- Stripe is laying off 300 employees. The company apologized to staffers who had “received a notification error on their personal email accounts Monday evening PT.”
Online payments company Stripe is laying off 300 employees internationally, according to an internal memo obtained by Fortune, and accidentally sent some affected workers an image of a cartoon duck.
In a Monday memo, Stripe’s chief people officer Rob McIntosh announced the layoffs, telling staffers the cuts would mostly impact employees in the product, engineering, and operation teams.
In a follow-up email also seen by Fortune, McIntosh said some employees had “received a notification error on their personal email accounts Monday evening PT,” and apologized for the error and any confusion.
A spokesperson for Stripe confirmed that the image of a duck, accompanied by text reading ‘US-Non-California Duck’, was accidentally attached as a PDF to emails sent to some of the laid-off employees.
Stripe employees also shared the image on the anonymous workplace forum Blind.
California has different layoff laws, which provide additional protections for employees during layoffs, but Stripe declined to provide further details of why the duck or text was used.
Despite the job cuts—which represent just over 3% of the company’s total headcount—Stripe said the company was not slowing hiring for 2025. McIntosh said the company’s “business performance continues to be strong.”
“I want to be clear that we’re not slowing down hiring,” McIntosh said in a memo. “We expect to grow headcount across all our locations and to land at about 10,000 Stripes by the end of the year (a 17% Y/Y increase).”
The company said impacted workers had already been informed and would receive a severance package that included their earned annual bonus.
It’s not Stripe’s first round of layoffs. The company cut around 1,000 jobs in 2022 and a few dozen in mid-2023, mostly from its recruiting department.
Tech layoffs sweep Silicon Valley
Layoffs at Stripe are the latest in a wave of cuts announced by major tech companies.
Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees to expect an “intense year” in an internal memo announcing a fresh round of cuts aimed at managing out low performers.
The company plans to exit roughly 5% of the lowest performers, but, unlike previous layoffs, Meta has said it plans to backfill the roles.
Microsoft is also planning a round of layoffs reportedly aimed at cutting low performers.
Separate form cuts targeting underperforming employees, the Big Tech company is also laying off employees on teams, including security, sales, and gaming, per Business Insider.
Full memo sent to Stripe staff
Hi all,
As we’ve been working through our plans for 2025, leaders took a close look at their organizations and team structures. It became clear that there were several team-level changes needed to make sure we have the right people in the right roles and locations to execute against our plans.
It’s not easy to make all these changes at once, but it’s even harder to have them roll out gradually throughout the year, and so we asked leaders to do all they could to pull these decisions forward. As a result, about 300 Stripes, largely in product, engineering, and operations roles, are departing today. All those who are impacted have already been informed, and everyone will receive a severance package, including their earned annual bonus.
I want to be clear that we’re not slowing down hiring — we expect to grow headcount across all our locations and to land at about 10,000 Stripes by the end of the year (a 17% Y/Y increase). Our business performance continues to be strong.
Our confidence that this is the right business decision doesn’t make it easier for those who are leaving or those losing valued teammates. I appreciate everyone’s resilience and want to thank those departing for their contributions and for building with us.
Rob
There are local processes commencing for some Stripes outside the U.S., in accordance with country-specific employment practices.
