18 ms·

The layoffs at Klarna

312 points by lauluz 4y ago

brycewray 4y ago
Re item “The pay cut of 2020 which became permanent”: the Day Job I had in 2008 used that year’s onset of the Great Recession to stop annual raises and *never* brought them back — at least, not while I was still there, which was until early 2015.
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  Wow, what kept you there so long?
  - brycewray 4y ago
    No other opportunities to speak of; inertia; I was in my mid-50s at the time (59 by the time the final cut came for me) and didn't think a massive recession was a good time to look. Take your pick. :-) [Plus, I really liked the company. Had been there longer than in any other job, and it was where I wanted to be when retirement came. Wasn't to be, however.]
Areading314 4y ago
Klarna generated $1.42 billion revenue in 2021, a 32 percent year-on-year increase. A majority of Klarna’s income comes from interchange, processing and merchant fees. As Klarna has expanded its BNPL offering, its losses have increased. It reported a net loss of $730 million in 2021, a 337 percent increase on its 2020 loss. I would say its surprising that this company is still in business at all with numbers like this.
- logifail 4y ago
  > As Klarna has expanded its BNPL offering, its losses have increased. It reported a net loss of $730 million in 2021, a 337 percent increase on its 2020 loss Yet the tone from the acticle is that employees appeared to think the company was successful?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Employees base company success on internal metrics and how they're being paid, few employees bother looking at publicly available numbers lest they "jinx" it. (Or the ones that do see the writing on the wall and bail, or decide to ride it out as long as they can).
  - foepys 4y ago
    Since Uber seems to be a benchmark for VC start-ups (Uber for X) and Uber is still losing money in the tens or hundreds of millions per year, I am not surprised that employees think that Klarna is a success.
  - PheonixPharts 4y ago
    At least in tech there are people who have had decade+ long careers where it was very feasible to never work for a company that actually made more money than it spent. I've been at multiple startups that had VCs pressure leadership not to make profit because that would hurt growth of some other KPI of interest (users, revenue etc). In the last few year many of these people have seen these companies go public, and their imaginary Options/RSUs suddenly turn to liquid assets. Company hasn't started making profits, P/E is negative, but TC has gone up by 50%-200%. That certainly feels like success. Looking back at my own career the companies that made the least profit (including negative) are the ones that have paid me the most. I'm old enough to remember the pre-dotcom bust chats of "new economy" and "things are different now", and how all of the stuffy old finance people who thought businesses should make more than they spend where ultimately proven correct. For many people, even in their late 30s, the ability for a company to actually make more than it spends has been an academic curiosity, hardly relevant to the success of a company.
    - orzig 4y ago
      Agreed, and the opposite is true: I started at a small public company which had stopped growing and become profitable. It was targeted for a hostile takeover by PE who thought it could grow more. To their credit it did, and (to the extent your willing to believe unaudited financials) again became profitable.
    - 4y ago
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  That's insane -what's the magic event people believe will turn those losses around?
  - mrweasel 4y ago
    It's kinda fascinating really. We had a client that had only ever lost money. Their idea was pretty good, they had what I'd call a working prototype and paying customers. Our CEO happened to know one of the investors, and chatted with him about the investment and the numbers we did on a whiteboard. Even if they grew their business with 10 times the number of customers, and each customer ramped up their usage 10 times it would take 10 - 12 years to make back the money that had already been spend. That was assuming no new investments and zero cost in those 10 to 12 years. The idea that this may not have been the best investment in history was more or less brushed, as the stock price would surely rise. VC funding is weird.
    - runnerup 4y ago
      Even if the already-invested money can’t be recouped, marginal additional investment could theoretically be with favorable (LIFO) terms offered typically offered to later investment. So sure, acknowledge a bad $300 million bet, but then throw your next $50 million at the same bet if it looks like the best place to put a marginal $50 million. I don’t always think investors are doing this rationally - sunk cost fallacy / gamblers paradox / greater fool theory / FOMO all play a part, but also recognize that lots of these super large investments are led by a small team using lots of other peoples money so there are ways for the decision-makers to come out closer to breakeven if much of the pot is lost. Also with potential IPO’s and sky high rate of valuation growth over the past decade, the “greater fool theory” isn’t necessarily an irrational motivation to invest. Not all smart investments are value-based.
      - lumost 4y ago
        A company built to operate as a 100 billion dollar behemoth can rarely transition to a 1 billion dollar success without lots of pain. To make this transition, your going to need to crush a lot of dreams and projects. Why would the result not be a hollowed out hulk of a company?
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  For the past decade money has been effectively free to borrow with interest rates at zero. All the companies that immediately went bankrupt, into layoffs, etc. when interest rates were raised this year were coasting on these financial fumes.
  - killSp4m 4y ago
    Powell wants to keep wages tethered to his preferred reality of 2% inflation versus the actual reality people live on. The real issue with inflation is it devalues the public hallucination; fiat money: https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-fed-chief-powells-postmeeting-press-conference-11651696613 https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-fed-chief-powells-po... Fear mongering over employment security is a favorite tactic: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-of-workers-is-a-big-factor-in-fed-policy.html https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-o... The reality is “people need to eat”, will trade as they must to do so. We don’t actually rely on government officials to do the work; we placate the die hards by speaking in the traditions. They’re yanking on the leash they have. Big tech looking to axe senior talent and big pay days for cheaper Gen Z grads; a quiet wealth redistribution plan. Some of the rich senior tech people would move on to cheaper locales and perhaps build businesses. We’re in the ML era and a lot of senior folks are from the “manually program a machine” era; that’s a way over valued skill set now; it’s everywhere. Cheaper talent with the latest collegiate training not the old ways baked in, could offset the expense of moonshots, hoping to boost an ML-backed cloud economy post generic server backed cloud. Google’s Eric Schmidt has been in DC lobbying for AI investment: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/6/9/23160588/eric-schmidt-americas-frontier-fund-google-alphabet-tech-government-revolving-door https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/6/9/23160588/eric-schmidt-am... Picking the winners right away to avoid the last decades shotgun approach.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  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 money. Every day I feel like I live the Homer Simpson quote, "I don't know how the economy works".
