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)

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

For Norway it's usually three months both ways. For bigger layoffs it can be "anything" from three months and up. I was outsourceed once, and got nine months pay from day 1.

So I got doubly paid as soon as I found a new job. Good times. :)

I worked with a person that was laid off with 6 months severance that was not reported to the state. They immediately filed for unemployment, and then the company hired them back as a contractor 4 or 5 weeks later. We labelled him the triple dipper and he said getting laid off was the best thing that ever happened to him and that he's basically rolling around in money coupled with a one month paid sabbatical.

In Texas, severance pay has no bearing on unemployment insurance. I did same thing but told unemployment office about severance pay, since I was too worried about breaking any rules.

They told me I could win jackpot but they would still legally owe me unemployment pay. It is all about actually woking. If you work and then get paid for that work, that's when you cannot claim unemployment pay.

So, technically, if you do contract work and still claim unemployment, then you are breaking the law.

Yes, I believe he was technically breaking the law by under reporting. My limited understanding was that he was able to avoid issues by billing as an LLC versus an individual and didn't draw a paycheck from his LLC while on unemployment, he just let the money stack.

>As a European the severance for a large company doesn’t sound all to different to what I am used to.

IME 14 weeks minimum is really generous in the US.

I've been at 2 companies where it was 1 week per year of employment. At one company they added on 1 month of severance during a really large layoff. The tenure at tech companies in the US tends to be quite short, so getting 14 weeks probably unusual at typical tech company.

In the silver league of US tech, which is broader than most people seem to think, the standard severance pay is a nice cool 0. Usually the only conversation is about all the agreements they try to convince you that you have to sign for no compensation as they’re escorting you out the door.

What does "silver league" mean in this context? Can you give examples?

Is silver like "second place" or like "middle-aged" companies?

In my social circles we roughly categorize the tech industry into faang, gold tier, silver tier, and wood tier.

Faangs are obvious, good tier is up and coming businesses who pay and act like faangs. Examples are brex, stripe, Uber(at least back in the day, no idea what they’ve been up to the past year.

Silver tier are the places that still pay well above average jobs but don’t go into the mega compensation and suffer a talent drought as a result. Places where they’re paying 120k total comp for a senior engineer and won’t part with any equity because the leadership can’t emotionally handle the investment needed to compete for engineering talent for reasons that I could go on for hours about.

Wood tier are the companies that need tech but still try to pay <80k because they’d never pay high wages to any employee or still think they don’t need software and end up with some real shit engineering

I would wager that most companies in the US give NO severance. You get unemployment benefits, I guess.

> You get unemployment benefits, I guess.

Depending on the political environment of the state one is in. It could be capped at a useless amount, or the unemployment department minimally staffed. I know someone in NJ that has a pending status for 2 years with no response or ability to contact the state, and they have 8 years of W-2 showing they paid unemployment insurance.

Odd, NJ is usually pretty good with that stuff. Special situation, maybe?

No, you can see tons of Reddit posts about people not being able to speak to anyone at NJ unemployment. You can try calling at anytime of day and the machine will say (after 130 seconds of automated prompts) that all agents are too busy and to call back the next business day.

In the event you do get through, you reach a line level agent, and they say a supervisor has to look at the case, and to wait 6 to 8 weeks before calling back. That’s it, nothing else.

I assume many people just give up.

This is true in my experience

WARN Act requires 60 days (8-9 weeks) notice or 60 days on payroll if they walk you out the day of.

How does this work at companies that are very distributed geographically? The WARN act talks about "mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment."

I'm genuinely asking this question - I'm not trying to be a smart ass.

I worked at a tech company (~3500 worldwide) that had an office in almost every major US city area (e.g. Bay Area, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and a bunch of Tier 2 cities as well (Atlanta, Raleigh, Houston, etc), and remote workers (e.g. sales) as well.

