Stripe Accidentally Sends Duck Image to Staff in Layoff Email

• Stripe accidentally sent an image of a cartoon duck to some staff in a layoff 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.

The payments-software company Stripe accidentally emailed an image of a cartoon duck to some employees when notifying them that they had been laid off, Business Insider has learned.

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

The image, which was 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 impacted staff an incorrect termination date in an email.

A Stripe spokesperson confirmed the duck image 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 also want to note that some impacted 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 full notifications have since been sent to all impacted Stripes.”

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

In an internal Stripe group on the Blind app for professional communities seen by BI, one employee asked whether others had received the duck image.

One person responded that they had and that it was another “indication the comms to those laid off were flubbed completely.”

Another employee, seemingly joking, wrote, “Wonder if there’s a california duck.” A different employee wrote, “Quick, make a slack emoji out of the duck.”

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 explaining more than 1,000 job cuts in 2022 won praise from some corners for its candidness.

Are you a Stripe employee with insight to share? Contact the reporter Jyoti Mann via email at jmann@businessinsider.com or via Signal at jyotimann.11. Reach out via a nonwork device.