  - allenu 4y ago
    > 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 value (at least in terms of profit). I don't know. It just doesn't sit well with me knowing that a lot of products we build don't actually make any money. We're all just part of some weird system of money re-allocation and the software is just there as a signal that money should change hands.
    - blantonl 4y ago
      Rackspace?
      - hotpotamus 4y ago
        Well spotted ;)
        blantonl 4y ago
        I live in SA, also one of my neighbors was brought into the c-suite when they first went PE, so this story looked pretty familiar :)
    - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
- RandomLensman 4y ago
  From the outside, I find it difficult to judge as management might have been focused on top line growth (given investors preferences in recent years). A (possibly) changed focus could now mean a very different profit profile will develop.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  Uber
- treis 4y ago
  In a lot of ways internet businesses are like buying bonds. You pay some cost to acquire a customer and will get revenue from them over time. You can calculate a present value for that customer based on that future revenue. As long as that value is more than what you paid to acquire the customer you're making money. And if your numbers are right then you, more or less, want to spend as much money as you can buying customers. So that's how companies with numbers like this continue to operate. To put it simply, Klarna is spending a billion dollars to buy customers that will generate more than a billion dollars in revenue. The catch is that you have to pay now for later revenue. So your numbers look like crap until your existing customers far outnumber your new ones.
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    This is a very, very dangerous business to be in unless your numbers are rock solid and you make sure your models reflect reality.
    - deltree7 4y ago
      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
      - geysersam 4y ago
        Rewarded for luring people into consumption loan debt? Great system.
        deltree7 4y ago
        debt is a fantastic instrument that solves a production / consumption mismatch of both individuals and humanity. A 55 year old is the most productive member of a society, but that is also the age where you start to consume very little. Imagine if you had to 'save' to get your college education, your home, a laptop, or starting a business. There is a reason we don't ask babies to 'pay up' for milk or shelter. Imagine if Larry Page or Sergey Brin had to work and save to start Google. Imagine if government had to save trillions of dollars before investing in Carbon Capture and renewable energy generations. Yes, all good things can be abused. But you can't prevent good things for 95% society because a 5% of the society abuses it
- lumost 4y ago
  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.
  - treis 4y ago
    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.
    - lumost 4y ago
      Are we sure that that's true? As a private company klarna can choose any metric they so desire as revenue...
      - christophilus 4y ago
        What? Isn’t revenue kind of … revenue? What else can it be?
        lumost 4y ago
        To my knowledge, there isn't any reason klarna can't describe their transaction volume as revenue. Then declare their margin 3%. As a private tech company I would assume that they are using the broadest possible definition of revenue.
        junofan 4y ago
        Dunno about Sweden but lots of compensation stuff triggers financial reporting requirements for obvious reasons.
        Montaque 4y ago
        No. GAAP and IFRS have very strict definitions of Revenue. Transaction volume falls under the agency principle. Its not the Co's revenue.
- throwaway859383 4y ago
  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.
  - indymike 4y ago
    Employee count may be the worst business metric of all time.
    - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
      depends, for what? it is a good metric for number of employees you employ :)
    - throwaway98797 4y ago
      money raised is better (worse)
speedgoose 4y ago
I’m surprised to read that Klarna had 7500 employees. It seems to be a lot for an online payment company offering consumer loans. What were the people doing?
- akmarinov 4y ago
  > Klarna’s “Super App” was an area getting lots of investment in 2021. This investment was a step away from the core offering of the handling of payments. The vision of this app was to create an experience where people could do all their shopping within a Klarna super-app. However, this super app never launched as planned. Internally, confusion arose when it emerged the super app would use scraped data from customers who were already partners of Klarna. The super app efforts are still progressing slower than originally planned, and some employees think the company is spending too much on this area for too little return. Trying to come up with something out of nothing it seems
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    But can you keep thousands of people busy on such a project?
    - djbusby 4y ago
      A technique I learned from possibly the worst project/product manager ever was to have loads of meetings. And over schedule them. And show up late. It makes everything so slow, and you have to have more people so that somehow, in between meetings a line of code could be written.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Apparently every "payment" app/startup is valued as if it will somehow magically replace Amazon instantly. I don't understand it myself, but that's what happens.
  - enviclash 4y ago
    I might be just an ignorant user in Europe, but this super-app thing could scare me out of Klarna and let me find an alternative, I got uncomfortable with the app when they required unnecessary data for a payment.
xBK 4y ago
With Klarna's valuation spiralling downwards, those bonuses in RSU's couldn't have been timed worst for the workers.
- bombcar 4y ago
  A 'deal' forced on you is almost always not to your benefit (or it wouldn't have to be forced).
enviclash 4y ago
I am a user. Annecdotically, since a few weeks ago the app started working slow and not as perfect as before, when it was flawless for years.
chrsig 4y ago
> 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't say where your weak areas are, you're not improving. One of the experiences that untreated ADHD blessed me with was routinely failing classes. That repeated exposure to undeniable failure (and the consequences of it) really helped me accept that failure is the default. If you're not constantly fighting against failure, you're failing. You can't pretend that something didn't work out, or stop thinking about it because it hurts. 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. We need more leaders that talk about the things we could be doing better, and doing so inspirationally, not derogatorily. It's ok that you're not the best at something. Very few are. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't do better. Try internalizing that if you're not constantly struggling to do better, you're not living up to your potential.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > experiences that untreated ADHD blessed me with was routinely failing classes. That repeated exposure to undeniable failure Huh. Never thought of this. In a balanced culture, this offers no advantage. But in one still recovering from the self esteem days, when even games were encouraged not to produce any losers, I see how that awareness is competitive.
