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.
It was a terrible start to November on Wall Street. The tech-heavy Nasdaq sank just over 3% in its worst weekly performance since early April. The S & P 500 fell 1.6% for the week. Both stock measures broke three-week winning streaks.This week’s market decline, which followed a strong October, can be chalked up to two reasons. First, investors grew concerned about the eye-watering valuations of stocks tied to artificial intelligence. Case in point: Nvidia lost its $5 trillion market cap designation in a weekly loss of 7%. The weakness in Nvidia was exacerbated by the realization that China would not be opening back up in a meaningful way for the powerhouse of AI chips. While management has not included China sales in its outlook for months, many investors still thought it could happen. Still, we maintain our long-held “own it, don’t trade” thesis on Nvidia. .SPX .IXIC 5D mountain S & P 500 and Nasdaq weekly performance Second, there were emerging signs that the government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, was starting to harm the economy. Job cuts last month reached their highest levels for any October in 22 years, according to Thursday’s reading from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. A day later, the latest monthly consumer sentiment survey from the University of Michigan registered nearly its worst reading ever. These reports from private organizations have taken on added importance since the shutdown, which started on Oct. 1 and has delayed most government economic data. During this week of market turmoil, we executed three trades. On Monday, we added to our Starbucks position. The stock has taken a beating with other restaurant names on fears of a weakening consumer. In this case, we think the decline is overblown. After all, the turnaround story under CEO Brian Niccol remains strong. “With shares trading back to their ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs lows in early April, we see this recent weakness as an opportunity to slowly scoop up more,” Jeff Marks, the Investing Club’s director of portfolio analysis, wrote in a trade alert. “Niccol has embarked on an ambitious plan to bring back the coffeehouse atmosphere and fix its stores through a new operating and staffing model called Green Apron Service . It’s taken a few quarters, but the turn has finally started.” The Club also snapped up more Boeing stock Tuesday. Shares dropped significantly after the aircraft maker’s earnings report last week, caused by a larger-than-expected charge on its 777X program. Yes, the quarter was a frustrating setback. But the decline presented a great opportunity for long-term investors like us. “The turnaround under Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg is still progressing nicely, driven by better execution on its 737 program,” Marks wrote in a trade alert. “With production moving from 38 airplanes per month to 42 — then eventually 47 and 52 under FAA guidance in the future — Boeing’s ability to make and deliver more planes will lead to strong free cash flow generation in the years ahead.” The market’s pullback Thursday gave us a chance to buy more GE Vernova stock. Shares have tumbled as AI-linked names have been scrutinized for their valuations. That’s because GE Vernova is one of the world’s largest producers of gas-fired turbines, which are used to create electricity and electrification products found in data centers. The company’s sales heavily benefit from the insatiable demand for more energy due to the frantic AI infrastructure race. “We are using this downturn to buy more shares since we still have a positive long-term outlook on the need for increased electricity investment,” Marks wrote in another trade alert. Eli Lilly made headlines this week. President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a GLP-1 pricing deal with Lilly and rival drugmaker Novo Nordisk that would lower prices for certain weight-loss treatments in exchange for coverage in Medicare and Medicaid programs. This was huge news for Lilly because it can expand access to Zepbound, increasing the blockbuster weight-loss drug’s total addressable market. Eli Lilly is also behind GLP-1 Mounjaro, but it was not included in the deal. That’s not the only piece of good news for Lilly. Management announced positive mid-stage trial results for its experimental amylin obesity drug. The once-a-week shot called eloralintide was shown to help patients shed pounds while maintaining muscle mass. Shares of Eli Lilly were up 7% for the week. this week. Quarterly earnings and spinoff news were also in focus. Eaton delivered a mixed third-quarter report Tuesday morning, which beat on adjusted earnings per share (EPS) but missed on revenue and organic sales. Although the headline results were uneven, the Club still found bright spots in the release. Overall segment profit and profit margin, for example, beat expectations and reached new quarterly records. DuPont posted a beat on the top and bottom line Thursday morning — less than a week after the spinoff of Qnity Electronics. Shares of DuPont slipped right after because of noise around quarterly numbers due to the split and divestiture of its Aramids business. Still, the underlying fundamentals for the new DuPont look strong, and the stock was our biggest winner on the week, up 16.5% to nearly $40. The Club downgraded shares to our 2 rating . We also adjusted our price target to $44. Solstice Advanced Materials, which recently split from Club name Honeywell , reported earnings on Thursday with no major surprises. There was a 7% topline growth, which was provided when Honeywell posted its own results just two weeks ago. Plus, it was all fairly consistent with what was said at an investor day last month. Texas Roadhouse shared a mixed earnings report Thursday night, posting better-than-expected comps despite concerns of softening consumer spending. However, higher beef prices caused the steakhouse chain to raise its commodity inflation outlook, which has weighed on Texas Roadhouse’s profitability for some time. We’re not giving up on the Club stock yet. Wall Street heard from Qnity on Thursday night, too. Not earnings, we learned about those numbers when DuPont reported, but management delivered a business update after the close, which made us hopeful of the company’s position to keep growing from secular trends like AI in the years ahead. The Club issued a buy-equivalent 1 rating on the stock and a price target of $110. Qnity stock has been volatile and closed Friday just over $92. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
State Street is reiterating its bullish stance on the artificial intelligence trade despite the Nasdaq’s worst week since April.
Chief Business Officer Anna Paglia said momentum stocks still have legs because investors are reluctant to step away from the growth story that’s driven gains all year.