They had a big layoff and in theory they could laid off 500/15% people worldwide without laying off 50 people at each site. Would that still trigger the WARN act?

Yeah this is pretty good. Would make me feel good about getting a job at Stripe for sure. My current company I'm sure would pay NOTHING and we don't get bonuses anyway, so...!

> (Almost felt compelled to name names here but took a breath)

You should still do it.

I probably signed a non-disparagement agreement to get the little bit I got.

I find it interesting that they're saying they're doing so bad financially they need to cut 14% of their workforce but are also doing well enough they can pay 14% of their payroll for 3.5 months of no work + Bonuses + PTO + Stock + 6 Months of Healthcare? Doesn't seem to add up

How much do you think 14% of their workforce costs to keep employed for another year vs 3.5 months + bonuses + pto + stock + 6 months healthcare?

Do you think their doing it for shits and giggles? Or do you think that they've actually done the math?

Tone aside, asking if op thinks that have done the maths is an interesting question.

How did Stripe end up with expenses they need to reduce if they did the maths? Yes, their world changed, but at some point they made choices that were incorrect and here they are.

Morale for the remaining employees would drop and attrition would jump if they all watched their fellow employees get kicked to the curb by their current employer.

They take the hit but the payouts eventually end. What’s described would not have been that uncommon for big companies back in the day. They take a financial in a quarter and they hope they can move on with a lower cost structure. Often doesn’t play out well of course.

Much of the severance is legally mandated pay in lieu of notice for a mass layoff, the rest is (usually, and presumably in this case) an inducement for a release of any potential claims and to sign non-disparagement agreements.

Of course, its presented as largesse to the recipients, but its very much not.

It's simple, they aren't bleeding cash, the business isn't in trouble, but they aren't seeing enough growth to justify employing all those people for another few years. It's exactly what the email said, they over-hired.

They're only paying this much severance because 90 percent of it is legally obligated by the state of California, where the vast majority of their employees work.

60 work days must be paid out, which is 12 weeks of work. So essentially they're giving people only an extra 2 weeks of severance to sign away their right to a wrongful termination lawsuit.

How come Lyft is only giving 10 weeks? Are they breaking the law?

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.

Isn’t it mandatory to pay holiday accrued? Because it’s been, well, accrued…

No. It can say otherwise in your employee handbook.

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.

> 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.

> Generally, employees in America do not have contracts.

Is that true? The company surely has terms for you, like expected working hours, terms about your sick leave, performance and health terms, out of office expectations, intellectual property disclosures and NDAs? Non-compete clauses? When does all that become binding if not through a contract?

A typical American tech worker's "contract" covers IP assignment and NDA. None of the other stuff is legally binding, and either side is free to change it or walk at any time.

I wonder if this is partly why upper-end salaries get so sky-high when compared to other country's tech sectors. It might be accounting for a level of risk that you could be cut off at any moment, especially in at-will states.

It seems common in the tech world, though? Amusingly, my current contract is from when the company was small, and explicitly guarantees provided lunch.

> It should be in your contract, which means it was up for negotiation

I've never seen this in the US. The only things typically up for negotiation is the sign on bonus/equity and base pay. If you start trying to negotiate vacations and holidays, you're going to look pretty silly.

I'm doing my best to understand this and be empathetic. Best of my brief research you haven't got any law bound entitlements so whatever the "status quo" is has been set by employers. So what I'm understanding here is that it's not even an agreement, it's just an understanding? Trying my best not to be inflammatory, as I understand this is a cultural thing for the US. But in a country with so little workers rights and entitlements, that high end workers are not even able to protect themselves with contracts seems silly.

> The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require payment for time not worked, such as vacations, sick leave or federal or other holidays. These benefits are matters of agreement between an employer and an employee (or the employee's representative).

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/workhours/vacation_leave

I think the concept is, you protect yourself with the cash you earn. Similarly to SW contractors in EU.