  - chrsig 4y ago
    I used the word blessed somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I'm not sure I would call it an advantage, rather just a different set of experiences than a large majority of the tech world.
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      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 learning from it so that you can try again.
greenwithenvy 4y ago
There'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.
- dcminter 4y ago
  There was a corresponding joke at Klarna that Spotify was part of the natural promotion path.
  - greenwithenvy 4y ago
    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.
    - dcminter 4y ago
      I don't think anyone thought it did.
- d-trieu 4y ago
  Not just at Spotify, at both of my previous jobs we were joking about picking up Klarna employees that has managed to disconnect from the Matrix.
smashah 4y ago
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/statement emails from them even though I have yet to use a single penny of their credit facility. Too bad they don't use all that marketing budget on competent customer experience/service.
- antupis 4y ago
  Yup funny how big they growth becouse they pretty much dont add anything to consumer experience and they are well know issues like if you know social security number you can order stuff.
- BonoboIO 4y ago
  Hit them hard with a GDPR request, forward it to your local privacy organization. In Europe this is popcorn time.
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    This is what I do with every single company I have even the slightest negative interaction with regarding my data. Its a lot of fun.
  - smashah 4y ago
    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.
- mlonkibjuyhv 4y ago
  Oh all the things I wish they would use their marketing budget on. For instance they still can't correctly compute different VAT classes in their merchant reports.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
lupire 4y ago
The layoffs are 1/3 of the headcount growth in the past year. That's just embarrassing for the planners.
bastardoperator 4y ago
I left a company at the beginning of covid that jumped at the opportunity to reduces everyone's pay... except the executives.
ec109685 4y ago
I’m not sure who the audience of all 5000 words of that article. Obviously it caused me to click the link, but it seems like a lot of excruciating detail about internal company process. I guess its useful for potential future Klarna recruits. And there’s an even longer extended version behind a paywall! https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/layoffs-at-klarna https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/layoffs-at-klarna
- brtkdotse 4y ago
  Oh, come on. Everybody likes a good, juicy airing of dirty laundry.
dom96 4y ago
Adjacent to the topic of this article but I really love Gergely's reporting. It's great that he is shining a light at how poorly these companies are handling layoffs. Hopeful that this will change our industry for the better.
mrweasel 4y ago
> 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 said: Why does Klarna have 7500 people employed? I feel bad for the people who will be losing/have lost their job, but they also won't be the last in tech. Klarna have done what Google, Twitter and other have done, hired people they didn't need, so now productivity per employee is too low. 15 years ago I worked for a company that used Klara for payment, right when they started to expand beyond Sweden. The experience was interesting to say the least. They where completely naive about fraud. They didn't understand the markets they where trying to expand to. If everything else failed, payback the customers and let the retailers deal with any loses. While I'm sure they improved, based last my experience with them in 2016, I don't see how they could be ready to enter the US market.
- jks 4y ago
  > 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. Finland has in some respects even more stringent employment laws than Sweden. If a company is laying off people, it needs to "negotiate" with employee representatives for a set amount of time. For small companies or small layoffs, the time is two weeks, but if there are at least 30 employees and the layoff affects at least 10 of them, the negotiation time is six weeks. Companies typically say at the outset which employee groups are affected but delay the decisions about individual employees to the end. I don't know if this is by law, but I suppose that saying sooner would be an opening for a union to claim that the negotiations were not done in good faith, and possibly sue the company. Having been a potentially affected employee on two occasions and an employee representative on one of them, let me say that waiting six weeks for the decision is not fun for anyone.
- lumost 4y ago
  For the last 7 years I noticed a strange trend in tech. The skill of management was not getting the people you needed, but instead turning down people you didn't. Whenever ive been a manager for the last 7 years its the same. One day you get a ping for “can you onboard X”. It doesn't matter if you had work for one more person or not, thus projects are created for them to do something.
jedberg 4y ago
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 friends outside of work and would probably make a better choice than her. I ended up volunteering because one other guy had just bought a house and had a baby and the other guy had debts to pay off and I didn't. Ended up working with both those guys again. One of them ended up leaving and getting a new job, then he pulled me in after 1.5 years of unemployment, and then we pulled the last guy in after he eventually got let go.
- curiousllama 4y ago
  > 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 went smoothly, which is 100%, A+, great. But HOOO BOY, that was a HIGH RISK move by your boss. I sincerely can't imagine the clusterf** that would've resulted from that at some of the places I've worked. Good GOD. This is an invitation for a lawsuit on a silver platter, holy guacamole.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    Oh yeah for sure. The only reason she could do it is because we all got along. I would not recommend this approach for most managers. :)
  - stormbrew 4y ago
    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.
ImPleadThe5th 4y ago
I heard some horror stories from some managers that have since left. They were not told that there would be any layoffs, and when their employees came and asked them what it was all about there was no support from the top so they had to just tell everyone "I don't know". What an awful position to put people in.
redleggedfrog 4y ago
Well, that's some seriously incompetent management. Thing is, when these reports get out and later I'm assessing tech to potentially use I go back in my head "Oh yeah Klarna - incompetence. Moving on."
rvz 4y ago
I mean the warning signs of the overvaluation and hype around Klarna was there ever since a private early investor unloaded their shares on to retail via an online investment [0] [1] platform at $45B, last year December. [2] Those 6,000+ retail investors who FOMOed and bought in are now down more than 80% of their investment due to the down-rounds, with the private early investor escaping and banking $8 million. So it is no surprise that the layoffs had to happen especially with the recent rate hikes which are accelerating the costs at Klarna. [0] https://www.crowdcube.com/cubex/klarna https://www.crowdcube.com/cubex/klarna [1] https://milled.com/navia/klarna-pitch-is-launching-tomorrow-M8Nu5U_wMFBssK4b https://milled.com/navia/klarna-pitch-is-launching-tomorrow-... [2] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/online-investment-platform-crowdcube-secures-allocation-of-stock-in-fintech-firm-klarna-cct7phr0w https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/online-investment-platfor...
