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The layoffs at Klarna

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Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#161

Post by zionic »

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.

You’re doing the same thing now.

Valid, level-headed criticism isn’t “shitting on someone”.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#162

Post by deltree7 »

dsomers wrote: post #113
alecbz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe had a few “official” principles that I really liked along these lines: “We haven’t won yet”, “macro-optimism but micro-pessimism”. They’re no longer official principles though, and I’m not 100% sure how much they were actually acted upon while they were (at least during my tenure).

> “macro-optimism but micro-pessimism” This is an interesting idea, I have I feeling I know the what they’re getting at, but if you have any examples of how they put that into practice I’d love to hear it.

AI will solve all humanity problems (Macro Optimism)

AI is currently shit (too resource intensive, too biased, lots of details still to be worked on) (Micro Pessimism)

So, let's work on addressing each of this

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#164

Post by mongol »

rsanek wrote: post #133
alkonaut wrote: post #92

Should be noted that employment in Sweden is as far from “at will” as you can get. There is basically no legal difference between a union worker at a paper mill and a software developer at a startup (once it reaches a certain size). The law basically says that the last one in must be first out, and sidestepping this order requires negotiating severance with unions (yes also for white collar tech workers). So if you n…

It seems like the article is saying that the fact that there isn't a union is actually a big help in the ability to do this kind of lay-off. > Swedish companies must negotiate with unions before layoffs. However, this was not the case at Klarna, nor is it the case at most Swedish tech companies. Klarna does not have a collective bargaining agreement (called “kollektivavtal” in Swedish) in place. This means that Klarn…

I never heard this before. I thought unions were always involved, regardless of kollektivavtal or not. Would like to hear from a Swedish expert on this.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#165

Post by literallyWTF »

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…

How was that the “best layoff”?

Instead of being an actual fucking leader and making a difficult decision, your boss just said “lol so who wants to leave.”

I swear sometimes the shit I read here makes me go insane.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#166

Post by jedberg »

literallyWTF wrote: post #165
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…

How was that the “best layoff”? Instead of being an actual fucking leader and making a difficult decision, your boss just said “lol so who wants to leave.” I swear sometimes the shit I read here makes me go insane.

She was a great leader. She recognized that our team was cohesive and could make a better decision than she could. She was one of the best managers I ever had.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#167

Post by humaniania »

mhuffman wrote: post #49
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…

>We all believed that we were awesome and would continue growing and winning. Hilarious since Klarna has one of the worst customer service experiences I have ever witnessed. Their real monetization strategy seems to be to get your mobile information. It is not necessary to micro-finance through them, just to do anything at all after that! They actually have a website, which you might think would be an alternative way…

Do they get a tracking pixel or something on all the checkout pages where they are a payment option? They get to embed code?

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#169

Post by deltree7 »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #148
treis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of ways internet businesses are like buying bonds. You pay some cost to acquire a customer and will get revenue from them over time. You can calculate a present value for that customer based on that future revenue. As long as that value is more than what you paid to acquire the customer you're making money. And if your numbers are right then you, more or less, want to spend as much money as you can buying cu…

This is a very, very dangerous business to be in unless your numbers are rock solid and you make sure your models reflect reality.

all businesses are risky. that's why we have capitalism and there are bunch of people who are willing to take the risk and rewarded for taking that risk

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#170

Post by d-trieu »

greenwithenvy wrote: post #16

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.

Not just at Spotify, at both of my previous jobs we were joking about picking up Klarna employees that has managed to disconnect from the Matrix.
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