Stripe Takes Steps To Prune Workforce (forbes.com) 56
An anonymous reader shares a report: As the economy slows, more tech companies have been showing employees the door. Now some senior leaders at Silicon Valley fintech giant Stripe, which in early 2021 was valued by private investors at $95 billion, have asked managers to start giving lower ratings on performance reviews, current and former employees say. That move could lead to more people being fired or feeling pressured to quit and comes at a time when tech businesses, particularly Stripe's payments and ecommerce peers, have been struggling.
Potential cuts, which Stripe wouldn't have to disclose as layoffs because they would be performance-based, could affect hundreds of workers at the dual Dublin- and San Francisco-headquartered company, which has more than 8,000 employees. The pressure to lower ratings follows months of anxious speculation among workers after Stripe added a new question, asking whether a manager would rehire someone, to its performance reviews this past summer. Forbes spoke to ten former and current Stripe employees for this story; all asked to remain anonymous. In interviews and in comments online, workers say Stripe's recent moves have exacerbated a lack of "psychological safety" at the hard-charging private company, leaving some afraid to speak up or express dissenting opinions.
Potential cuts, which Stripe wouldn't have to disclose as layoffs because they would be performance-based, could affect hundreds of workers at the dual Dublin- and San Francisco-headquartered company, which has more than 8,000 employees. The pressure to lower ratings follows months of anxious speculation among workers after Stripe added a new question, asking whether a manager would rehire someone, to its performance reviews this past summer. Forbes spoke to ten former and current Stripe employees for this story; all asked to remain anonymous. In interviews and in comments online, workers say Stripe's recent moves have exacerbated a lack of "psychological safety" at the hard-charging private company, leaving some afraid to speak up or express dissenting opinions.
Also known as... (Score:3)
Quite Firing. .... nothing. And low ratings are used solely to push out unwanted folk, regardless of the actual reason.
We all know that high ratings on performance reviews lead to
fsck all corporations
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Quite Firing
They don't need to fire anyone, just make return to office mandatory...
Re:Also known as... [good news!] (Score:2)
Was that supposed to be "quiet firing"?
But not the good-news joke I was looking for.
I want the juicy details on how much of that $95 billion was real money that the greedy rich bastards are crying about as it swirls around the bowl...
Old joke time? "I would go to the funeral, but I don't want to stand in such a long line just to spit on the grave of another fintech scam."
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As someone who was around during the .COM Boom, and the .COM Bust. The recent influx of hiring of IT workers, had greatly worried me, as these companies were setting themselves up this.
For a lot of companies hiring employees isn't as much as getting staffing to help do the job required, but a commodity market of trying to get a bunch of folks on the payroll, before their price goes up (to have staffing before they get too expensive to hire more) once hired, then they will find some jobs for them to do, as
The new not-layoff in big tech (Score:1)
My buddy's company just cut 1/3rd (!!!!!) of the staff based on "poor performance reviews" which were mandated by upper management to avoid calling it a layoff. He's a line manager and was required to give poor (and dishonest) reviews to certain people who were doing fine.
He gave notice but they still fired all those people.
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That wouldn't actually get a company out of having to pay unemployment. If it were that easy, nobody would ever have to pay unemployment. All they'd have to do is say the person they were terminating was being fired due to "not performing to expectations". Just make the expectations high enough until anyone can't perform.
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If it were that easy, nobody would ever have to pay unemployment.
Right. People get canned. They file for unemployment. Company denies it as a termination "for cause". Employees contest it. Now the company has to defend themselves in an administrative process. State labor board (or whoever handles the hearings) sees a line of people at the door and says "What the hell is going on here?" Company now has to hire a staff of lawyers at 10x the employees salary to handle the bullshit.
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Ha, was it this one [atob.com]? AtoB just cut 32 out of their 107 employees and this is a few months after they have secured 155 million dollars in a Series B funding round. [businesswire.com] I am curious about their use of money. Given that they are in SF their employees have to be averaging 15k a month or so, is that a fair assessment? 107 people at 15K each is 1.6 million a month or 19.26 million a year (of-course they have other expenses as well, servers, whatever). So lets say their yearly expenses are 25 million. So 155 mil
Can someone explain (Score:2)
Is the US economy "slowing"?
Re:Can someone explain (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the US economy "slowing"?