rconti 4y ago
> 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/ https://www.personio.com/hr-lexicon/garden-leave-uk/
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  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.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    So ... handovers is not a thing at Klarna?
    - nibbleshifter 4y ago
      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.
- esel2k 4y ago
  Isn’t garden leave agreeing that you won’t work for the competition? Or is it even saying not working at all, not even in an unrelated job? If I had a job the next day I might just enjoy two salaries. Would this be blocked by a garden leave agreement?
throwaway36756 4y ago
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 was because Niklas Adalberth was getting rid of people he didn’t like and that the main reason my firing in the way it was done. I was invited to an external meeting room at 17:00 in the Stockholm office with my boss and my boss’s boss, where they proceeded to tell me “we think we need someone else in your position”. My boss looked helpless and sat quietly the whole time. My boss’s boss did all the talking and seemed just like someone following orders. Reading this now it’s sad to see how nothing has changed at Klarna and makes me think that even if Niklas did had something to do with my firing that it couldn’t have happened without Sebastian’s knowledge and approval. My experience of Sebastian was that he was a talented product guy, but unfortunately seems to leave a lot to be desired as CEO.
- doktorhladnjak 4y ago
  What happened to you is not a lay off. You got fired!
- Aradalf 4y ago
  It sounds like you were fired, not laid off.
- dudul 4y ago
  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.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ygram 4y ago
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.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- whichdan 4y ago
  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.
  - ygram 4y ago
    Do people ever try to negotiate higher salary instead of health endurance from employer and then have a private one instead?
    - doktorhladnjak 4y ago
      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.
    - rhinoceraptor 4y ago
      I've never heard of that, it would cost you more than it would cost the employer since you first have to pay taxes on your income, and employers can often get better rates.
- drc500free 4y ago
  Private insurance can be thousands of dollars a month, so before Obamacare it was a pretty niche thing. It still kind of is, because for professional jobs the expectation is a massively subsidized health plan. Voluntarily paying an extra $1500/month for the independence of not relying on your employer is not a choice most people would make.
jarym 4y ago
> this approach was the fairest option for all I have heard this line a few times for HR recently and it makes me cringe every time. Putting everyone in the same shitty boat is never fair. Takes me back to George Orwell’s Animal Farm every time!
status200 4y ago
It is unfortunate that people lost their jobs, but is anyone else not upset that a "buy now, pay later" company is struggling? They are exacerbating consumer's reliance on credit and causing some reckless spending, I personally believe they do more harm than good.
no_wizard 4y ago
I don’t understand why companies do these scale up things. Hoard your cash and wait it out a stint before making major moves. Don’t hire fast hire smart. If you are in a money problem environment maybe start with transparency and freezing of things like hiring? There just seems to be 100 better ways to approach this
alkonaut 4y ago
Should be noted that employment in Sweden is as far from “at will” as you can get. There is basically no legal difference between a union worker at a paper mill and a software developer at a startup (once it reaches a certain size). The law basically says that the last one in must be first out, and sidestepping this order requires negotiating severance with unions (yes also for white collar tech workers). So if you need to reduce headcount by 10% it’s going to be cheap if you fire the 10% most recent hires. If you want yo choose the 10% to cull it’s going to be expensive. The compensations in the article don’t look very generous at all.
- rsanek 4y ago
  It seems like the article is saying that the fact that there isn't a union is actually a big help in the ability to do this kind of lay-off. > Swedish companies must negotiate with unions before layoffs. However, this was not the case at Klarna, nor is it the case at most Swedish tech companies. Klarna does not have a collective bargaining agreement (called “kollektivavtal” in Swedish) in place. This means that Klarna as an employer is not forced to negotiate layoffs with a union. Instead, Klarna is entitled to negotiate directly with each affected employee, which they are doing. Klarna is also pretty big (7500 employees according to the article) so I imagine it doesn't have to do with the company size.
  - mongol 4y ago
    I never heard this before. I thought unions were always involved, regardless of kollektivavtal or not. Would like to hear from a Swedish expert on this.
    - rnd33 4y ago
      Yes, if unions exist at the company (which they did at Klarna), a company is required by law to negotiate with ALL employee organisations present at the company. This is one of the reasons large companies adopt kollektivavtal, it allows them to only have to negotiate with one union for employment changes. Source (Swedish law): https://lagen.nu/1976:580#P13S2 https://lagen.nu/1976:580#P13S2 Google translated: > If the employer is not bound by any collective agreement at all, the employer is obliged to negotiate in accordance with § 11 with all relevant employee organizations in matters relating to dismissal due to a lack of work [...]
throwaway859383 4y ago
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 from people often going beyond what was expected to "I'll do enough to keep my job". A colleague who was previously very keen working for Klarna and would often work a good 11 hours+ is now "disenchanted" and doesn't quite know what to do with themself. Job satisfaction and overall happiness has rapidly declined and is still going down. Some departments do internal anonymous surveys where people outright get asked if they are happy at work. From the ones I saw, every single one had a drop of at least 20%, some significantly more. Participation rate of those surveys has also declined. Most people I spoke to outright said they're not participating anymore because they're on the way out. A good 50% of the people I asked, outright said they are looking for a new job. I expect some are not sharing because they want to keep it a secret. I'm expecting my team to loose about 40% of its members within the next 5 months. As far as I know, there is only replacement hiring, no active hiring. One of my very talented colleagues that I have been working with for 3 years got laid off. During a chat with our direct supervisor I asked them if they could tell me the reason. Trying to reassure me, they said I had nothing to worry about and that my colleague wasn't fired for poor performance but other internal reason. I knew this colleagues salary so I also know they weren't let go because of their high salary. Since then my team has an open position that is hiring for this exact role. Make of that what you will. As you might have read from the article, communication was absolutely horrendous. One of the key things I'd like to mention is that Klarna always promoted open and frequent communication. Only this was never practiced by the C-Level. This was incredible apparent during the layoffs. Many people had questions but C-Level was dead silent and let HR people "manage" the fallout. My colleague had their meeting at the start of the working day on Tuesday (layoffs were announced the day before). My supervisor got told of the layoff 15 minutes before my colleagues meeting. Informing my supervisor was done through a 3 sentence slack message. 2 weeks after the announcement, quite a few pregnant women came forward that they also received an offer. Additionally, a lot of people on long term sick leave were contacted. Since the layoff decisions weren't made centrally, I doubt these groups we're specifically targeted but Klarna is, in comparison to the average Swedish company, quite international. I know of at least one case from a decision maker (not C-Level) that a woman was laid off because she was 8-months pregnant and due to go on her maternity leave. I'm not going to speculate on what, if any, legal actions are following from this.
