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The layoffs at Klarna

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Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#211

Post by Animats »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #115
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 really think this just comes from the fact that most startups are either: 1) from California and/or 2) have founders that worked in California and/or 3) raised money from VCs in California I'm all on-board with it being better to be an optimist than a pessimist, and also on-board that destructive criticism doesn't really "serve" anyone. But there's just this rampant over-optimism like nowhere I've experienced. The…

A comment from when I knew theater and film people in SF: "In New York, they tell you when you suck. In Hollywood, they don't call you back when you suck. In San Francisco, they don't tell you that you suck. So you can suck forever."

(Yes, SF once had a film scene. Mostly because there was cheap warehouse space South of Market usable for production.)

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#212

Post by TulliusCicero »

stormbrew wrote: post #83
curiousllama wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?" Judging from your reaction, it sounds like yall had a great work environment, and that this was a good way to handle the layoff for your team. It sounds like it…

Fwiw there is a more normalized practice that resembles this and is, afaik, not a massive hr risk: openly offering a voluntary severance with defined benefits. Obviously it's not a great signal to those who don't take it about the health of the company, and you might lose a bunch of people you'd rather not, but I think allowing some level of self-selection is good when it's possible.

The issue with voluntary severance, is that the strongest employees tend to be the most likely to take it.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#213

Post by nr2x »

djmips wrote: post #96
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…

Sounds like the old old SNL skit about banking. Wikipedia- "First CityWide Change Bank – Two ads promote a financial institution whose only service is providing change (e.g. "you come to us with 16 quarters, 8 dimes, and 4 nickels, we can give you a 5 dollar bill"). How does First CityWide make money doing this? As one service rep says it, "The answer is simple: Volume"."

So good, stands the test of time!

https://youtu.be/CXDxNCzUspM https://youtu.be/KodqIPMbyUg

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#214

Post by doktorhladnjak »

lumost wrote: post #178
tryptophan wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why isn't this just tax deductible?

When McCain ran for President against Obama in 2008, there was talk about making employer provided health insurance taxable as a way to even this playing field. The idea was more employees would refuse employer coverage and buy their own for cheaper.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#215

Post by throwaway98797 »

rubyist5eva wrote: post #76
icegreentea2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you aren't succeeding, you are failing - and I was expected and taught to succeed by default. Nitpicking, but you were expected to succeed by default, and also taught to strive for success by default (and presumably also taught the tools and approach to maximize likelihood of success). People cannot be taught to "succeed by default", anymore than someone could be taught to "win the world series by default". And…

I've had my fair share of failures that's for sure. I'm do not expecting to actually succeed every single time, but I am putting in the best effort to at least try to succeed instead of just trying to coast along or shrug it off being like "meh, just wasn't in the cards". I also don't expect massive celebrations when I actually do succeed - success is what is expected. If I'm supposed to make the big sale, I don't ge…

that’s bleak

why not have some joy?

you might say you do have joy, but I’ll say it doesn’t look like it and so to bring it back I wouldn’t want to work for you

This is why companies are always pushing the “winning” narrative.

to be clear I’m only commenting on how your philosophy is perceived vs how it actually feels, since I can’t know that.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#216

Post by Maro »

doktorhladnjak wrote: post #205
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).

Based on my reading of the article, Klarna didn't _target_ new joiners, they were just part of the unfortunate mix.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#217

Post by compiler-guy »

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.

Context and relationships matter. Apparently this manager had a relationship with her reports where that would work. It's obviously not going to work in nearly any other situation, but kudos to her for figuring out what would work in this situation.

Bottom line is that all of the reports involved were reasonably ok with the outcome--no one is ever happy about getting laid off--and that is far better than the situation in most layoffs.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#218

Post by geysersam »

deltree7 wrote: post #169
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Rewarded for luring people into consumption loan debt? Great system.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#219

Post by doktorhladnjak »

ygram wrote: post #117
whichdan wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers cover a majority of the cost of insurance. In Boston, I pay maybe $70 every 2 weeks for health insurance, but on the private market I'd be paying 5-10x as much for worse coverage.

Do people ever try to negotiate higher salary instead of health endurance from employer and then have a private one instead?

A law called ERISA makes this unlikely. Companies must offer benefits like health insurance and retirement savings plans on the same terms to similarly situated employees.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#220

Post by jiggywiggy »

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 dealt with Klarna once, made a mistake. Gmail filtered out all their invoices & reminders, had to pay reasonable extra sum. No leniency, fine, but nothing special or awesome about them, they are just a regular credit company. No special tech or whatever, no special awesomeness, no special kindness.

Gmail filtering out invoices has been a big issue for my btw, Im forcing the government to send me invoice in print, even though they don't want to.

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