LOL, the economy has been slowing for quite some time now. Our media has tried all manner of gaslighting to assure us that it hasn't (things like food and fuel prices are not included in our key inflation indexes, so economists took the position that things were fine). After reaching what was the traditionally accepted sign of a recession.... two consecutive quarters of negative growth.... government and media sources basically redefined what a recession is. But on the ground level, everyone sees prices rising for everything, and you can't hide it. No one is fooled. We're slipping further and further into a black hole. Ask the person that buys groceries in your household about the common things that are getting scarce, as well as the rise in costs. You'll get an earful.
And the fact that all these tech companies are laying people off? That's a dead giveaway that things are tanking. Tech did very well even through the housing crisis and aftermath. But now everyone can see the pinch. Google has reached a point they've never been to before: both laying people off, and telling remaining staff "Your projects had better make us money or you're gone".
All the fat is gone, and everyone... even Apple... are having to make some accommodations to reality.
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This sounds more like talking points than an actual explanation of why you think the economy is slowing. Maybe discard the politics and I'll listen to you.
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Yes, the economy is slowing and it's doing so by design. The business cycle is common, and honestly in many ways healthy for the economy although the down parts can be tough to live through. What we're seeing here is a confluence of things:
1) cheap money for a decade, with interest rates at an all time low. Cheap money fueled growth, but probably too much.
2) Stimulus spending during the pandemic. The government took the approach of directly giving people money, whi
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LOL at your criticism of him.
I calls it like I sees it.
But thanks for a more insightful reply. It sounds more like "signs point to a big correction" rather than the US economy a definitive "yes the US economy has slowed".
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My own opinion is we were headed for a correction, of normal size, when the pandemic hit. In theory the pandemic should have knocked down the global economy, but all things considered it wasn't hit that hard. That has a lot to do with stimulus spending. But stimulus spending didn't fix the big correction we should have had, rather it just buffered it; it mitigated it then but didn't change the underlying cause. Now we're looking at a BIG correction that honestly should have hap
World-wide problem, not just USA (Score:2)
Most countries are having inflation and other economic problems. There doesn't appear to be any easy way out, or at least one industrialized country would have found the right mix by now.
The pandemic and war tossed big monkey wrenches into the world economy. Climate change is also pissing on the mess with droughts and floods.
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Calling it "cheap money" is a loaded term. Interest rates were "lower than previous decades", but there is no reason to believe that they were not still where they should have been with respect to risk, which is what "interest rates" are really about. If you look at the data, mortgage interest rates have been on a steady [stlouisfed.org] downward [stlouisfed.org] trend [stlouisfed.org] since peaking in the early 80s until this latest very aggressive action by the Federal Reserve.
Just because boomers get all weepy because their home loans (on a reasonably pr
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> After reaching what was the traditionally accepted sign of a recession.... two consecutive quarters of negative growth.... government and media sources basically redefined what a recession is. But on the ground level, everyone sees prices rising for everything, and you can't hide it.
Inflation and recession are two different problems. During recessions, the unemployment rate usually gets fairly high and prices drop. However, unemployment has remained low and prices high despite a slowing economy. This
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In 2016 there were 7,000,000 men in the USA in the age group of 25 - 54 who were unemployed but not looking for any work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
today the number is higher and the trend is for this number to go up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
so there are millions of men of working age sitting without work, refusing to work, this is just the men and these numbers do not count towards unemployment. There are people of-course with more than one job as well. People who prefer not to work are on th
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The Covid-related subsidies have almost all dried up. Your point is not clear to me.
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My point is unrelated to covid. I provided links to the videos with the research data. Obviously you didn't look at them, otherwise you would have known that the trend in work aged men to exit the workforce has been there for a few decades, the first video analyzes the data from mid 20th century until 2016 for example. The second video looks at the 2016-2022 data. covid hit a couple of years back, clearly it has nothing to do with the data (at least from the first set of data) and at least half of the subs
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The context here is generally the post-pandemic economy. Whether disability "pays out too much" in general is different topic. I've seen no evidence it has significantly increased of late, except possibly long-term-Covid effects.
I'm still not seeing your point.
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There are millions of men choosing not to work, thus they do not count as the unemployed, there is a shortage of workers, all while the government supports people not to work, printing and borrowing money to do this all while causing massive inflation. If you don't see the point that is ok, some people may put 2 and 2 together.
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The disability profile of pre- vs. post- pandemic hasn't changed much, as already described. If disability claims are causing most inflation now, why didn't they before the pandemic?