What? Negotiating PTO is pretty standard in my (US) view. I know plenty of people who've done it.

I vaguely recall striking out some sentences I didn't like, and initialing it. My current employer didn't mind.

> The only things typically up for negotiation is the sign on bonus/equity and base pay. If you start trying to negotiate vacations and holidays, you're going to look pretty silly.

Everything is up for negotiation. Just depends whether or not you have options. I have seen PTO negotiated in the US.

Not silly, happens all the time.

Everything is negotiable. That said, the bigger the company, the harder it can be.

F500 company and you want a line out of your mid-level developer contract? Their legal likely doesn't have time and they will just hire someone else.

Startup? Literally write your own contract.

That's true in less than half of US states.

Ah yeah I forget how little rights y’all have

On average US software engineers make much more money so even after any deficiencies like not paying holiday pay we still come out ahead. And even then, most companies will pay out holiday pay anyway regardless of state law, just as a matter of company policy.

We’ve got free speech though. So at least we can complain about it.

And on top of that we have to suffer in the tech industry with twice or more the average salary of non Americans. The horror!

In any major city in the US, a software engineer is probably making in the top 10% of area and there is little excuse to not have 3-6 months savings.

Having no rights is awesome as long as you're at the top percentiles of income (i.e. SWE), for the rest of the workers in the economy, not so much. And that's clearly reflected in the misery one can witness daily in American society, even in the richest cities.

Should I be expected to care about the plight of those in percentiles below me?

Yes

I witness plenty of misery every time I visit Europe. It reminds me that most places are about the same averaged out.

Reminder that the US has the highest median disposable income in the world, not just the highest top percentiles.

We are specifically talking about Stripe workers. But yes, I’ve chosen a contract job with even less rights than a full time employee at certain times in my life for more pay.

For what it's worth, Stripe is the only place I've ever worked that did not pay out accrued PTO. It does so only in jurisdictions where it is legally required.

My company switched from PTO to “unlimited time away” to avoid paying out accrued PTO upon departure. Their original home state didn’t require it, so they didn’t. But then they acquired some companies in states that did require it and also let us all work remotely. It was cheaper for them to drop formal PTO and replace it with hand-wavy “time away”.

Wow. Can’t do that here (Australia) - I think to have an unlimited leave policy, you’d still have all employees accrue annual leave (PTO) at the legal rate, and then just let employees take free leave once their annual leave balance reached zero. Any balance you have when you leave (or are made redundant) then has to be paid out.

It is not in most of the US.

It varies based on state. https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/pto-payout-l...

In California, accrued vacation is part of wages and must be paid out as part of wages. However, unlimited PTO policies typically don't accrue vacation.

In Washington, it's "read your contract." If your contract doesn't say that they pay out accrued PTO upon separation, they don't.

It depends and some places go to "unlimited" for this reason, or combine sick and PTO and other stuff.

The smart businesses would just actually bank the dollar amounts and not worry about it, but those are rare.

This is exactly why companies go to unlimited PTO. They don't want the accrual on their balance sheets.

Not sure if frantically interviewing for a new job during the holidays when lots of tech companies are also laying people off can be considered a vacation.

Maybe if you're the janitor, but based on the quip about the salaries Stripe pays, the parent is presumably looking at this from a developer's perspective. That's a payout of around $73,000.

If you are handed $73,000 and still need to frantically look for a new job, something strange is going on.

You've got taxes on that so 40% and then health insurance at Cobra rates. Granted it looks like they said they will pay that for 6 months. Not sure if that is taxable as well also not sure what the individual contributions are.

> You've got taxes on that so 40% and then health insurance at Cobra rates.

Your taxes would only be 40% (actually 47%) if you make beyond $500k a year. Cobra rates are quite affordable. I was on Cobra when I was laid off due to covid, and it was $550 a month for top tier healthcare.

The tax rate is only that high for amount earned after $500k too. And only for those in a few states like California.