jyriand 4y ago
Why do startups(tech companies) need so many employees? My first thought is that because of the rapid growth startups are plugging inefficient holes with more brains.
kqr 4y ago
Since this is presented as a voluntary separation agreement for the Swedish staff -- does anyone have information about what happened to those who went, "thanks but no thanks"? I assume they have to be let go in LIFO order, which ought to give them more time to get their affairs in order.
marsven_422 4y ago
xkbarkar 4y ago
Almost reads like a detective story as if not only mass layoffs, but poorly managed ones are unique to Klarna. Feels like the author has not really understood how incredibly common mass layffs as a tool for keeping profit margins really are. Layoffs sucks no doubt but I cant say I feel as "outraged" as the author seems to intend. My current employer cut 10% of the workforce about 3 years ago (1800 ppl).My preevious one did that twice (about 3500 people in total). Another former employer would cut 2-3% every other month or so. Then go on a hiring spree, and then cut again. Laying off 5% every year Microsoft style because of a crazy in house performance review system, now thats a news worthy evil story. This is just standard bad management vs profit margin not really interesting. Yea Sweden, it happened to you too. Welcome to the club.
literallyWTF 4y ago
Lol wow. What a complete shit show. Gotta love when a billionaire also shits on unions. And still people in this industry will forever think that unions are a waste of time.
koinedad 4y ago
Clear communication is not easy…
samcrawford 4y ago
The same author has been reporting diligently on Pollen, and has said he will do a write-up on the collapse there. I will be very interested to read that.
- SahAssar 4y ago
  Got some links? A quick search of the blog turned up nothing besides a quick mention here: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/pragmatic-engineer-test/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/pragmatic-engineer-test/
  - tomduncalf 4y ago
    It was on his Twitter AFAIK, for some reason Twitter search wouldn’t find it but here is the thread! https://mobile.twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1557841469674758146 https://mobile.twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1557841469674...
justin66 4y ago
> The CEO said employees at Klarna are superstars, and superstars don’t want unions negotiating for them. Actual superstars are happy to take advantage of what the Screen Actor's Guild does for them, just as the crew working on their shows are also happy to have their union, the writers are happy to have their union, and so on.
m8s 4y ago
Buy now pay later schemes are usually really terrible ideas. Companies like Klarna and Afterpay should be avoided at all costs. Often the loan repayment schedules are intentionally confusing and predatory. Here’s a relevant You Need A Budget podcast episode for those looking for more on this topic: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Z9NQoseq5nvutAInURR2r https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Z9NQoseq5nvutAInURR2r
- Cornelius267 4y ago
  The Venn diagram of C-levels who are willing to work at a company with an inherently predatory business model, and those who will lay people off and screw them over is basically a circle. It is impossible for someone who leads a company like that to be a good person. Why would anyone be surprised at them being heartless to their employees?
Maro 4y ago
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 story points to any (cultural) problems at Klarna. Layoffs are always tough and people will be unhappy. Based on the timelines presented in the article, everybody knew within 1-2 days whether they are affected or not, and affected people got a good severance package. By "good" I mean more than Klarna had to pay based on the law, based on the article. It's important to remember that 99% of working people in the world would not get this deal in a layoff. I think we (tech workers) need to stop expecting to always be treated as unicorn snowflakes (esp. in the current market conditions).
- doktorhladnjak 4y ago
  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).
  - Maro 4y ago
    Based on my reading of the article, Klarna didn't _target_ new joiners, they were just part of the unfortunate mix.
jupp0r 4y ago
Seems like a poorly executed layoff. I’ve seen a few of those in my previous job. Things like an SVP of Product congratulating the machine learning team for an awesome alpha demo and asking when we would be ready to ship this to customers. The answer he got was that it would never get to customers because he laid off the whole team the day before.
drakonka 4y ago
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.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  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...
  - drakonka 4y ago
    Swedish unions aren't perfect for sure, but so far I've only had positive experiences myself. I've luckily never had an actual conflict at work to bring my union in over though, so the extent of my experience has been calling them for general advice and getting an extra week of vacation as part of a collective agreement. I've also heard a few stories of coworkers bringing in union reps when they felt they were being pushed out on unfair terms and negotiating much better severance packages.
- Kiro 4y ago
  From my experience, it's not very common in tech companies in Sweden. They often lack collective agreements and in the last company I worked at I never heard anyone talk about it or say they were a member.
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
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.
mise_en_place 4y ago
These articles are a good reminder that everyone is expendable at a company. Plan accordingly and remember that income is way more important than net worth.
travisgriggs 4y ago
I admit that I was barely aware of this apparently largish company? I'd heard the name Klarna before, but knew nothing of it. And yet, I found myself reading this in a riveted fashion. Why is that? Is it just the macabre nature of humans to slow down when passing accidents? My anxiety about how the little guys world can suddenly be turned upside down? I'm honestly intrigued why I couldn't quit reading this.
CRConrad 4y ago
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.
- CRConrad 4y ago
  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? ___ [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2022/05/28/klarna-chief-defends-handling-of-staff-cuts-in-call-that-angers-some-employees/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2022/05/28/klarna-ch...

