Online payments giant Stripe is laying off roughly 14% of its staff, CEO Patrick Collison wrote in a memo to staff Thursday.
In the memo, Collison said the cuts were necessary amid rising inflation, fears of a looming recession, higher interest rates, energy shocks, tighter investment budgets and sparser startup funding. Taken together, these factors signal “that 2022 represents the beginning of a different economic climate,” he said.
Collison acknowledged that the company’s leadership made “two very consequential mistakes” by misjudging how much the internet economy would grow in 2022 and 2023, and when it grew operating costs too quickly.
Technology companies have been announcing layoffs and hiring freezes while moving to cut costs amid a worsening economic outlook. Amazon, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook owner Meta have all taken steps to rein in expenses. Companies including Netflix, Spotify, Coinbase and Shopify have announced layoffs.
San Francisco-based Stripe became the most valuable U.S. startup last year, with a valuation of $95 billion, though it reportedly lowered its internal valuation in July to $74 billion amid economic uncertainty and a prolonged tech rout, according to The Wall Street Journal. It processes billions of dollars in transactions each year from the likes of Amazon, Salesforce and Google, and it competes with Square and PayPal.
Stripe said its headcount will be reduced to about 7,000 employees, which means the layoffs impact roughly 1,100 people. A Stripe spokesperson was not immediately available to provide the exact number of impacted employees.
The cuts will affect many of Stripe’s divisions, though most will occur in recruiting, as the company plans to hire fewer people next year, Collison said in the memo.
In addition to laying off staff, Stripe intends to rein in costs across the company, Collison said.
Earlier today, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison sent the following note to Stripe employees.
Hi folks —
Today we’re announcing the hardest change we have had to make at Stripe to date. We’re reducing the size of our team by around 14% and saying goodbye to many talented Stripes in the process. If you are among those impacted, you will receive a notification email within the next 15 minutes. For those of you leaving: we’re very sorry to be taking this step and John and I are fully responsible for the decisions leading up to it.
We’ll set out more detail later in this email. But first, we want to share some broader context.
The world around us
At the outset of the pandemic in 2020, the world rotated overnight towards e-commerce. We witnessed significantly higher growth rates over the course of 2020 and 2021 compared to what we had seen previously. As an organization, we transitioned into a new operating mode and both our revenue and payment volume have since grown more than 3x.
The world is now shifting again. We are facing stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding. (Tech company earnings last week provided lots of examples of changing circumstances.) On Tuesday, a former Treasury Secretary said that the US faces “as complex a set of macroeconomic challenges as at any time in 75 years”, and many parts of the developed world appear to be headed for recession. We think that 2022 represents the beginning of a different economic climate.
Our business is fundamentally well-positioned to weather harsh circumstances. We provide an important foundation to our customers and Stripe is not a discretionary service that customers turn off if budget is squeezed. However, we do need to match the pace of our investments with the realities around us. Doing right by our users and our shareholders (including you) means embracing reality as it is.
Today, that means building differently for leaner times. We have always taken pride in being a capital efficient business and we think this attribute is important to preserve. To adapt ourselves appropriately for the world we’re headed into, we need to reduce our costs.
How we’re handling departures
Around 14% of people at Stripe will be leaving the company. We, the founders, made this decision. We overhired for the world we’re in (more on that below), and it pains us to be unable to deliver the experience that we hoped that those impacted would have at Stripe.
There’s no good way to do a layoff, but we’re going to do our best to treat everyone leaving as respectfully as possible and to do whatever we can to help. Some of the core details include:
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.
Most importantly, while this is definitely not the separation we would have wanted or imagined when we were making hiring decisions, we want everyone that is leaving to know that we care about you as former colleagues and appreciate everything you’ve done for Stripe. In our minds, you are valued alumni. (In service of that, we’re creating alumni.stripe.com email addresses for everyone departing, and we’re going to roll this out to all former employees in the months ahead.)
We are going to set up a live, 1-1 conversation between each departing employee and a Stripe manager over the course of the next day. If you are in an impacted group, look out for a calendar invitation.
For those not affected, there’ll be some bumpiness over the next few days as we navigate a lot of change at once. We ask that you help us do right by Stripe’s users and the departing Stripes.
Our message to other employers is that there are many truly terrific colleagues departing who can and will do great things elsewhere. Talented people come to Stripe because they’re attracted to hard infrastructure problems and complex challenges. Today doesn’t change that, and they would be fantastic additions at almost any other company.
Going forward
In making these changes, you might reasonably wonder whether Stripe’s leadership made some errors of judgment. We’d go further than that. In our view, we made two very consequential mistakes, and we want to highlight them here since they’re important:
We were much too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth in 2022 and 2023 and underestimated both the likelihood and impact of a broader slowdown.
We grew operating costs too quickly. Buoyed by the success we’re seeing in some of our new product areas, we allowed coordination costs to grow and operational inefficiencies to seep in.
