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The layoffs at Klarna

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#11

Post by bombcar »

akmarinov wrote: post #6
speedgoose wrote: post #4

I’m surprised to read that Klarna had 7500 employees. It seems to be a lot for an online payment company offering consumer loans. What were the people doing?

> Klarna’s “Super App” was an area getting lots of investment in 2021. This investment was a step away from the core offering of the handling of payments. The vision of this app was to create an experience where people could do all their shopping within a Klarna super-app. However, this super app never launched as planned. Internally, confusion arose when it emerged the super app would use scraped data from customers…

Apparently every "payment" app/startup is valued as if it will somehow magically replace Amazon instantly.

I don't understand it myself, but that's what happens.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#12

Post by qbasic_forever »

Areading314 wrote: post #3

Klarna generated $1.42 billion revenue in 2021, a 32 percent year-on-year increase. A majority of Klarna’s income comes from interchange, processing and merchant fees. As Klarna has expanded its BNPL offering, its losses have increased. It reported a net loss of $730 million in 2021, a 337 percent increase on its 2020 loss. I would say its surprising that this company is still in business at all with numbers like thi…

For the past decade money has been effectively free to borrow with interest rates at zero. All the companies that immediately went bankrupt, into layoffs, etc. when interest rates were raised this year were coasting on these financial fumes.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#14

Post by chrsig »

> The culture of “we are awesome” has dominated most internal communications for the last couple of years, including in 2022. We all believed that we were awesome and would continue growing and winning.

This is the big thing that drives me nuts.

I don't know if it's a fragility of ego thing or what the cause may be, but it results in a corporate inability to critically self-evaluate at the highest levels. If you can't say where your weak areas are, you're not improving.

One of the experiences that untreated ADHD blessed me with was routinely failing classes. That repeated exposure to undeniable failure (and the consequences of it) really helped me accept that failure is the default. If you're not constantly fighting against failure, you're failing. You can't pretend that something didn't work out, or stop thinking about it because it hurts.

The self congratulatory back-patting (even if it's just "everything is fine, we're doing great") is treating success like an achievement. Success requires vigilance. Excellence is not an achievement, it's an activity.

We need more leaders that talk about the things we could be doing better, and doing so inspirationally, not derogatorily. It's ok that you're not the best at something. Very few are. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't do better.

Try internalizing that if you're not constantly struggling to do better, you're not living up to your potential.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#15

Post by Traubenfuchs »

speedgoose wrote: post #4

I’m surprised to read that Klarna had 7500 employees. It seems to be a lot for an online payment company offering consumer loans. What were the people doing?

> What were the people doing?

Right? If they are even somewhat productive, there should be enormous output created by them.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#16

Post by greenwithenvy »

There's a reason why recruiters at Spotify jokingly referred to Klarna as "our relocation agency". Klarna would relocate folks to Stockholm who'd then leave within 6 months to a year once they realised the shitshow they signed up for.

This was in 2015. They didn't value people back then or care to treat folks with the tiniest amount of decency. Seems not much has changed.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#17

Post by bombcar »

logifail wrote: post #7
Areading314 wrote: post #3

Klarna generated $1.42 billion revenue in 2021, a 32 percent year-on-year increase. A majority of Klarna’s income comes from interchange, processing and merchant fees. As Klarna has expanded its BNPL offering, its losses have increased. It reported a net loss of $730 million in 2021, a 337 percent increase on its 2020 loss. I would say its surprising that this company is still in business at all with numbers like thi…

> As Klarna has expanded its BNPL offering, its losses have increased. It reported a net loss of $730 million in 2021, a 337 percent increase on its 2020 loss Yet the tone from the acticle is that employees appeared to think the company was successful?

Employees base company success on internal metrics and how they're being paid, few employees bother looking at publicly available numbers lest they "jinx" it.

(Or the ones that do see the writing on the wall and bail, or decide to ride it out as long as they can).

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#18

Post by smashah »

I tried to get a big-ticket item using Klarna. Had the money in the bank, just thought I'd give it a go. It failed multiple times without any sort of meaningful error message. Apparently each of those failed attempts hit my credit score. I told them to close my account multiple times through multiple channels (chat/email/etc.) and reverse any damage done to my credit score.

Till this day I get monthly balance/statement emails from them even though I have yet to use a single penny of their credit facility. Too bad they don't use all that marketing budget on competent customer experience/service.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#19

Post by hotpotamus »

Areading314 wrote: post #3

Klarna generated $1.42 billion revenue in 2021, a 32 percent year-on-year increase. A majority of Klarna’s income comes from interchange, processing and merchant fees. As Klarna has expanded its BNPL offering, its losses have increased. It reported a net loss of $730 million in 2021, a 337 percent increase on its 2020 loss. I would say its surprising that this company is still in business at all with numbers like thi…

I recently left an 8,000 person company that's been on a 2 decade loop of private money to publicly traded and back a couple times now. It occurred to me that in 25ish years (about 10 of which I worked there) that it might never have made any money - I can't remember a profitable year ever; we were always seeking growth above all else. I now work at a small SaaS company of around 50 people and it's only ever made money.

Every day I feel like I live the Homer Simpson quote, "I don't know how the economy works".

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#20

Post by enviclash »

akmarinov wrote: post #6
speedgoose wrote: post #4

I’m surprised to read that Klarna had 7500 employees. It seems to be a lot for an online payment company offering consumer loans. What were the people doing?

> Klarna’s “Super App” was an area getting lots of investment in 2021. This investment was a step away from the core offering of the handling of payments. The vision of this app was to create an experience where people could do all their shopping within a Klarna super-app. However, this super app never launched as planned. Internally, confusion arose when it emerged the super app would use scraped data from customers…

I might be just an ignorant user in Europe, but this super-app thing could scare me out of Klarna and let me find an alternative, I got uncomfortable with the app when they required unnecessary data for a payment.
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