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The layoffs at Klarna

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Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#201

Post by rsanek »

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…

> productivity per employee is too low

When referring to productivity, what do you mean in this case? For Google, their profit per employee is still very high (about $300k [0]). Of the top 10 biggest employers in that list, they are 3rd-highest-earning per capita.

[0] https://tipalti.com/profit-per-employee/

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#202

Post by infinite8s »

Buttons840 wrote: post #116
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).

I like the book Crucial Conversations, which tells us to avoid the "fool's choice" and be 100% honest and 100% respectful at the same time. The fool's choice is when a fool thinks something like "I can either tell the truth and be fired, or keep my mouth shut". The book teaches that with some thought you can find a way to tell the truth without being fired, etc. This is advice for an individual, but not an entire org…

What if you don't have a solution to the complaint?

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#203

Post by drakonka »

I was actually surprised to read that the Swedish CEO "took a dab at unions". Sure, relationships with unions can be complicated, but I've never heard an employer talk negatively about them here (maybe I'm just sheltered?). I am used to seeing union reps come to the office a few times a year for Q&As and feedback sessions, and taking about union membership was normal in internal channels. Never heard of anyone in leadership batting an eye (heck, they were likely also union members). Being hostile to unions seems like a normal thing for some other parts of the world, but seeing a Swedish employer talk like this about union membership here immediately leaves a bad taste in my mouth about the company. It's a red flag.

Unfortunately it can take a while for employees who have relocated to Sweden to consider joining a union. It took me about a year or two after moving here to realize it was a thing, and such a normal thing at that. I can imagine that Unionen et al would have gotten more than a few phone calls from Klarna employees asking for advice during/after this whole thing.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#204

Post by nr2x »

rospaya wrote: post #77
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…

Wow, that sounds awful for me. Being a boss means making hard decision, he just dumped that on the three of you. Glad it worked out for you, but I can't imagine this working in most situations.

*she

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#205

Post by doktorhladnjak »

Maro wrote: post #192

I feel for the people who were layed off, esp. ones who just left their previous jobs and/or relocated. One thing as an employer I would never do (if it were my call) was to lay off somebody who just recently joined/relocated [unless there are already performance problems]. That's just a shitty thing to do, at a human level. Putting that aside (since all tech companies will lay off new joiners), I don't think this st…

I’ve been through several tech layoffs. I can’t think of any case where new joiners were targeted. It was always some combination of performance and cost (either personal pay or an entire group being less profitable).

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#206

Post by geysersam »

hotpotamus wrote: post #74
allenu wrote: post #57

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 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…

I actually worked providing infrastructure to tech companies; from large enterprises to startups. I think I realized starting in the early to mid 10's that all the startups I was working with were just about taking VC money to provide the founders with hip, well paying jobs - the stated goal of the company was mostly immaterial and the "change the world" talk was virtue signaling to the rank and file so they don't fe…

> what about that is all that revolutionary?

Exactly. I've seen a lot of media coverage on Klarna (I'm Swedish), often with the angle "wow, innovation". The question I've too often wished journalist had asked is "Why?", what's the benefit of what you do? Except being more shiny.

Lot of waste in the tech sector. Sad how many skilled people work endlessly on more effective ways of pushing ads and loans, to make us desire and buy things we don't need with money we don't have.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#207

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

Klarna is another one of these businesses like affirm which should not exist. Propped up using VC money, it will all come crumbling down. What a disaster. Shopify also got caught up in this mess by investing in all this. A lot of Shopify's revenue came when Klarna went public instead of product and merchant revenue. Everything burning down.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#208

Post by smashah »

BonoboIO wrote: post #38
smashah wrote: post #18

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/stateme…

Hit them hard with a GDPR request, forward it to your local privacy organization. In Europe this is popcorn time.

Good suggestion. I've now filed a complaint with the ICO and sent them an email requesting for all the data they have on me.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#209

Post by doktorhladnjak »

throwaway36756 wrote: post #58

I worked at Klarna between 2011-2013 as a software engineer and later as a team manager. I was laid off in a very similar fashion at the same time a bunch of others also got the same surprising news. When it happened to us there was no announcement from the CEO. Sebastian had actually just gone on parental leave and one of the co-founders, Niklas Adalberth had taken the reigns. At the time, my suspicion was that it w…

What happened to you is not a lay off. You got fired!

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#210

Post by doktorhladnjak »

tryptophan wrote: post #130
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.

Employers also often get better pricing on insurance for their employees because the pool is less risky overall. Those buying health insurance on the private market are more likely to have health problems and need it. Lots of healthy, young employees with limited health problems at tech companies.
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