TFA:
> There’s few better adverts for unions than a CEO condemning them, while wielding the ax on people’s jobs.
Heh. Yeah, bit of a footgunning, that.
The layoffs at Klarna
321–330 of 339 posts
Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#322TFA: > There’s few better adverts for unions than a CEO condemning them, while wielding the ax on people’s jobs. Heh. Yeah, bit of a footgunning, that.
From Forbes article[1] linked in TFA:
> Headwinds for the 17-year-old startup started before the war in Ukraine sent a chill through public markets.
WTF does the word "startup" even mean, if it can be applied to something that's seventeen years old?
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[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2022/05/28/klarna-ch...
Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I like how you mention California 6 times but somehow fail to realize this company was founded and based in Sweden
Sweden is even more "everyone gets gold medals just for participating" than California.
Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The self congratulatory back-patting (even if it's just "everything is fine, we're doing great") is treating success like an achievement. Success requires vigilance. Excellence is not an achievement, it's an activity. I used to wonder why friends of mine would get gifts for things like graduating elementary school or even high school. I asked my father for something because I was graduating highschool on the honour…
In Brazil, where I am from, the big achievement that warranted a celebration used to be graduating from university (I guess you call it college in the US). For many families the celebration was also the gift — those things don't come cheap. But in the last 30 years or so, I have noticed that many now celebrate completing high school, completing primary school, or even completing kindergarten (!) — and not just someth…
In Canada (I don’t know about Brazil myself) it is very very difficult for children to “flunk out” of the public education system. The system is setup to push every line through as much as possible. So to me, the “participation trophy” culture which is similar to what you describe in Brazil is especially egregious to me.
Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#325Earlier 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.
Adding on to the other reply, the first place I heard of this general idea was from a survivor of a POW camp in Vietnam, who said that the people who thought they’d never get out didn’t fare well, but that the people that fared the worst were the ones who thought they’d be out by Christmas. Christmas came and went and they still were in the camp, and that really demoralized them. The move was to know that you’d eventually make it out, but be very pessimistic about when that would be.
Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You’re doing the same thing now. My wife does call me her favorite hypocrite :) My statement was certainly an oversimplified assessment. > Valid, level-headed criticism This is a good clarification to make, thank you. Ultimately this is what I'm longing for more of in the world. "shitting on" either yourself or someone else isn't helpful.
You seem opened minded so here it goes. The problem with this stupid website is I (or no one else) couldn’t even properly reply to you due to censorship. I intended to write a sample of what actually “shitting on you” would actually be, but I knew the autistic mods would ban me just the same as if I was actually doing so because they lack the prefrontal cortex material responsible for comprehension. So engaging with…
> The problem with this stupid website is I (or no one else) couldn’t even properly reply to you due to censorship.
You know you're welcome to make your own community, right? You're not actually being censored, you're just in a venue that doesn't support communicating how you'd like.
> I knew the autistic mods would ban me just the same as if I was actually doing so because they lack the prefrontal cortex material responsible for comprehension
You've succeeded in your goal of posting a sample of what actually shitting on someone looks like. Hint: it doesn't look good on you.
> So engaging with you, or really in any valuable conversation on HN, is an exercise in bad faith, everyone must always wrap themselves in a thick layer of bullshit to appease the gods above or else face sanction.
Engaging with society requires wrapping everything in a think layer of bullshit. Being able to show some restraint is what keeps things civil, because there's a wide range of social norms. Get a therapist and learn how to cope with it.
Again, you could also find or create another venue. You're not entitled to a platform.
Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 desi…
Revolutionary is of course an extreme stretch, but they do add unique convenience to the checkout process. No user account creation, no entering of address and credit card number. Just click purchase and confirm with BankID. I also like that they retain neatly organized purchase history across all vendors, including permanent storage of the product images. I prefer klarna so much, that I occassionally simply go to an…
> add unique convenience to the checkout process.
Why not just use something like Swish?
The transaction is finished immediately. No need to de-select any "Pay later" options etc. No need to install their app on your phone.
No need to share your purchase history with some third party with an yet unknown (undetermined) monetization model. Swish is owned by your bank, and you already trust them with your transaction history.
Seems more convenient to me.
Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#328Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Wasn't being specific to Klarna, more so how it usually works at European companies that do gardening leave.
Handover is always a messy topic, and often good handover is sacrificed at the altar of security/liability.
Re: The layoffs at Klarna
#330There'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.
There was a corresponding joke at Klarna that Spotify was part of the natural promotion path.
That's fascinating.
But generally when people feel like the best way to advance their career is to leave, then I don't think that joke works in Klarna's favour as much as they might think it does.