$550 for gold level insurance is expected for someone young, which I guess you are.

You can ballpark almost anyone’s premiums based on the figures in link below. I would use Omnia Gold or Omnia Silver HSA numbers, and plus or minus 20% for your state.

https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...

> Cobra rates are quite affordable. I was on Cobra when I was laid off due to covid, and it was $550 a month for top tier healthcare.

Those two statements are in odds with one another. $550 is quite a large sum of money to put out each month, particularly when you don't have an income.

Yes, you should have quite a bit of cash as an emergency fund. There are government subsidies available for health insurance, but they phase out if you earn more.

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/premium-tax-credit

Try making your coffee at home. That’ll help.

I had to cut down to just tap water.

(I actually do not have any compulsion to drink coffee, or anything much other than tap water).

On a serious note, I cannot blame many young people for eschewing forming families of having kids when faced with the numbers I quoted.

Basically Cobra is whatever you were already paying plus whatever the employer contribution was.

Obviously family plans etc. will be considerably higher.

If it's a one time payout (to be clear, I'm not that will be the case here? It was for me the only time that I was laid off), I think the withholding would be calculated as though that single payment were a regular salary extrapolated to the entire year. This is similar to what happens if you receive a bonus; to compute the withholding they assume your annual salary is $BONUS * $PAY_PERIOD. So you'd likely be taxed at a much higher rate on that single payment than you would be amortized over a year like a salary is.

You'd get that withheld money back after filing taxes, but most people who are laid off would prefer to have that money now.

If Stripe is making regular salary-like payments instead of one lump sum, then the taxes would be pretty much the same as always.

> and then health insurance at Cobra rates

You can get health insurance from healthcare.gov

Granted not California, but the federal bit is the same - https://oci.wi.gov/Documents/Consumers/HealthInsuranceLostCo...

> I thought the open enrollment period was already over for HealthCare.gov. Can I still enroll?

> Yes, if you have just lost your health insurance, you are eligible for a 60-day special enrollment period. You can work with an enrollment assister, an insurance agent, or use HealthCare.gov to enroll in a new insurance plan. You may also qualify for a special enrollment period if you have experienced a life event such as moving, getting married, having a baby, or adopting a child.

True, you'd have to run the numbers to see if it makes sense on a case by case basis.

Stripe is paying for health insurance over that time too.

i’m not referring to running out of money, just the idea that it’s harder to interview during the time around the holidays and immediately after, and we are in a period where these layoffs are macro driven so lots of people are competing against you for the same roles

also all the income and benefits are taxable

If you're not out of money, why the frantic search? It isn't going to sustain you forever, but if it takes you six months to find a new job... oh well?

It's pretty frantic if you're holding certain visas.

> i’m not referring to running out of money, just the idea that it’s harder to interview during the time around the holidays and immediately after

Keep in mind that this is interviewing without a job taking 40 hours (or maybe more) of their time every week.

Interviewing is much, much easier when it replaces your job and you're still collecting paychecks for several months.

You do if you're on a work visa and don't want to leave the US.

You're not wrong that it is strange that we would force one to be completely uprooted from their home only because they didn't have a job for a few months.

Not to be cold, but some visas like H1B are non-immigrant visas and so it is not correct to call the U.S. “home”

Home refers to the place where one lives. If one does not live in the U.S. to have to leave, what's the urgency?

Compare that to the average experience of the vast majority of people who aren't a software engineer and a person might be forgiven for thinking it looks like an incredibly privileged vacation.

There are lots of tech companies hiring too. The hard part is finding them, and convincing them you are the one. Most of the resumes I see for a "senior" programmer don't have the experience.

Yet... we still see ageism in hiring too. I'm continually surprised at people advertising for 'senior' positions that require 3 years of 'foo' experience. If that's how you label 'senior'... don't be surprised when people with little experience apply for senior positions.

