San Francisco investment bank lets go hundreds more workers.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Heads were rolling Thursday at fabled San Francisco investment bank Robertson Stephens, which slashed its payroll by some 25 percent.

It's been an ugly year all around in the investment banking business, with shops large and small axing jobs. Robbie already had seen its workforce drop from 1,500 in January to about 1,250 by mid-summer.

The latest cuts bring the tally down to 950, says spokeswoman Courtney Weber, though others in the firm say as many as 400 jobs may have gone away.

Like its competitors, Robbie was forced into the move by the stumbling economy. As initial public offerings and merger activity have dropped off, investment banks have seen the sky-high revenues of the dot-com days come back to earth with a ...