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The layoffs at Klarna

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

331–339 of 339 posts

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#331
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did we (as an industry) go with “eat your dog food” instead of just “eat your own food”? I find the former disgusting each time I hear it.

IIRC there was an ad involving a dog food manufacturer feeding their own dogs the food they made. "Dogfooding" then became synonymous with using your own product.

You learn something new everyday I guess.

I always thought it was intentionally derogatory in order to make the listener really think hard about what they’re outputting.

I.e. what you’re making is bad. It’s going to be bad. Force yourself to use it until you understand why it’s so bad, so that it’ll be as not bad as it can possibly be for the people you’re offering it to.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had offers and your company announced layoffs but you weren't one of the people being laid off, would you stay?

My primary interest in any work is the product, the team and the compensation. The later is negotiated beforehand, so if the team is not severely impacted (brilliant people who I happy to work with are staying) and there is no big changes in product (I still feel that I am doing something meaningful and useful for people) - there's no reason to leave.

If your team is unaffected by layoffs then you're very very lucky. This sounds like you're imagining basically the spherical cow of layoffs.

Layoffs don't happen when everything is hunky dory and just needs some tweaks.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My primary interest in any work is the product, the team and the compensation. The later is negotiated beforehand, so if the team is not severely impacted (brilliant people who I happy to work with are staying) and there is no big changes in product (I still feel that I am doing something meaningful and useful for people) - there's no reason to leave.

If your team is unaffected by layoffs then you're very very lucky. This sounds like you're imagining basically the spherical cow of layoffs. Layoffs don't happen when everything is hunky dory and just needs some tweaks.

Nobody in their right mind fires brilliant people. And brilliant people are the ones who are fun and delight to work with. It may sound harsh, but leaving some ballast weight behind may be even healthy for a team.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your team is unaffected by layoffs then you're very very lucky. This sounds like you're imagining basically the spherical cow of layoffs. Layoffs don't happen when everything is hunky dory and just needs some tweaks.

Nobody in their right mind fires brilliant people. And brilliant people are the ones who are fun and delight to work with. It may sound harsh, but leaving some ballast weight behind may be even healthy for a team.

Brilliant people are expensive. Bleeding companies need to cut costs. Layoffs are usually a mix of poor performers, high cost talent, and tenure ordering. Sometimes entire departments full of brilliant people go because the department isn't profitable.

Again, you have in your mind a spherical cow of a layoff.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

she is supposed to be part of the team and have the same knowledge and thus be able to make an equally or more informed decision

Don’t bother man. These people will bend over backwards to justify inane decisions like “who wants to lay themselves off”.

I guess it might be attributable to how much managers consider themselves to be, or actually are (subject to org limits), a part of the team, vs just managing it

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think anyone thought it did.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#337
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that this: >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. is the reason for this: >I was actually surprised to read that the Swedish CEO "took a dab at unions". Sure, relationships with unions can be complicat…

Could you please clarify your point? I presented the first two sentences you quoted as an elaboration on why the Swedish CEO taking a dab at unions was surprising to me, so yes it is indeed a reason. I have a feeling that's not what you meant though?

My point is that that negative opinion is the reason why they don't speak their mind honestly.

No point speaking honestly in an environment where they can be punished for doing so, either socially, or legally, particularly when speaking provides them no benefits.

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#338
post #326
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Alternatively I could tell you to fuck off, because absolutely nothing about your statement is factual or fair in even the slightest.

People like you love to say shit like “well just go make you own platform”

Cloudfare will ban you, AWS will ban you, the investors that are poor fronts for private equity will ban you, it’s controlled. You won’t be able to take payments in your little rebel SaaS because Visa will Kneecap you.

You pretend that there’s some kind of free, open exchange of ideas where some free market determines what is popular and thus allowed for social discourse. Instead there’s the allowed discourse of the elite, which you freely participate in with glee, and worst of all you pretend you’re free.

So please keep simping like a good little serf. It does all of us good when we conform to what your institutional therapist thinks is “good” lol

Re: The layoffs at Klarna

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure let’s replace a daily life sustaining activity with a celebratory product total disconnection and bastardization of the point of the phrase rare level of yuck here

Why did we (as an industry) go with “eat your dog food” instead of just “eat your own food”? I find the former disgusting each time I hear it.

> In 2006, the editor of IEEE Software recounted that in the 1970s television advertisements for Alpo dog food, Lorne Greene pointed out that he fed Alpo to his own dogs. Another possible origin he remembers is from the president of Kal Kan Pet Food, who was said to eat a can of his dog food at shareholders' meetings.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food#Origi...

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