312 points by lauluz 4y ago

Re item “The pay cut of 2020 which became permanent”: the Day Job I had in 2008 used that year’s onset of the Great Recession to stop annual raises and *never* brought them back — at least, not while I was still there, which was until early 2015.

ivraatiems 4y ago
Wow, what kept you there so long?
- brycewray 4y ago
  No other opportunities to speak of; inertia; I was in my mid-50s at the time (59 by the time the final cut came for me) and didn't think a massive recession was a good time to look. Take your pick. :-) [Plus, I really liked the company. Had been there longer than in any other job, and it was where I wanted to be when retirement came. Wasn't to be, however.]

Areading314 4y ago

Klarna generated $1.42 billion revenue in 2021, a 32 percent year-on-year increase. A majority of Klarna’s income comes from interchange, processing and merchant fees. As Klarna has expanded its BNPL offering, its losses have increased. It reported a net loss of $730 million in 2021, a 337 percent increase on its 2020 loss. I would say its surprising that this company is still in business at all with numbers like this.

logifail 4y ago
> As Klarna has expanded its BNPL offering, its losses have increased. It reported a net loss of $730 million in 2021, a 337 percent increase on its 2020 loss Yet the tone from the acticle is that employees appeared to think the company was successful?
- bombcar 4y ago
  Employees base company success on internal metrics and how they're being paid, few employees bother looking at publicly available numbers lest they "jinx" it. (Or the ones that do see the writing on the wall and bail, or decide to ride it out as long as they can).
- foepys 4y ago
  Since Uber seems to be a benchmark for VC start-ups (Uber for X) and Uber is still losing money in the tens or hundreds of millions per year, I am not surprised that employees think that Klarna is a success.
- PheonixPharts 4y ago
  At least in tech there are people who have had decade+ long careers where it was very feasible to never work for a company that actually made more money than it spent. I've been at multiple startups that had VCs pressure leadership not to make profit because that would hurt growth of some other KPI of interest (users, revenue etc). In the last few year many of these people have seen these companies go public, and their imaginary Options/RSUs suddenly turn to liquid assets. Company hasn't started making profits, P/E is negative, but TC has gone up by 50%-200%. That certainly feels like success. Looking back at my own career the companies that made the least profit (including negative) are the ones that have paid me the most. I'm old enough to remember the pre-dotcom bust chats of "new economy" and "things are different now", and how all of the stuffy old finance people who thought businesses should make more than they spend where ultimately proven correct. For many people, even in their late 30s, the ability for a company to actually make more than it spends has been an academic curiosity, hardly relevant to the success of a company.
  - orzig 4y ago
    Agreed, and the opposite is true: I started at a small public company which had stopped growing and become profitable. It was targeted for a hostile takeover by PE who thought it could grow more. To their credit it did, and (to the extent your willing to believe unaudited financials) again became profitable.
  - 4y ago
Traubenfuchs 4y ago
That's insane -what's the magic event people believe will turn those losses around?
- mrweasel 4y ago
  It's kinda fascinating really. We had a client that had only ever lost money. Their idea was pretty good, they had what I'd call a working prototype and paying customers. Our CEO happened to know one of the investors, and chatted with him about the investment and the numbers we did on a whiteboard. Even if they grew their business with 10 times the number of customers, and each customer ramped up their usage 10 times it would take 10 - 12 years to make back the money that had already been spend. That was assuming no new investments and zero cost in those 10 to 12 years. The idea that this may not have been the best investment in history was more or less brushed, as the stock price would surely rise. VC funding is weird.
  - runnerup 4y ago
    Even if the already-invested money can’t be recouped, marginal additional investment could theoretically be with favorable (LIFO) terms offered typically offered to later investment. So sure, acknowledge a bad $300 million bet, but then throw your next $50 million at the same bet if it looks like the best place to put a marginal $50 million. I don’t always think investors are doing this rationally - sunk cost fallacy / gamblers paradox / greater fool theory / FOMO all play a part, but also recognize that lots of these super large investments are led by a small team using lots of other peoples money so there are ways for the decision-makers to come out closer to breakeven if much of the pot is lost. Also with potential IPO’s and sky high rate of valuation growth over the past decade, the “greater fool theory” isn’t necessarily an irrational motivation to invest. Not all smart investments are value-based.
    - lumost 4y ago
      A company built to operate as a 100 billion dollar behemoth can rarely transition to a 1 billion dollar success without lots of pain. To make this transition, your going to need to crush a lot of dreams and projects. Why would the result not be a hollowed out hulk of a company?
qbasic_forever 4y ago
For the past decade money has been effectively free to borrow with interest rates at zero. All the companies that immediately went bankrupt, into layoffs, etc. when interest rates were raised this year were coasting on these financial fumes.
- killSp4m 4y ago
  Powell wants to keep wages tethered to his preferred reality of 2% inflation versus the actual reality people live on. The real issue with inflation is it devalues the public hallucination; fiat money: https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-fed-chief-powells-postmeeting-press-conference-11651696613 https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-fed-chief-powells-po... Fear mongering over employment security is a favorite tactic: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-of-workers-is-a-big-factor-in-fed-policy.html https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-o... The reality is “people need to eat”, will trade as they must to do so. We don’t actually rely on government officials to do the work; we placate the die hards by speaking in the traditions. They’re yanking on the leash they have. Big tech looking to axe senior talent and big pay days for cheaper Gen Z grads; a quiet wealth redistribution plan. Some of the rich senior tech people would move on to cheaper locales and perhaps build businesses. We’re in the ML era and a lot of senior folks are from the “manually program a machine” era; that’s a way over valued skill set now; it’s everywhere. Cheaper talent with the latest collegiate training not the old ways baked in, could offset the expense of moonshots, hoping to boost an ML-backed cloud economy post generic server backed cloud. Google’s Eric Schmidt has been in DC lobbying for AI investment: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/6/9/23160588/eric-schmidt-americas-frontier-fund-google-alphabet-tech-government-revolving-door https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/6/9/23160588/eric-schmidt-am... Picking the winners right away to avoid the last decades shotgun approach.
hotpotamus 4y ago
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 money. Every day I feel like I live the Homer Simpson quote, "I don't know how the economy works".
- allenu 4y ago
  > 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 value (at least in terms of profit). I don't know. It just doesn't sit well with me knowing that a lot of products we build don't actually make any money. We're all just part of some weird system of money re-allocation and the software is just there as a signal that money should change hands.
  - blantonl 4y ago
    Rackspace?
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      Well spotted ;)
      - blantonl 4y ago
        I live in SA, also one of my neighbors was brought into the c-suite when they first went PE, so this story looked pretty familiar :)
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
RandomLensman 4y ago
From the outside, I find it difficult to judge as management might have been focused on top line growth (given investors preferences in recent years). A (possibly) changed focus could now mean a very different profit profile will develop.
tibbydudeza 4y ago
Uber
treis 4y ago
In a lot of ways internet businesses are like buying bonds. You pay some cost to acquire a customer and will get revenue from them over time. You can calculate a present value for that customer based on that future revenue. As long as that value is more than what you paid to acquire the customer you're making money. And if your numbers are right then you, more or less, want to spend as much money as you can buying customers. So that's how companies with numbers like this continue to operate. To put it simply, Klarna is spending a billion dollars to buy customers that will generate more than a billion dollars in revenue. The catch is that you have to pay now for later revenue. So your numbers look like crap until your existing customers far outnumber your new ones.
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  This is a very, very dangerous business to be in unless your numbers are rock solid and you make sure your models reflect reality.
  - deltree7 4y ago
    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
    - geysersam 4y ago
      Rewarded for luring people into consumption loan debt? Great system.
      - deltree7 4y ago
        debt is a fantastic instrument that solves a production / consumption mismatch of both individuals and humanity. A 55 year old is the most productive member of a society, but that is also the age where you start to consume very little. Imagine if you had to 'save' to get your college education, your home, a laptop, or starting a business. There is a reason we don't ask babies to 'pay up' for milk or shelter. Imagine if Larry Page or Sergey Brin had to work and save to start Google. Imagine if government had to save trillions of dollars before investing in Carbon Capture and renewable energy generations. Yes, all good things can be abused. But you can't prevent good things for 95% society because a 5% of the society abuses it
lumost 4y ago
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.
- treis 4y ago
  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.
  - lumost 4y ago
    Are we sure that that's true? As a private company klarna can choose any metric they so desire as revenue...
    - christophilus 4y ago
      What? Isn’t revenue kind of … revenue? What else can it be?
      - lumost 4y ago
        To my knowledge, there isn't any reason klarna can't describe their transaction volume as revenue. Then declare their margin 3%. As a private tech company I would assume that they are using the broadest possible definition of revenue.
        junofan 4y ago
        Dunno about Sweden but lots of compensation stuff triggers financial reporting requirements for obvious reasons.
        Montaque 4y ago
        No. GAAP and IFRS have very strict definitions of Revenue. Transaction volume falls under the agency principle. Its not the Co's revenue.
throwaway859383 4y ago
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.
- indymike 4y ago
  Employee count may be the worst business metric of all time.
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    depends, for what? it is a good metric for number of employees you employ :)
  - throwaway98797 4y ago
    money raised is better (worse)

