'Flubbed Completely': A Company Mistakenly Sent a Picture of Cartoon Duck to Employees When Laying Them OffPayments company Stripe had some communication issues when conducting layoffs this week.
But that wasn't the case at Stripe, a payments software company that laid off 300 employees on Monday. Some employees in the various roles affected (product, operations, engineering) were notified by an illustration of a cartoon duck, Business Insider reports. The dates on the termination notices were also incorrect.
The illustration was sent as a PDF attachment and said, "US-Non-California Duck." Business Insider received a picture of the yellow duck from employees on a Blind chat.
"The comms to those laid off were flubbed completely," one employee reportedly wrote.
A Stripe representative told Business Insider that follow-up emails went out to affected employees.
"I apologize for the error and any confusion it caused," wrote Rob McIntosh, the company's chief people officer. "Corrected and full notifications have since been sent to all impacted Stripes."
Stripe is valued at $70 billion in the private markets, per CNBC.
Despite the cuts, McIntosh said the company is "not slowing down hiring" and expects to increase its workforce by 17% this year to 10,000.