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The layoffs at Klarna

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Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#151

Post by blueflow »

vorpalhex wrote: post #106
datalopers wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Did you just prove their point?

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#152

Post by sys_64738 »

logifail wrote: post #80
cosmodisk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I used to work for got acquired by a listed company. At the same time, I was doing finance module at the university. One assignment was to analyse a company's financial reports and come up with a conclusion. So I analysed the company I worked for and the outcome was that I need to get out. At the same time the company was sending communication as it's about to discover time travel and unicorn milk.

> At the same time, I was doing finance module at the university. One assignment was to analyse a company's financial reports and come up with a conclusion. So I analysed the company I worked for and the outcome was that I need to get out. That's interesting. My OH is almost half way through her MBA and for one recent module, she chose to analyse her current employer's financial reports and come up with a conclusion.…

> Her conclusion is also that she needs to get out.

It depends. I haven't been RIF'd before but would take a package if they were layoffs if I had the opportunity. I'd also use as much of unemployment as I could for as long as I could. Basically I'd be looking to maximize the amount of time I can go before I'd need another job.

Just because a company appears to be running out of cash doesn't necessarily mean you need to leave immediately if they do downsizing.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#153

Post by jks »

mrweasel wrote: post #29

> Klarna made a major mistake in not letting the majority of employees know if they were safe from layoffs or not, for a whole night. I worked for a company that didn't let people know if they where safe, for a week. A friend worked for a company that didn't let people know for 3 months. It's beyond stupid, people becomes nervous and starts looking elsewhere and it's always the best people who leave first. That being…

> I worked for a company that didn't let people know if they where safe, for a week. A friend worked for a company that didn't let people know for 3 months.

Finland has in some respects even more stringent employment laws than Sweden. If a company is laying off people, it needs to "negotiate" with employee representatives for a set amount of time. For small companies or small layoffs, the time is two weeks, but if there are at least 30 employees and the layoff affects at least 10 of them, the negotiation time is six weeks. Companies typically say at the outset which employee groups are affected but delay the decisions about individual employees to the end. I don't know if this is by law, but I suppose that saying sooner would be an opening for a union to claim that the negotiations were not done in good faith, and possibly sue the company.

Having been a potentially affected employee on two occasions and an employee representative on one of them, let me say that waiting six weeks for the decision is not fun for anyone.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#154

Post by sys_64738 »

mrweasel wrote: post #39
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's kinda fascinating really. We had a client that had only ever lost money. Their idea was pretty good, they had what I'd call a working prototype and paying customers. Our CEO happened to know one of the investors, and chatted with him about the investment and the numbers we did on a whiteboard. Even if they grew their business with 10 times the number of customers, and each customer ramped up their usage 10 times…

It depends on the exit strategy. The technology will sometimes be scooped up by a big fish and take the key employees with it. When folk invest VC cash then they are sprinkling it amongst many projects that will have most typically fail. A Couple making it will give them the VC investment reward.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#155

Post by jon-wood »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #15
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.

This is the death spiral all large organisations go into, they hire more people so that they can do more things, but then they spend increasing amounts of time in meetings or trying to work out how some other team’s system works, so productivity goes down, so more people are hired to counteract that.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#156

Post by lumost »

mrweasel wrote: post #29

> Klarna made a major mistake in not letting the majority of employees know if they were safe from layoffs or not, for a whole night. I worked for a company that didn't let people know if they where safe, for a week. A friend worked for a company that didn't let people know for 3 months. It's beyond stupid, people becomes nervous and starts looking elsewhere and it's always the best people who leave first. That being…

For the last 7 years I noticed a strange trend in tech. The skill of management was not getting the people you needed, but instead turning down people you didn't.

Whenever ive been a manager for the last 7 years its the same. One day you get a ping for “can you onboard X”. It doesn't matter if you had work for one more person or not, thus projects are created for them to do something.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#157

Post by hef19898 »

logifail wrote: post #80
cosmodisk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I used to work for got acquired by a listed company. At the same time, I was doing finance module at the university. One assignment was to analyse a company's financial reports and come up with a conclusion. So I analysed the company I worked for and the outcome was that I need to get out. At the same time the company was sending communication as it's about to discover time travel and unicorn milk.

> At the same time, I was doing finance module at the university. One assignment was to analyse a company's financial reports and come up with a conclusion. So I analysed the company I worked for and the outcome was that I need to get out. That's interesting. My OH is almost half way through her MBA and for one recent module, she chose to analyse her current employer's financial reports and come up with a conclusion.…

To my surprise hardly anybody outside, and even some inside, of finance can. Not that I'm an expert, but I understand a balance sheet, can interpret the expebse lines, understand a cash flow sheet and can read (after having been to a couole of audits) the SOX relevant audit statements of public US companies. And yes, those tell you an aweful lot about your employer. And yes, part of me came to the same conclusion as your OH and the OP.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#158

Post by datalopers »

chrsig wrote: post #121
datalopers wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's the same problem. People are afraid to face reality, internally or externally.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#159

Post by brtkdotse »

ec109685 wrote: post #27

I’m not sure who the audience of all 5000 words of that article. Obviously it caused me to click the link, but it seems like a lot of excruciating detail about internal company process. I guess its useful for potential future Klarna recruits. And there’s an even longer extended version behind a paywall! https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/layoffs-at-klarna

Oh, come on. Everybody likes a good, juicy airing of dirty laundry.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#160

Post by xkbarkar »

Almost reads like a detective story as if not only mass layoffs, but poorly managed ones are unique to Klarna. Feels like the author has not really understood how incredibly common mass layffs as a tool for keeping profit margins really are.

Layoffs sucks no doubt but I cant say I feel as "outraged" as the author seems to intend. My current employer cut 10% of the workforce about 3 years ago (1800 ppl).My preevious one did that twice (about 3500 people in total). Another former employer would cut 2-3% every other month or so. Then go on a hiring spree, and then cut again.

Laying off 5% every year Microsoft style because of a crazy in house performance review system, now thats a news worthy evil story. This is just standard bad management vs profit margin not really interesting.

Yea Sweden, it happened to you too. Welcome to the club.

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