Not poking at you directly. I've got 25 years of experience. I was on a team a few years ago with people with... 2-4 years experience. We were both labelled to the end client (contracting company) as 'senior developers'. It's just weird all around. When everyone is 'senior', it loses any useful meaning.

Although 3 years is a little low, I work with plenty of people with 5 years of experience who are just as good as the best programmers with 25 years. The early years experience matters a lot, but the difference between 5 and 25 years is insignificant.

The levels are fresh out of school, have learned enough to not need hand holding, and able to make good decisions about code. You cover them very fast. There is a staff level about that, but most people don't reach that level. There just isn't need for too many of them.

They have 3.5mos. I find it unlikely someone’s market value dropped enough that they could once be a Stripe employee but they’re now unemployable.

It took me three months to go through tech interviews. I'd say that's cutting it close.

Yeah. You need six months of emergency fund, minimum. I would say close to 1yr honestly, depending on your risk tolerance, for senior tech roles, unless you're willing to take a real shit job while you look for something else.

that’s not what i’m referring to. these layoffs are macro driven so you’re competing against a lot of people. and it’s harder to schedule interviews around the holidays so on average you need more time.

Agreed.

In my experience, if you’re job hunting and don’t have an offer in hand by November 1st, you’re probably not going to get one until mid-January.

The “normal” interview process takes 4-6 weeks in my experience from application to offer/rejection. That is doubled between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.

That's a good point, I hadn't considered it that way.

Why not just collect the paycheck and chill with some open source work for a bit while casually interviewing? If you have expenses that don't let you do that fine, but the stripe severance is more than my yearly spend.

This is better than standard in the US but I'm not sure I'd be happy if I was one of the laid off employees.

That 3.5 months and healthcare buys them some time to start interviewing and line up new work. However, they're competing with everyone else that's been laid off recently. There's another article on HN right now about Lyft laying off staff. Meta is getting pummeled in the stock market right now and Google has recently had hiring freezes. I'm not sure now is a good time to be looking for tech work in SF.

Unused PTO should be paid out. That was already earned by the employees.

Accelerated vesting is only good if you can afford to use it. How long do they have to exercise their options? What's the secondary market like right now for Stripe stock? Are they allowed to sell stock currently or required to hold it? In a worst case scenario, people could be unable to exercise their options because they don't have the savings to cover the tax bill and want to hold onto cash because they're unemployed and need the liquidity.

As for healthcare benefits, that's a result of a very broken system in the US and not something that should be celebrated.

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.

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".

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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

For the sake of argument, let's just assume that all of this is true and they are acting in self interest and everyone is horrible all the time.

I would still take the deal. I would work there if they hired me. If there are enough people like me to continue the business, then this thing turns out to not be shitty. Only time will tell.

So what should they avoided doing? Hiring those people in the first place..?

I think the issue comes from the idea that in tough times, good leaders take their lumps before they expect it from their team. There's lots of colloquialisms that seem to fit this:

"Leaders eat last"

"We cut the fat starting at the top"

"Leaders need to have endurance beyond their troops"

I have no skin in the game either. The severance packages are commendable, but I don't think it actually answers the OP's question about accountability. I don't want to speak for the other commenter, but I think what they're looking for is some indication that the leadership has personally sacrificed something equal to or exceeding what they expected out of their subordinates. Giving out millions in severance, while commendable, isn't a personal sacrifice.

Better phrased than what I could've done, thanks.

The company is not a charity. I expect no more from a company than to pay me for every hour I work. I can leave anytime I want and they can let me go anytime that the relationship is not mutually beneficial.

I keep a go to hell fund, an updated resume, an updated career document, a strong network of former coworkers, managers, and external recruiters and make sure my skillset is in line with the market.

But I'm assuming you expect management to be good leaders, no?

I don't think "for profit" and "good leadership" are mutually exclusive.

