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The layoffs at Klarna

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Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#231

Post by dudul »

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…

Doesn't sound like a lay off to me, you were just terminated and let go. When you lay people off you don't replace them, you eliminate the position.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#232

Post by throwaway98797 »

indymike wrote: post #143
throwaway859383 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up until a massive expansion push some years ago, Klarna used to be a profitable company. It expanded from 3200 employees in 2019 to the 7000 that are there now. They also started spending money on experiments that had not much to do with the core business.

Employee count may be the worst business metric of all time.

money raised is better (worse)

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#233

Post by curiousllama »

babyshake wrote: post #185
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…

What would the grounds of the lawsuit be? I can think of reasons to not announce a layoff in advance, but I can't think of why what the boss did was illegal.

Person X argues they only volunteered because Y is pregnant. ‘If I had stayed, I would’ve been the subject of retaliation because I’d look like a bad person.’

In discovery, it’s found that person Z pinged a friend and said ‘yea, we totally couldn’t let C be laid off. What kind of person would fire a pregnant woman?!”

That’s pretty strong proof that membership in a protected class factored directly into a retention/compensation decision.

This is why managers are (/should be) trained to handle this with lawyers involved.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#234

Post by rightbyte »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #71
rconti wrote: post #47

> Garden leave is when an employer requests that an employee, upon submitting their notice, need not return to the office. This is a type of absence where an employee is asked not to work during their notice period, in anticipation of their departure, while still being kept on the payroll. https://www.personio.com/hr-lexicon/garden-leave-uk/

Usually they kill your VPN/email/AD access as soon as you hand in your notice. You can also be put on gardening leave when you are fired, if there's a notice period there.

So ... handovers is not a thing at Klarna?

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#235

Post by stormbrew »

dento wrote: post #131
stormbrew wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find it rather rare that a relatively compentent dev couldn't get approximately equal compensation working for some other company. So if offered $X for volutary severance, where $X at least N months total compensation, most devs who can get a similar job in less than N months will leave. This leaves you with least capable people, which is (usually) not what's wanted when doing layoffs. (This is of course assuming t…

I think there are two problems with this in practice:

1) In the end those people will leave anyways once it's obvious the ship is sinking, so I think you wind up with a double whammy of attrition.

2) Mass layoffs don't usually allow for a particularly good perspective on who is a high preformer because it's hard to vet decisions on that scale. Also this assumes that performance is the primary axis, and not cost or tenure. You will likely lose high performers along with low and medium in a top down layoff.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#236

Post by dudul »

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.

It is indeed a stupid system. Private insurance is very expensive compared to the premium you usually pay when you're covered by your employer's plan. Employers can negotiate better prices because they bring a pool of insured to the insurance carrier. An individual doesn't have the same leverage.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#237

Post by yobbo »

treis wrote: post #87
lumost wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For transaction processing, wouldn't a 1-3% margin be about the maximum achievable? That would translate to about 15 million dollars in potential profit against a 730 million loss.

1-3% of the transaction volume. That percentage is the 1.4 billion Klarna takes as revenue. The margins of that can be very high.

> That percentage is the 1.4 billion Klarna takes as revenue.

Implying that transaction volume is on the order of $200 billion? No.

For perspective, Amazon's 2018 revenue is $230 billion.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#238

Post by caminante »

chrsig wrote: post #149
zdragnar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect most standup comedians are in a similar boat, so to speak. You keep failing until you succeed. You can't keep your audiences recycling only the same old jokes over and over, you need to keep writing new ones, tuning them over and over at small gigs so that you've got enough material that works for the bigger shows. More than just failing, though, I think the lesson is learning to tolerate failure, and learn…

> More than just failing, though, I think the lesson is learning to tolerate failure, and learning from it so that you can try again. This is the real trick. From my own personal experience: I went through a period of intolerance to failure -- "failure can't happen again". hypervigiliance[0] is just as problematic as negligence. Accepting that failure will happen has allowed me to unwind quite a bit, aided in finding…

>From my own personal experience: I went through a period of intolerance to failure...

tl;dr: "Perfection is the enemy of good."

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#239

Post by tialaramex »

akudha wrote: post #140
throwaway859383 wrote: post #100

I still currently work at Klarna. The article is a very good write up of what happened. I'm going to talk about what the current internal situation is and how people are feeling based on what I'm seeing. Since the layoffs there has been a noticeable shift in atmosphere. Previously quite a few people would regularly come to the offices, now not so much. Some still do come but significantly less. Performance has gone f…

One of my ex-colleagues simply quit one day - no emails, no notice...nothing. Another one of my ex-colleagues told me he was doing two jobs, but only working 8 hours in total per day, if that. Then COVID layoffs happened. In the first case, the company simply turned off the logins - it was their way of laying people off (one laid off guy had been with the company for 15 years, another one had health issues and needed…

In Europe (I work in the UK) it's usual to require that both sides commit to the employment on a rolling basis. My contracts have for over a decade now required roughly 90 days, but it's common to see 30 days in most jobs.

That means if I want to leave I need to give 90 days notice and if they don't want me any more I get 90 days notice of that or I get 90 days pay immediately.

This also leads to "Garden leave": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave

As I understand it Garden Leave is not uncommon in the US... for executive level jobs. The guy cleaning the hallways is lucky if they remember to tell him not to come in tomorrow rather than just locking the doors and not paying him any more.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#240

Post by Ekaros »

drakonka wrote: post #203

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 lea…

At least in Finland the tech unions are mostly toothless. They might help you with a lawyer if it is certain that employer screwed up. And any actions taken are very light, in lines of we recommend you not to work overtime... And maybe day or two of walking out... And then finally capitulate for minimal pay increase...
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