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The layoffs at Klarna

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#101

Post by datalopers »

chrsig wrote: post #14

> 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…

> The self congratulatory back-patting

HN is guilty of this constantly. Everyone who posts here is implicitly in the right and users unequivocally back that attitude, even when it realistically is a scenario of "maybe you were a shit employee and were fired for it and your employer isnt in the wrong?" or "your Show HN really isn't that impressive". We're not allowed to say anything critical of other HN users without being downvoted or reprimanded by dang.

So why is it any surprise that every startup company has precisely the same back-patting culture?

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#102

Post by junofan »

polote wrote: post #53
chrsig wrote: post #14

> 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…

Nothing matters as long as a company is growing. You don't have to improve or have the best tech or the best sales or do everything right or have the best culture. The only thing that matter for a company is to grow.

Clearly something did matter since Klarna grew a lot and will probably continue growing. What matters is access to capital.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#103

Post by throwaway859383 »

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?

Lots of experimental things that had nothing to do with its core business such as Blockchain currency. Klarna massively expanded in the last 3 years. In 2019 there were about 3200.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#104

Post by petsormeat »

ygram wrote: post #66

I have never understood why health ensurance is handled by the employer in the US, why don't people buy private health insurance instead? It feels insane to put yourself in that kind of dependency on your employer.

Private health insurance can be extremely expensive, especially if you have a chronic illness, or are over age 40. I buy my own as a freelancer; the monthly premiums for even a basic plan are extortionate. There are government subsidies for lower income people, but many tech freelancers earn too much to qualify.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#105

Post by throwawaysleep »

chrsig wrote: post #14

> 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…

I think a lot of this is that nobody has long term incentives and plenty of people believe "we are awesome" is truth.

As a developer, if I paper over problems and claim to have resolved them, people will love me, trust me, and give me bonus pay. If I bring up problems, people consider me a trouble maker.

And when the bill comes due, I will just jump to another company.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#106

Post by vorpalhex »

datalopers wrote: post #101
chrsig wrote: post #14

> 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…

> The self congratulatory back-patting HN is guilty of this constantly. Everyone who posts here is implicitly in the right and users unequivocally back that attitude, even when it realistically is a scenario of "maybe you were a shit employee and were fired for it and your employer isnt in the wrong?" or "your Show HN really isn't that impressive". We're not allowed to say anything critical of other HN users without…

There's a difference between being introspective and just being a jerk.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#107

Post by Izkata »

ygram wrote: post #66

I have never understood why health ensurance is handled by the employer in the US, why don't people buy private health insurance instead? It feels insane to put yourself in that kind of dependency on your employer.

Around the Great Depression, in an effort to get control of inflation, the 1942 Stabilization Act was passed. Because employers could no longer attract new employees by offering higher pay, they started offering other things like health insurance. Since it was payed directly by the employer it wasn't taxable income and didn't fall under control of the Stabilization Act, and since then it just stuck.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#108

Post by throwaway859383 »

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…

Up until a massive expansion push some years ago, Klarna used to be a profitable company. It expanded from 3200 employees in 2019 to the 7000 that are there now. They also started spending money on experiments that had not much to do with the core business.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#109

Post by Arcanum-XIII »

autophagian wrote: post #86
testing7787 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Inability to focus when reading is often a symptom of untreated ADHD.

No, it's not. Your focus will probably take a sharp turn to another thing, but because you're not entertained. Here... it's probably because ADHD doesn't mean you'll fail, even if untreated.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#110

Post by matrix_overload »

jedberg wrote: post #34

Wow, that sounds so poorly handled. Not figuring out a way to tell everyone affected at (nearly) the same time is probably the worst sin. Best layoff I ever went through was when my boss came to our team and said, "look, don't tell anyone, but we have a layoff coming in a few days. I have to let one of the three of you go. Do you want me to decide or do you want to decide amongst yourselves?". She knew we were good f…

Yeah, so the company ended up losing the most confident/competent person (since they have the highest chance of quickly getting another job).
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