybe. Seven people regretted staying. The bonus amounted to less than 20% of salary and we were under market at the time. We used to have coffee and discuss how much we hated our boss Mike (not a pseudonym. Fuck you Mike, you brown nosing ladder climber). My peer called our favorite table the Conspiracy Table.
- jesuscript 4y ago
  Listen, Software Developers should not give up whatever we got so far. If we pushed for these salaries and quality of life, hold on to it. Don’t sit here and tell the tribe “some of you want too much”. Few professions earned this quality of life, doctors and lawyers, and I can promise they aren’t sitting around going “maybe we’re spoiled, maybe we oughtta curtail our expectations”. No, take the life you have and don’t go backward. Most people working aren’t given an ounce from their industries, many of them still fight for basic stuff to this day. Tech should not be okay with these levels of lay offs and still revere these companies. This is the stuff the car industry did when they just offshored jobs, and collapsed entire cities (Detroit). Why should we be okay with the same playbook?

ISL 4y ago

The 14 weeks of severance alone is probably worth ~$60 M [1] Scrounging on the web suggests that Stripe may be EBITDA-profitable but not GAAP-profitable. $60M (perhaps double that with all the other benefits laid out here) is easily enough to delay GAAP profitability by a quarter or two. That may not seem like much, but it has a huge impact on investor sentiment. [1] 0.148000200000*14/52

pbreit 4y ago
No it doesn't. Especially with a 14% reduction in by far the largest expenditure.
fredophile 4y ago
How does this delay GAAP profitability? They paid out 3.5 months severance and their full 2022 bonuses. If they hadn't laid these people off then in the next 3 months (1 quarter) they would have paid them 3 months salary and their full 2022 bonuses.
- ISL 4y ago
  It delays profitability relative to simply laying employees off with more-traditional severance.

nathanappere 4y ago

How does this answer the parent comment at all?!

time_to_smile 4y ago

To parent's point: no actual consequences for the people making the decision despite the claims that they are "fully responsible". "Feeling super bad about this" is not actually a consequence. I worked at a company that had massive layoffs, leadership claimed it was the hardest day of their life, two weeks later they were literally laughing about the people they laid off when they realized they already had to rehire for some of the positions. Saying "we take full responsible" here doesn't translate to accountability, it means they want to start the conversation by absolving themselves of any guilt.

hinkley 4y ago
My feeling is that in a narcissist’s head admission of mistakes is a fate worse than death. So I start suspecting anyone who talks like this if narcissism. The orange toddler talked like this too.

ar_lan 4y ago

Jeez. This is an incredible severance package.

chrisdbanks 4y ago

Maybe you need to reread the question. I think he's asking how this will affect you personally, not what you're doing for the people being layed of. This doesn't answer that question at all or at least comes across as a politicians answer.

mrweasel 4y ago

> PTO. We’ll pay for all unused PTO time (including in regions where that’s not legally required). I'm sorry, but the wording rather funny. That sort of suggests that it was somehow an option to not pay for used PTO, even if they are legally required to.

cashsterling 4y ago

I want to say the same thing... this is a very generous severance package. At one startup... I got called into the HR office on Monday morning, laid off with no advanced notice, and was only offered two weeks severance provided I signed a non-disclosure agreement that banned me from saying anything negative about the company for two years (and there was a lot I could've said). That company also lied big time about their financials to get me to join in first place. So I learned some valuable life-lessons...

woodruffw 4y ago

I have no horse in this race, but an observation: the extraordinary value of this severance package is not a response to the GP's question. They asked how Stripe's leadership is personally demonstrating accountability, not what the corporation is doing to soften the blow.

allarm 4y ago

> Immigration support I was in a somewhat similar situation - got laid off in 2020, with a great severance pay etc. I was on a working visa which got canceled within a couple of weeks (not sure how it works in the US, I was working in a different part of the world). The market was low so it was difficult to find something quickly to get another job visa. On top of that I couldn't get back to my home country, since the borders were closed due to COVVID. I had to live for several months on short-term visitor visas and had to renew the visas constantly - it was a separate bueracratic hell. Eventually I found a job and got a permanent visa, but these months cost me and my family a lot. So here's the question - would it be (legally?) possible to put the visa holders on garden leave and pay them i.e. $1/m until they found a new job? Or at least do it temporary, for like 3 months or so. Because honestly, I didn't care at all about the money and stuff, the visa problem was absolute hell.

bluishgreen 4y ago

Immigration support should read like this if it is to align with even a grain of truth. "We know that this situation is particularly tough if you’re a visa holder. Basically you are fucked. Here is a dildo sign to show you in picture what your situation is. There is nothing called non-employment visa. So here is a picture of two dildos if you are still reading this"