speedgoose 4y ago

I’m surprised to read that Klarna had 7500 employees. It seems to be a lot for an online payment company offering consumer loans. What were the people doing?

akmarinov 4y ago
> Klarna’s “Super App” was an area getting lots of investment in 2021. This investment was a step away from the core offering of the handling of payments. The vision of this app was to create an experience where people could do all their shopping within a Klarna super-app. However, this super app never launched as planned. Internally, confusion arose when it emerged the super app would use scraped data from customers who were already partners of Klarna. The super app efforts are still progressing slower than originally planned, and some employees think the company is spending too much on this area for too little return. Trying to come up with something out of nothing it seems
- speedgoose 4y ago
  But can you keep thousands of people busy on such a project?
  - djbusby 4y ago
    A technique I learned from possibly the worst project/product manager ever was to have loads of meetings. And over schedule them. And show up late. It makes everything so slow, and you have to have more people so that somehow, in between meetings a line of code could be written.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Apparently every "payment" app/startup is valued as if it will somehow magically replace Amazon instantly. I don't understand it myself, but that's what happens.
- enviclash 4y ago
  I might be just an ignorant user in Europe, but this super-app thing could scare me out of Klarna and let me find an alternative, I got uncomfortable with the app when they required unnecessary data for a payment.

xBK 4y ago

With Klarna's valuation spiralling downwards, those bonuses in RSU's couldn't have been timed worst for the workers.

bombcar 4y ago
A 'deal' forced on you is almost always not to your benefit (or it wouldn't have to be forced).

enviclash 4y ago

I am a user. Annecdotically, since a few weeks ago the app started working slow and not as perfect as before, when it was flawless for years.

chrsig 4y ago

> 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't say where your weak areas are, you're not improving. One of the experiences that untreated ADHD blessed me with was routinely failing classes. That repeated exposure to undeniable failure (and the consequences of it) really helped me accept that failure is the default. If you're not constantly fighting against failure, you're failing. You can't pretend that something didn't work out, or stop thinking about it because it hurts. 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. We need more leaders that talk about the things we could be doing better, and doing so inspirationally, not derogatorily. It's ok that you're not the best at something. Very few are. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't do better. Try internalizing that if you're not constantly struggling to do better, you're not living up to your potential.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> experiences that untreated ADHD blessed me with was routinely failing classes. That repeated exposure to undeniable failure Huh. Never thought of this. In a balanced culture, this offers no advantage. But in one still recovering from the self esteem days, when even games were encouraged not to produce any losers, I see how that awareness is competitive.
- chrsig 4y ago
  I used the word blessed somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I'm not sure I would call it an advantage, rather just a different set of experiences than a large majority of the tech world.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    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 learning from it so that you can try again.

greenwithenvy 4y ago

There'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.

dcminter 4y ago
There was a corresponding joke at Klarna that Spotify was part of the natural promotion path.
- greenwithenvy 4y ago
  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.
  - dcminter 4y ago
    I don't think anyone thought it did.
d-trieu 4y ago
Not just at Spotify, at both of my previous jobs we were joking about picking up Klarna employees that has managed to disconnect from the Matrix.

smashah 4y ago

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/statement emails from them even though I have yet to use a single penny of their credit facility. Too bad they don't use all that marketing budget on competent customer experience/service.

antupis 4y ago
Yup funny how big they growth becouse they pretty much dont add anything to consumer experience and they are well know issues like if you know social security number you can order stuff.
BonoboIO 4y ago
Hit them hard with a GDPR request, forward it to your local privacy organization. In Europe this is popcorn time.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  This is what I do with every single company I have even the slightest negative interaction with regarding my data. Its a lot of fun.
- smashah 4y ago
  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.
mlonkibjuyhv 4y ago
Oh all the things I wish they would use their marketing budget on. For instance they still can't correctly compute different VAT classes in their merchant reports.
chrisseaton 4y ago

lupire 4y ago

The layoffs are 1/3 of the headcount growth in the past year. That's just embarrassing for the planners.

bastardoperator 4y ago

I left a company at the beginning of covid that jumped at the opportunity to reduces everyone's pay... except the executives.

ec109685 4y ago

I’m not sure who the audience of all 5000 words of that article. Obviously it caused me to click the link, but it seems like a lot of excruciating detail about internal company process. I guess its useful for potential future Klarna recruits. And there’s an even longer extended version behind a paywall! https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/layoffs-at-klarna https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/layoffs-at-klarna

brtkdotse 4y ago
Oh, come on. Everybody likes a good, juicy airing of dirty laundry.

dom96 4y ago

Adjacent to the topic of this article but I really love Gergely's reporting. It's great that he is shining a light at how poorly these companies are handling layoffs. Hopeful that this will change our industry for the better.

mrweasel 4y ago

> 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 said: Why does Klarna have 7500 people employed? I feel bad for the people who will be losing/have lost their job, but they also won't be the last in tech. Klarna have done what Google, Twitter and other have done, hired people they didn't need, so now productivity per employee is too low. 15 years ago I worked for a company that used Klara for payment, right when they started to expand beyond Sweden. The experience was interesting to say the least. They where completely naive about fraud. They didn't understand the markets they where trying to expand to. If everything else failed, payback the customers and let the retailers deal with any loses. While I'm sure they improved, based last my experience with them in 2016, I don't see how they could be ready to enter the US market.

