I think the fact that companies like Klarna are downsizing is good overall. Klarna literally offers nothing but interest free loans (3 instalments typically), and they tear out your eyeballs if you miss the payments with ridiculous interest rates. Their normal business model makes zero profit, and they solely depend on people missing payments so they can gouge them. Clearly not viable at all...
Tech Layoff Tracker
21–30 of 34 posts
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#22I think the fact that companies like Klarna are downsizing is good overall. Klarna literally offers nothing but interest free loans (3 instalments typically), and they tear out your eyeballs if you miss the payments with ridiculous interest rates. Their normal business model makes zero profit, and they solely depend on people missing payments so they can gouge them. Clearly not viable at all...
Isn't that how most lending works? Exceptions exist on student loans and mortgages but most lending is predatory in nature in the same way described.
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bloomberg relies on a lot of tech and engineers. Maybe not the News arm, but it’s related enough to Bloomberg that it’s worth calling it a “tech layoff”
Tech companies are like lewdness, we know them when we see them. I’m sure Maersk and Walmart rely a lot on tech and engineers, but no one is calling them tech companies.
Walmart is as tech as Amazon retail. There is a reason products have barcodes.
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#24I think the fact that companies like Klarna are downsizing is good overall. Klarna literally offers nothing but interest free loans (3 instalments typically), and they tear out your eyeballs if you miss the payments with ridiculous interest rates. Their normal business model makes zero profit, and they solely depend on people missing payments so they can gouge them. Clearly not viable at all...
Isn't that how most lending works? Exceptions exist on student loans and mortgages but most lending is predatory in nature in the same way described.
Buy-Now Pay-Later is largely unregulated (in the UK at least) and makes money off predatory tactics. I make no comment on the ethics of staff that choose to work for VC-backed loan sharks other than to say if you've been let go it might be a good chance to reassess priorities.
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tech companies are like lewdness, we know them when we see them. I’m sure Maersk and Walmart rely a lot on tech and engineers, but no one is calling them tech companies.
Walmart is as tech as Amazon retail. There is a reason products have barcodes.
And that reason is IBM
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#26This is interesting to see. Does feel like most of the companies here got a nice boost during the pandemic. As things change again they need to lose weight?
This is not pandemic related it is cost of money related.
As interest rates go up to tackle inflation the era of free money is over and the bubble bursts.
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#27I think the fact that companies like Klarna are downsizing is good overall. Klarna literally offers nothing but interest free loans (3 instalments typically), and they tear out your eyeballs if you miss the payments with ridiculous interest rates. Their normal business model makes zero profit, and they solely depend on people missing payments so they can gouge them. Clearly not viable at all...
This is just wrong. BNPL is not their only product, and their profit comes from transaction fees paid by merchants.
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#28This is interesting to see. Does feel like most of the companies here got a nice boost during the pandemic. As things change again they need to lose weight?
feels like a lot of non tech companies also FOMOed into hiring tech people because they got scared of the "everything will be online" narrative during the pandemic. Now they're maybe beginning to realize that they don't need that many tech people and that maybe the economy isn't going to fundamentally change that drastically after all
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#29I’d argue that a number of these aren’t tech companies. No more so than any other companies who happen to employ developers. There are also a few, like Cameo, who can only exist in a boom economy. Still it’s terrible for the people who are losing their jobs.
Does it matter?
No, not as such, but they say:
> “Stay up-to-date on the latest layoffs across big tech, tech unicorns, and top startups.“
That makes it a weird mix of concerning layoff and layoff that would have happened eventually anyway.
You’re right that it doesn’t matter, so why not include all companies that employ developers and operation people and get a real feel for the current job market?
Re: Tech Layoff Tracker
#30Snap got absolutely destroyed in the markets a few days back, so I just casually looked at some of their stats. They have 6000 (!) employees, a market cap of $20bln (after losing 40% of their value in a day) and a PE ratio of 53. There is such an inordinate amount of bloat in the tech sector that it boggles the mind. Money was being blasted at tech through a firehose of epic proportions. Once that stops, my gut feeli…
Coinbase: 5000 employees, $18B market cap
What are 5,000 employees even doing at Coinbase?