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no, disability claims are not causing most of the inflation, however they are allowing millions of men in the age category 25-54 not to work. There are a totalbof 56 million men in that age category in the US in total. These numbers skew the unemployment and unfilled position stats while also increasing inflation. 7 million men (more now) that should be working are on the dole instead.
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> These numbers skew the unemployment and unfilled position stats
There are different ways to measure "unemployment" and somebody in politics is always complaining about the most commonly used stat. A true picture would use a variety of metrics, but in the name of KISS-news, that's usually not done.
As far as the general problem of men gradually dropping out of the work-force, that's mostly off topic.
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My point is not clear to you because you didn't read and didn't understand what was written. The very first words of my post was this
In 2016 there were 7,000,000 men in the USA in the age group of 25 - 54 who were unemployed but not looking for any work
.
Not that I expect you to add 2 and 2 together. A video with the data up to 2016 (obviously from the very first sentence of the post). Who chews your food for you?
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Perception is 90% of reality when it comes to "the economy". When you have government leaders who proclaim that things are doing poorly, for example? It tends to come true, regardless of the merits of the initial claim. When businesses are afraid they're going to have slowdowns in purchasing of their products or services in the near future, they react by pulling back. Trim their expenses (of which labor is #1) and examine ways to cut costs on the product/service being offered.
Consumers, in turn, lose some
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So you're saying that "If people are saying the economy is slowing, then the economy will slow"?
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There is a significant psychological factor to an economy, so people's perceptions can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If enough people think the economy is faltering, they will adjust their behavior so as to help it do so. The opposite is also true.
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The very simple anser to your question is, yes, no, maybe.
Check back in 5 years and we'll be able to tell you if it was slowing during FY 2022
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Heh, the most honest answer.
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Global economy is slowing down, and rapidly. Demographics in high consumption areas are either bad (US), critical (much of Western and Northern European nations) or terminal (PRC). Supply chains are getting strained and made less and less efficient by dissolving of globalization. Russian war of conquest in Ukraine has upended the energy market cost structures in Europe, Asia and Africa. ESG investing is coming home to roost with five to seven years of lack of investment in hydrocarbon refining infrastructur
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This is at least a more honest answer. You actually give me things to look into rather than talking points.
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Also, this started at the beginning of 2019 .. it was just slowed by the pandemic. If Covid hadn't hit, we'd have been through this and out the other side by 2020. It's also been said that it's going to be a "mild recession" much like 1990.
Of course, a lot of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy ... /shrug
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Yeah, no. You don't turn around demographics, lack of investment into refining capacity, or consequences of long term planned strategic warfare around in a year or two.
The easiest of those, refining capacity takes about three years to build up as a minimum. Realistically closer to five. Strategic level warfare creates decade long messes. And it takes at least eighteen years to produce an adult, and at least thirty to produce a decently productive one.
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Closer to about a day actually. At around the same time that Russia would finish off NATO. MAD is a thing.
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That's cute and all. I'm sure you think this sound very convincing in your head.
MAD is still a thing though. Which is why in spite of being able to somehow magically get military to drive all the way to second tier cities in Siberia in a week (hint: insufficient ground speed on pretty much entire fleet of NATO vehicles even if there was no resistance because of road quality in Russia), they don't do it.
Because on the first day of war, no NATO member country would exist as a country. MAD is a thing.
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Me? No. Many NATO generals and me? Yes.
No really. MAD is a thing. Or pretty much entire Pentagon is filled with Putin shills.
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Cool story bro. I guess you also believe that Moskva sank in a storm, since you seem to be into believing words, not actions.
In real life on the other hand, everyone is staying the fuck out of fighting Russia directly, and Russians are bolting SAMs to their remaining Black Sea Fleet ships. Neither makes sense if you believe the words.
Ageism (Score:1)
who ya calling a "prune"?
Totally evil (Score:2)
This is totally evil. If someone gets laid off, future employers won't hold it against them. If they get fired for cause, that's going to be a negative at every job they apply for from then on. This company is screwing over their workers for the rest of their careers just to avoid having to admit they're doing layoffs.
It's Been Coming for Awhile (Score:1)
It's Been Coming for Awhile (Score:1)
Is anyone surprised... (Score:2)
To find that (once again) "performance reviews" are exposed as simply a tool of management to provide legal cover to justify whatever actions they want to take?
- Why can't everyone be "above average"?
and
- If you don't hire employees randomly, why would their performance follow a normal distribution?