Stripe Takes Steps To Prune Workforce

An anonymous reader shares a report: As the economy slows, more tech companies have been showing employees the door. Now some senior leaders at Silicon Valley fintech giant Stripe, which in early 2021 was valued by private investors at $95 billion, have asked managers to start giving lower ratings on performance reviews, current and former employees say. That move could lead to more people being fired or feeling pressured to quit and comes at a time when tech businesses, particularly Stripe's payments and ecommerce peers, have been struggling. Potential cuts, which Stripe wouldn't have to disclose as layoffs because they would be performance-based, could affect hundreds of workers at the dual Dublin- and San Francisco-headquartered company, which has more than 8,000 employees. The pressure to lower ratings follows months of anxious speculation among workers after Stripe added a new question, asking whether a manager would rehire someone, to its performance reviews this past summer. Forbes spoke to ten former and current Stripe employees for this story; all asked to remain anonymous. In interviews and in comments online, workers say Stripe's recent moves have exacerbated a lack of "psychological safety" at the hard-charging private company, leaving some afraid to speak up or express dissenting opinions.

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