I expect nothing from managers. When the pay/bullshit ratio starts going in the wrong direction, I have just as much agency to leave as they do to let me go.

>I expect nothing from managers.

You don't expect them to pay you? Treat you with respect? To observe labor laws? Surely, you expect something from them. Being willing and able to walk away is not the same thing as saying you have zero expectations.

1. I expect to get paid for every hour I work.

2. I addressed the other one. When the pay/bullshit ratio goes the wrong way, I leave.

> Giving out millions in severance, while commendable, isn't a personal sacrifice.

Do y'all expect them to cut their arm off? I'm not defending pc but the OP's comment wreaks of corporate SJW.

> but I think what they're looking for is some indication that the leadership has personally sacrificed something equal to or exceeding what they expected out of their subordinates

Millions (and billions) come out of their valuation as a result. It's not like they're getting whisked away on a golden parachute.

> Millions (and billions) come out of their valuation as a result. It's not like they're getting whisked away on a golden parachute.

It's the exact opposite. They're more likely to stem the bloodletting of their valuation with layoffs extending runway or boosting profitabiliy than see it get worse.

>Do y'all expect them to cut their arm off?

That depends. Are they expecting their subordinates to cut their arms off?

I do think a lot of discussion seems to point to how we, as a society, have adjusted our social norms about what's expected out of leadership.

> Are they expecting their subordinates to cut their arms off?

Do you expect company management and subordinates to have symmetrical work obligations?

Not at all. But we seem okay with management having a larger upside, given how the pay structure ratio has continued to evolve over the last few decades. I think it's only reasonable that, with outside rewards, management expects to take on outsized risk.

It feels like the social norms have shifted to accept one but not the other. In other words, we're only supportive of an asymmetrical risk:reward ratio that favors management.

> In other words, we're only supportive of an asymmetrical risk:reward ratio that favors management.

Actually we have, the risk:reward ratio is generally consistent across founder/management vs IC.

Are you simply saying that because CEO to IC pay ratio has expanded drastically in recent years that it's not accurately accounting for the risk? You realize that ~x% cut in workforce includes managers right? In fact, often times cheaper more productive ICs stay and expensive middle management is first to go. Seems like that is accounting for it no?

I thought this discussion was centered on the CEO pay. To that extent CEO pay has ballooned and I see very little evidence that their risk has been commensurate with that growth. If anything, the structure of contracts seems to indicate the opposite.

It's not out of the goodness of their heart. Stripe has to retain its existing employees and still attract talent, and the economic situation we're experiencing is only temporary. If they screw people over as they are leaving, they are shooting themselves in the foot.

No, the shareholders and the board are paying that out. It’s still dodging the original question.

It’s something a lot of us are sensitized to these days because of all the narcissists who “take full responsibility” which seems to mean to them that taking the blame is a dire punishment and no other consequences are necessary.

Being the scapegoat is not a real consequence. Not getting that villa you were talking to an agent about is a consequence. Not getting your bonus at all is a consequence.

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Brutal

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.

> 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.

The unemployment rate is at historic lows. Hard to compare to 2008

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).

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."?

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.

>This is what I hate about the internet rage machine.

I think the issue (also related to how we interface with the internet) is that most of these replies completely dodged the question. The OP was asking about personal accountability, not about "how are your going to make this as palatable as possible."

Consider two scenarios:

(1) A manager fires half their workforce, but gives them a generous severance. In response, the manager gets a massive bonus.

(2) A manager fires half their workforce, but gives them a generous severance. In response, the manager forgoes their salary for a year for being the one making that decision.

The second has personal accountability because they are making a personal sacrifice beyond what they expect from their subordinates, even though the employees are affected equally. I'd be willing to bet one organization has more institutional trust than the other.

My ex worked in a tiny office, the company got into trouble and her boss was asked to cut $###K from payroll. He had to cut at least one person that they really needed. It was bad.

