Company accidentally sends image of cartoon duck to laid-off employees

John Towfighi, CNN

(CNN) — A cute cartoon duck can be the bearer of bad news.

Stripe is laying off 300 people, or about 3.5% of its global workforce — and in emails to some terminated employees, the company accidentally sent an image of a yellow cartoon duck, a spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

Some employees also received incorrect termination dates in the emails on Monday, adding more awkward insult to injury. The blunders were addressed afterward by Rob McIntosh, the chief people officer of Stripe, in a memo to employees shared with CNN.

“Some impacted Stripes received a notification error to their personal email accounts,” McIntosh said. “I apologize for the error and any confusion it caused. Corrected and full notifications have since been sent to all impacted Stripes.”

The payment processor’s layoffs and the curious incident of the duck were first reported by Business Insider.

The layoffs are part of an annual review and planning for growth, a spokesperson for Stripe confirmed. The online payments company, which had about 8,500 employees before Monday’s layoffs, aims to increase its workforce to 10,000 by the end of the year.

Stripe, which is one of the most valuable private startups in the US, had laid off about 14% of its workforce in 2022 amid a wave of layoffs in tech.