We are going to correct these mistakes. So, in addition to the headcount changes described above (which will return us to our February headcount of almost 7,000 people), we are firmly reining in all other sources of cost. The world is hard to predict right now, but we expect that these changes will set us up for robust cash flow generation in the quarters ahead.
We are not applying these headcount changes evenly across the organization. For example, our Recruiting organization will be disproportionately affected since we’ll hire fewer people next year. If you want to see how your organization is impacted, Home will be up-to-date by 7am PT.
We’ll describe what this means for our company strategy soon. Nothing in it is going to radically change, but we’re going to make some important edits that make sense for the world that we’re headed into, and tighten up our prioritization substantially. Expect to hear more on this over the next week.
While the changes today are painful, we feel very good about the prospects for innovative businesses and about Stripe’s position in the internet economy. The data we see is consistent with this encouraging picture: we signed a remarkable 75% more new customers in Q3 2022 than Q3 2021, our competitive win rates are getting even better, our growth rates remain very strong, and on Tuesday we set a new record for total daily transaction volume processed. Our smaller users (many of whom are just “big customers that aren’t yet big”) are, in aggregate, growing extremely quickly, showing that plenty of technology S curves remain in the early innings and that our customers remain impressively resilient in the face of the broader global challenges.
People join Stripe because they want to grow the internet economy and boost entrepreneurship around the world. Times of economic stress make it even more important that we find innovative ways to help our users grow and adapt their businesses. Today is a sad day for everyone as we say goodbye to a number of talented colleagues. But we’re ready for a pitched effort ahead, and we’re putting Stripe on the right footing to face it.
For the rest of this week, we’ll focus on helping the people who are leaving Stripe. Next week we’ll reset, recalibrate, and move forward.
Patrick and John
This news is developing. Please check back for updates.
Participants at the presentation of new iPhone models from Apple try out the new thinner iPhone Air.
Andrej Sokolow | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Apple has postponed the launch of its new iPhone Air model in China due to regulatory issues surrounding its eSIM design, the company said.
Wireless carriers in China need a special license from the government before they can sell a new device with an eSIM, and the carriers haven’t secured that approval yet, Apple said. The company added that it’s working to make the device available in China as soon as possible.
Apple announced the iPhone Air at its annual event on Tuesday. The device, which is 5.6 millimeters thick, marks the first major new iPhone design since the iPhone X was introduced in 2017. The iPhone Air doesn’t support a physical SIM card, and instead features an eSIM built into the device.
CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday that the eSIM is what allows the device to still have “great” battery life.
“It’s eSIM only, and so we were able to take the battery and extend the battery to areas that previously had the physical cell,” Cook said.
Read more CNBC tech news
The company previously said the iPhone Air would become available for pre-order in the region on Friday at 2 a.m. EST before it goes on sale September 19.
As of Friday morning, the iPhone Air product page on Apple’s China website stated, “Release information will be updated later.”
The website notes that China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom will offer eSIM support for the iPhone Air, “with specific timing subject to regulatory approval.”
Jensen Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia, at the London Tech Week exposition in London, UK, on Monday, June 9, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Nvidia and OpenAI are in discussions about backing a major investment in Britain focused on boosting artificial intelligence infrastructure in the country.
The two tech firms are discussing a sizable deal to support data center development in the country which could ultimately be worth billions of dollars, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC, confirming earlier reporting from the Financial Times.
The companies are still working through various processes at the moment with Nvidia and cloud computing firm Nscale, said the person, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
They added that an investment agreement has not yet been finalized. It is expected to be unveiled next week during U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to the U.K.
Nvidia and Nscale did did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. OpenAI declined to comment on the discussions.
Countries around the world have been courting major U.S. AI players in a bid to boost their own national infrastructure and technological ambitions.
The topic of so-called “sovereign” AI — the idea of onshoring the data processing infrastructure behind advanced artificial intelligence systems — has been top of mind for officials as governments look to reduce their dependency on foreign countries for critical technologies.
The U.K. government declined to comment when asked by CNBC about the investment discussions with OpenAI, Nvidia and Nscale. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to join Trump on his state visit to Britain next week.
Earlier this year, the Nvidia boss called the U.K. an “incredible place to invest” and said his multitrillion-dollar chipmaker would boost investment in the country. “The U.K. is in a Goldilocks circumstance,” Huang said at the time in a panel discussion with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Apple AirPods Pro 3 models are displayed during Apple’s “Awe-Dropping” event at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, on Sept. 9, 2025.
Nic Coury | AFP | Getty Images
For decades, shows like “Star Trek” and novels like “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” have showcased fictional universal translators, capable of seamlessly converting any language into English and vice versa.
Now, those gadgets once limited to works of science fiction are inching close to reality.
During its iPhone unveiling event on Tuesday, Apple included a video of many travelers’ dream scenario. It showed an English-speaking tourist buying flowers in an unnamed Spanish-speaking country. The florist addressed the tourist in Spanish, but what the tourist heard was in clear, coherent English.
