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The layoffs at Klarna

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Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#121

Post by chrsig »

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…

You're complaining that you can't shit on other people. I'm complaining that people don't shit on themselves.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#122

Post by jyriand »

Why do startups(tech companies) need so many employees? My first thought is that because of the rapid growth startups are plugging inefficient holes with more brains.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#123

Post by tshaddox »

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 big difference between the people in control of a company back-patting everyone when employees’ livelihoods are actually in danger, and back-patting an individual for sharing their personal projects and experiences in good faith even if they have a lot of room for improvement.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#124

Post by kqr »

Since this is presented as a voluntary separation agreement for the Swedish staff -- does anyone have information about what happened to those who went, "thanks but no thanks"? I assume they have to be let go in LIFO order, which ought to give them more time to get their affairs in order.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#125

Post by toomuchtodo »

logifail wrote: post #85
toomuchtodo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock and exuberance are the product.

> The stock and exuberance are the product. I've worked at places where the slide decks were always full of exuberance. At one of them they were exuberant right up until the moment the staff found themselves locked out of the offices after being told that a liquidator was in charge. It's not pretty.

Same!

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#126

Post by hef19898 »

allenu wrote: post #57
hotpotamus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mon…

> 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 That is crazy if true. My fear is that there are a ton of tech companies like that, just chasing future profits or an acquisition, but not actually creating anything of…

That is the Amazon way, baby! Not.

If a company doesn't make money, cash flow and / or profits (preferably both), it is just under cutting the competition (if smart) or on its way into bancrupcy (if not so smart) or both.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#127

Post by VLM »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #10
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…

That's insane -what's the magic event people believe will turn those losses around?

A classic argument is future sales are equivalent enough to be an asset. So as long as your balance sheet including future sales is growing faster than your income sheet is shrinking, its "OK".

There's a lot of assuming spherical cows going on. If the bean counters like the result when the average customer is milked for six years until having to replace them, that's great, unless customer service is so awful the average customer is gone in six months, or a competitor comes along in two years and wipes you out, market changes evaporate the revenue stream in five years, etc.

BTW this is the housing bubble in a nutshell. Lets say you buy a shack for half a mil at 6% for 30 years which from memory is almost exactly $3K/month. Not because you would, but because these are engineering estimates with very round numbers that are easy to memorize. Anyway, you'll spend 30 years in a row with a negative income statement of losing $36K per year on that shack. Actually you'll lose a ton more money due to maint, taxes, insurance, PMI, remodeling, appliances, whatever else. But who cares about the income statement, because if the total losses over 30 years are a bit over a million, if on the balance sheet the asset goes up to five million because interest rates only go down and real estate only goes up (until it doesn't, LOL) over the same time frame you can cash out for four million net gain? Of course if the shack only goes up to a million because its not in a bubble area like Arizona or whatever, you've not quite broken even, or god forbid if it only goes up to 3/4 of a mil you've lost quite a large life changing sum of money.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#128

Post by killSp4m »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #12
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.

Powell wants to keep wages tethered to his preferred reality of 2% inflation versus the actual reality people live on. The real issue with inflation is it devalues the public hallucination; fiat money: https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-fed-chief-powells-po...

Fear mongering over employment security is a favorite tactic: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-o...

The reality is “people need to eat”, will trade as they must to do so. We don’t actually rely on government officials to do the work; we placate the die hards by speaking in the traditions. They’re yanking on the leash they have.

Big tech looking to axe senior talent and big pay days for cheaper Gen Z grads; a quiet wealth redistribution plan. Some of the rich senior tech people would move on to cheaper locales and perhaps build businesses.

We’re in the ML era and a lot of senior folks are from the “manually program a machine” era; that’s a way over valued skill set now; it’s everywhere.

Cheaper talent with the latest collegiate training not the old ways baked in, could offset the expense of moonshots, hoping to boost an ML-backed cloud economy post generic server backed cloud.

Google’s Eric Schmidt has been in DC lobbying for AI investment: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/6/9/23160588/eric-schmidt-am...

Picking the winners right away to avoid the last decades shotgun approach.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#129

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#130

Post by tryptophan »

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.

If EMPLOYER pays you 10k and you want to buy a plan for 5k, you first have to pay taxes on the 10k, lets say 20%, so you have 8k - 5k = 3k left over.

OR

The employer can just buy the 5k plan for you tax free, and pay you 5k instead. This means you have 4k left over after tax! This is because healthcare plans are not taxed if provided by the employer.

Incredibly retarded, yes, it is.

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