Stripe accidentally sends duck picture to staff in termination email

• Stripe accidentally sent a picture of a cartoon duck to some employees in a dismissal email, BI has learned.
• The company also sent some laid-off employees an incorrect termination date.
• Stripe laid off 300 people on Monday, mostly product, engineering and operations workers.

Payment software company Stripe accidentally sent a picture of a cartoon duck to some employees when they notified them they were being laid off, Business Insider has learned.

The company laid off 300 employees on Monday, equivalent to about 3.5% of the workforce. These roles were primarily in product, engineering and operations, according to a leaked memo obtained by BI.

The image, attached as a PDF, showed a yellow duck with brown feathers on its wing and accompanying text that said “US-Non-California Duck.”

The company also sent affected employees an incorrect termination date in an email.

A Stripe spokesperson confirmed the duck picture and incorrect dates were sent in error and pointed BI to a follow-up email from Rob McIntosh, the company’s chief people officer.

“I will also note that some affected Stripes received a notification error to their personal email accounts Monday evening PT,” McIntosh wrote.

“I apologize for the error and any confusion it caused,” he added. “Corrected and complete notices have since been sent to all affected Stripes.”

In a separate email to staff confirming the layoffs, McIntosh said Stripe still planned to grow its headcount to about 10,000 employees by the end of the year.

In an internal Stripe group on the Blind app for professional communities that BI has seen, an employee asked if others had received the duck image.

One person replied that they had, and that it was another “indication that the communications to the layoffs were completely flubbed.”

Another employee, apparently joking, wrote: “Wonder if there is a California duck.” Another employee wrote: “Quick, make a limp emoji out of two.”

Stripe, which provides payment software to millions of businesses, has had other rounds of layoffs in recent years.

A publicly shared letter from Stripe CEO Patrick Collison outlining more than 1,000 cuts by 2022 won praise from some quarters for its openness.

Are you a Stripe employee with insights to share? Contact reporter Jyoti Mann via email at [email protected] or via Signal at jyotimann.11. Reach out via a non-working device.