“How would you not want to participate in the growth of AI technology? Everybody has been waiting for the cycle to change from growth to value. I don’t think it’s happening just yet because of the momentum,” Paglia told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” earlier this week. “I don’t think the rebalancing trade is going to happen until we see a signal from the market indicating a slowdown in these big trends.”
Paglia, who has spent 25 years in the exchange-traded funds industry, sees a higher likelihood that the space will cool off early next year.
“There will be much more focus about the diversification,” she said.
Her firm manages several ETFs with exposure to the technology sector, including the SPDR NYSE Technology ETF, which has gained 38% so far this year as of Friday’s close.
The fund, however, pulled back more than 4% over the past week as investors took profits in AI-linked names. The fund’s second top holding as of Friday’s close is Palantir Technologies, according to State Street’s website. Its stock tumbled more than 11% this week after the company’s earnings report on Monday.
Despite the decline, Paglia reaffirmed her bullish tech view in a statement to CNBC later in the week.
Meanwhile, Todd Rosenbluth suggests a rotation is already starting to grip the market. He points to a renewed appetite for health-care stocks.
“The Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund… which has been out of favor for much of the year, started a return to favor in October,” the firm’s head of research said in the same interview. “Health care tends to be a more defensive sector, so we’re watching to see if people continue to gravitate towards that as a way of diversifying away from some of those sectors like technology.”
The Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund, which has been underperforming technology sector this year, is up 5% since Oct. 1. It was also the second-best performing S&P 500 group this week.
Neurodiverse professionals may see unique benefits from artificial intelligence tools and agents, research suggests. With AI agent creation booming in 2025, people with conditions like ADHD, autism, dyslexia and more report a more level playing field in the workplace thanks to generative AI.
A recent study from the UK’s Department for Business and Trade found that neurodiverse workers were 25% more satisfied with AI assistants and were more likely to recommend the tool than neurotypical respondents.
“Standing up and walking around during a meeting means that I’m not taking notes, but now AI can come in and synthesize the entire meeting into a transcript and pick out the top-level themes,” said Tara DeZao, senior director of product marketing at enterprise low-code platform provider Pega. DeZao, who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, has combination-type ADHD, which includes both inattentive symptoms (time management and executive function issues) and hyperactive symptoms (increased movement).
“I’ve white-knuckled my way through the business world,” DeZao said. “But these tools help so much.”
AI tools in the workplace run the gamut and can have hyper-specific use cases, but solutions like note takers, schedule assistants and in-house communication support are common. Generative AI happens to be particularly adept at skills like communication, time management and executive functioning, creating a built-in benefit for neurodiverse workers who’ve previously had to find ways to fit in among a work culture not built with them in mind.
Because of the skills that neurodiverse individuals can bring to the workplace — hyperfocus, creativity, empathy and niche expertise, just to name a few — some research suggests that organizations prioritizing inclusivity in this space generate nearly one-fifth higher revenue.
AI ethics and neurodiverse workers
“Investing in ethical guardrails, like those that protect and aid neurodivergent workers, is not just the right thing to do,” said Kristi Boyd, an AI specialist with the SAS data ethics practice. “It’s a smart way to make good on your organization’s AI investments.”
Boyd referred to an SAS study which found that companies investing the most in AI governance and guardrails were 1.6 times more likely to see at least double ROI on their AI investments. But Boyd highlighted three risks that companies should be aware of when implementing AI tools with neurodiverse and other individuals in mind: competing needs, unconscious bias and inappropriate disclosure.
“Different neurodiverse conditions may have conflicting needs,” Boyd said. For example, while people with dyslexia may benefit from document readers, people with bipolar disorder or other mental health neurodivergences may benefit from AI-supported scheduling to make the most of productive periods. “By acknowledging these tensions upfront, organizations can create layered accommodations or offer choice-based frameworks that balance competing needs while promoting equity and inclusion,” she explained.
Regarding AI’s unconscious biases, algorithms can (and have been) unintentionally taught to associate neurodivergence with danger, disease or negativity, as outlined in Duke University research. And even today, neurodiversity can still be met with workplace discrimination, making it important for companies to provide safe ways to use these tools without having to unwillingly publicize any individual worker diagnosis.
‘Like somebody turned on the light’
As businesses take accountability for the impact of AI tools in the workplace, Boyd says it’s important to remember to include diverse voices at all stages, implement regular audits and establish safe ways for employees to anonymously report issues.
The work to make AI deployment more equitable, including for neurodivergent people, is just getting started. The nonprofit Humane Intelligence, which focuses on deploying AI for social good, released in early October its Bias Bounty Challenge, where participants can identify biases with the goal of building “more inclusive communication platforms — especially for users with cognitive differences, sensory sensitivities or alternative communication styles.”
For example, emotion AI (when AI identifies human emotions) can help people with difficulty identifying emotions make sense of their meeting partners on video conferencing platforms like Zoom. Still, this technology requires careful attention to bias by ensuring AI agents recognize diverse communication patterns fairly and accurately, rather than embedding harmful assumptions.
DeZao said her ADHD diagnosis felt like “somebody turned on the light in a very, very dark room.”
“One of the most difficult pieces of our hyper-connected, fast world is that we’re all expected to multitask. With my form of ADHD, it’s almost impossible to multitask,” she said.
DeZao says one of AI’s most helpful features is its ability to receive instructions and do its work while the human employee can remain focused on the task at hand. “If I’m working on something and then a new request comes in over Slack or Teams, it just completely knocks me off my thought process,” she said. “Being able to take that request and then outsource it real quick and have it worked on while I continue to work [on my original task] has been a godsend.”