“Today all the red carnations are 50% off,” the tourist heard in English in her headphones, at essentially the same time that the clerk was speaking.
The video was marketing material for Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 3, but the feature is one of many of its kind coming from tech companies that also include Google parent Alphabet and Meta, which makes Facebook and Instagram.
Apple introduces live translation to airpods.
Courtesy: Apple
Technological advancements spurred by the arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 have ushered in an era of generative artificial intelligence. Almost three years later, those advancements are resulting in real-time language translators.
For Apple, Live Translation is a key selling point for the AirPods Pro 3, which the company unveiled on Tuesday. The new $250 earbuds go on sale next week, and with Live Translation, users will be able to immediately hear French, German, Portuguese and Spanish translated to English. Live Translation will also arrive as an update to AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 on Monday.
And when two people are speaking to each other wearing AirPods, the conversation can be translated both ways simultaneously inside each user’s headphones. In Apple’s video demo, it looked like two people talking to each other in different languages.
Analysts are excited that the feature could mark a step forward for Apple’s AI strategy. The translation feature needs to be paired with a new-enough iPhone to run Apple Intelligence, Apple’s AI software suite.
“If we can actually use the AirPods for live translations, that’s a feature that would actually get people to upgrade,” DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria told CNBC on Wednesday.
Translation is emerging as a key battleground in the technology industry as AI gets good enough to translate languages as quickly as people speak.
But Apple is not alone.
Host Jimmy Fallon holds Pixel 10 Pro Fold mobile phone during the ‘Made by Google’ event, organised to introduce the latest additions to Google’s Pixel portfolio of devices, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., August 20, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
A crowded market
In the past year, Google and Meta have also released hardware products featuring real-time translation capabilities.
Google’s Pixel 10 phone has a capability that can translate what a speaker is saying to the listener’s language during phone calls. That feature, called Voice Translate is designed to also preserve the speaker’s voice inflections. Voice Translate will start showing up on people’s phones through a software update on Monday.
In Google’s live demo in August, Voice Translate was able to translate a sentence from entertainer Jimmy Fallon into Spanish, and it actually sounded like the comedian. Apple’s feature does not try to imitate the user’s voice.
Meanwhile, Meta in May announced that its Ray-Ban Meta glasses would be able to translate what a person is saying in another language using the device’s speakers, and the other party in the conversations would be able to see translated responses transcribed on the user’s phone.
Meta will hold its own product keynote on Wednesday, where the company is expected to announce the next generation of its smart glasses, which will feature a small display in one of the lenses, CNBC reported in August. It’s unclear if Meta will announce more translation features.
Meta employee Sara Nicholson poses with the Ray-Ban sunglasses at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 24, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
And OpenAI in June showcased an intelligent voice assistant mode for ChatGPT that has fluid translation built-in as one of many features. ChatGPT is integrated with Apple’s Siri, but not in voice mode. OpenAI is planning to release new hardware products with Apple’s former design guru Jony Ive in the coming years.
The rise of live translation could also reshape entire industries. Translators and interpreters are the number one type of job threatened by AI, and 98% of translators’ work activities overlap with what AI can do, a Microsoft Research study published in August found.
Purpose built translators
In the past several years, a number of purpose-built translation gadgets have entered the market, taking advantage of global high-speed cellular service and improving online translation services to produce puck-like devices or headphones with translation built-in for a couple hundred dollars.
“What I love about what Apple is doing is it really just illuminates the fact that how pressing of an issue this is,” said Joe Miller, U.S. general manager of Japan-based Pocketalk, which makes a $299 translation device that goes between two people conversing in different languages and translates their conversation in audio and text.
Given Apple’s massive scale and the fact that the Apple shipped about 18 million sets of wireless headphones in the first quarter alone, according to Canalys, the company’s entry into the market will expose a wider subset of customers to improvements translation tech has made in recent years.
Despite Apple’s entry into the market, makers of purpose-built devices say their focus on accuracy and knowledge of linguistics will provide better translations than what’s available for free with a new phone.
“We actually hired linguists,” said Aleksander Alski, head of U.S. and Canada for Poland-based Vasco Electronics, which is releasing translation headphones that can imitate the user’s voice, like Google’s feature. “We combined the AI with with human input, and thanks to that, we were able to secure much higher accuracy throughout all the languages we offer.”
There’s also home-field advantage. Vasco Electronics’ largest market is Europe, and Apple’s Live Translation isn’t available for EU users, Apple said on its website.
Some of the products being introduced by tech companies are less than universal, and are limited to a small number of languages for now. Apple’s feature is only available in 5 languages, versus Pocketalk’s 95.
Pocketalk’s Miller believes that the potential of the technology goes far beyond a tourist ordering a glass of wine in France. He says that it’s most powerful when its used in workplaces like schools and hospitals, which require privacy and security features that go beyond what Apple and Google provide.
“This isn’t about luxury tourism and travel,” Miller said. “This is about the intersection of language and friction, when a discussion needs to be had.”