In theory he had to cut her too, because he was something like $30K short of the goal and her salary as an office admin would have more than covered that. But then he’d have to do her job. His solution was to cut his own salary enough to hit the target to the decimal point.

They landed a new contract a handful of months later and were eventually able to hire back one of the people they lost.

I think he may have even backdated some raises they missed out on. He was her best boss.

Whether the manager does one or two doesn’t have any effect on my being able to pay my bills.

Does it not matter when you're deciding on employment though?

If the through-line wasn't obvious, it's that leadership quality matters. Trust matters. When you decide to stay with a company or invest in a company, you don't have the privleged access to know that their actions "won't have any effect" on your ability to pay your bills in the future. In the context of uncertainty, leadership quality matters.

You bet on the jockey, not the horse.

No, any job is just a method to exchange labor for money. I expect nothing from them but to keep their end of the bargain. I keep myself in a position where I just need a job, not the specific job.

A job is not a marriage. I’ve been through many “uncertain times” in over 25 years.

I depend on my savings, network, skillset, updated resume and updated career document, not “trusting” a for profit company.

How far does this attitude extend?

Do you not expect anything out of your teammates? Do you have no expectations from customers? From politicians?

At a certain point, how you manage interpersonal relationships can limit your path. Sure, you can just devolve everything down to a transaction (even a marriage) and maybe that works for you. And you can create a life free from any obligations or commitments, outside what you want for the aesthetic life of your choosing.* But it doesn't seem like it would be the type of existence many people envy.

* David Brooks book "The Second Mountain" does a good job explaining the downsides of this approach.

> Do you not expect anything out of your teammates?

I expect the same from my coworkers as I expect from myself - that they do their best work for 40 hours a week.

> Do you have no expectations from customers?

I work in the cloud consulting department of BigTech. The expectations of my customers are spelled out in detail by high priced lawyers.

> From politicians

Hell no.

> At a certain point, how you manage interpersonal relationships can limit your path. Sure, you can just devolve everything down to a transaction

A for profit business and your relationship with your company is transactional. Especially in any large company. The CEO of my company wouldn’t know me from the other 1.6 million people that work at the company.

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.

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.

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?

> should not give up whatever we got so far.

Absolutely! I declined multiple offers this summer because they would have been pay cuts. We agree.

> Few professions earned this quality of life

Well that is a can of worms. I'm going to guess Doctors deserve much better. I think the unfortunate reality is that, maybe, tech workers haven't earned this quality of life. Instead, we are the lucky recipients of decades of growth. This is something that isn't even shared in Canada or Europe, much less Asia, in terms of salary.

> This is the stuff the car industry did when they just offshored jobs,

Agree, this is going to be bad. Now that we have shown productivity with work from home, how tied are companies to these high USA salaries?

I'm not ok with it. But I also remember that when I'm running around looking for a job, the people with that job are making the demands. This is something that tech workers haven't actually experienced for a decade, but every other industry has.

> okay with these levels of lay offs and still revere these companies

Revere these companies? Founders are taking risks to make a LOT of money. They aren't here to make employees money. I don't revere these companies, and I don't put any stock in their Family Friendly or work life balance encouraged, marketing nonsense.

> Absolutely! I declined multiple offers this summer because they would have been pay cuts. We agree.

This is financially nonsensical. Every month you delay working you have to make more to get the same amount over the course of the year.

Just to make up a number, if your target was $120K and they offered you $110K and it took you a month longer to get $120K, you would need to make over $130K just to reach $120K.

I would take close to what I wanted and then change jobs if something better came along.

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

No it doesn't. Especially with a 14% reduction in by far the largest expenditure.

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.

It delays profitability relative to simply laying employees off with more-traditional severance.

How does this answer the parent comment at all?!

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.

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.

Jeez. This is an incredible severance package.

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.

> PTO. We’ll pay for all unused PTO time (including in regions where that’s not legally required).

I 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.

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...

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.

> 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.

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"