jks 4y ago
> 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. Finland has in some respects even more stringent employment laws than Sweden. If a company is laying off people, it needs to "negotiate" with employee representatives for a set amount of time. For small companies or small layoffs, the time is two weeks, but if there are at least 30 employees and the layoff affects at least 10 of them, the negotiation time is six weeks. Companies typically say at the outset which employee groups are affected but delay the decisions about individual employees to the end. I don't know if this is by law, but I suppose that saying sooner would be an opening for a union to claim that the negotiations were not done in good faith, and possibly sue the company. Having been a potentially affected employee on two occasions and an employee representative on one of them, let me say that waiting six weeks for the decision is not fun for anyone.
lumost 4y ago
For the last 7 years I noticed a strange trend in tech. The skill of management was not getting the people you needed, but instead turning down people you didn't. Whenever ive been a manager for the last 7 years its the same. One day you get a ping for “can you onboard X”. It doesn't matter if you had work for one more person or not, thus projects are created for them to do something.

jedberg 4y ago

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 friends outside of work and would probably make a better choice than her. I ended up volunteering because one other guy had just bought a house and had a baby and the other guy had debts to pay off and I didn't. Ended up working with both those guys again. One of them ended up leaving and getting a new job, then he pulled me in after 1.5 years of unemployment, and then we pulled the last guy in after he eventually got let go.

curiousllama 4y ago
> 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 went smoothly, which is 100%, A+, great. But HOOO BOY, that was a HIGH RISK move by your boss. I sincerely can't imagine the clusterf** that would've resulted from that at some of the places I've worked. Good GOD. This is an invitation for a lawsuit on a silver platter, holy guacamole.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Oh yeah for sure. The only reason she could do it is because we all got along. I would not recommend this approach for most managers. :)
- stormbrew 4y ago
  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.

ImPleadThe5th 4y ago

I heard some horror stories from some managers that have since left. They were not told that there would be any layoffs, and when their employees came and asked them what it was all about there was no support from the top so they had to just tell everyone "I don't know". What an awful position to put people in.

redleggedfrog 4y ago

Well, that's some seriously incompetent management. Thing is, when these reports get out and later I'm assessing tech to potentially use I go back in my head "Oh yeah Klarna - incompetence. Moving on."

rvz 4y ago

I mean the warning signs of the overvaluation and hype around Klarna was there ever since a private early investor unloaded their shares on to retail via an online investment [0] [1] platform at $45B, last year December. [2] Those 6,000+ retail investors who FOMOed and bought in are now down more than 80% of their investment due to the down-rounds, with the private early investor escaping and banking $8 million. So it is no surprise that the layoffs had to happen especially with the recent rate hikes which are accelerating the costs at Klarna. [0] https://www.crowdcube.com/cubex/klarna https://www.crowdcube.com/cubex/klarna [1] https://milled.com/navia/klarna-pitch-is-launching-tomorrow-M8Nu5U_wMFBssK4b https://milled.com/navia/klarna-pitch-is-launching-tomorrow-... [2] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/online-investment-platform-crowdcube-secures-allocation-of-stock-in-fintech-firm-klarna-cct7phr0w https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/online-investment-platfor...

rconti 4y ago

> 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/ https://www.personio.com/hr-lexicon/garden-leave-uk/

nibbleshifter 4y ago
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.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  So ... handovers is not a thing at Klarna?
  - nibbleshifter 4y ago
    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.
esel2k 4y ago
Isn’t garden leave agreeing that you won’t work for the competition? Or is it even saying not working at all, not even in an unrelated job? If I had a job the next day I might just enjoy two salaries. Would this be blocked by a garden leave agreement?

throwaway36756 4y ago

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 was because Niklas Adalberth was getting rid of people he didn’t like and that the main reason my firing in the way it was done. I was invited to an external meeting room at 17:00 in the Stockholm office with my boss and my boss’s boss, where they proceeded to tell me “we think we need someone else in your position”. My boss looked helpless and sat quietly the whole time. My boss’s boss did all the talking and seemed just like someone following orders. Reading this now it’s sad to see how nothing has changed at Klarna and makes me think that even if Niklas did had something to do with my firing that it couldn’t have happened without Sebastian’s knowledge and approval. My experience of Sebastian was that he was a talented product guy, but unfortunately seems to leave a lot to be desired as CEO.

doktorhladnjak 4y ago
What happened to you is not a lay off. You got fired!
Aradalf 4y ago
It sounds like you were fired, not laid off.
dudul 4y ago
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.

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ygram 4y ago

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.

deleted 4y ago
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whichdan 4y ago
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.
- ygram 4y ago
  Do people ever try to negotiate higher salary instead of health endurance from employer and then have a private one instead?
  - doktorhladnjak 4y ago
    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.
  - rhinoceraptor 4y ago
    I've never heard of that, it would cost you more than it would cost the employer since you first have to pay taxes on your income, and employers can often get better rates.
drc500free 4y ago
Private insurance can be thousands of dollars a month, so before Obamacare it was a pretty niche thing. It still kind of is, because for professional jobs the expectation is a massively subsidized health plan. Voluntarily paying an extra $1500/month for the independence of not relying on your employer is not a choice most people would make.

jarym 4y ago

> this approach was the fairest option for all I have heard this line a few times for HR recently and it makes me cringe every time. Putting everyone in the same shitty boat is never fair. Takes me back to George Orwell’s Animal Farm every time!

status200 4y ago

It is unfortunate that people lost their jobs, but is anyone else not upset that a "buy now, pay later" company is struggling? They are exacerbating consumer's reliance on credit and causing some reckless spending, I personally believe they do more harm than good.

no_wizard 4y ago

I don’t understand why companies do these scale up things. Hoard your cash and wait it out a stint before making major moves. Don’t hire fast hire smart. If you are in a money problem environment maybe start with transparency and freezing of things like hiring? There just seems to be 100 better ways to approach this

alkonaut 4y ago

Should be noted that employment in Sweden is as far from “at will” as you can get. There is basically no legal difference between a union worker at a paper mill and a software developer at a startup (once it reaches a certain size). The law basically says that the last one in must be first out, and sidestepping this order requires negotiating severance with unions (yes also for white collar tech workers). So if you need to reduce headcount by 10% it’s going to be cheap if you fire the 10% most recent hires. If you want yo choose the 10% to cull it’s going to be expensive. The compensations in the article don’t look very generous at all.

rsanek 4y ago
It seems like the article is saying that the fact that there isn't a union is actually a big help in the ability to do this kind of lay-off. > Swedish companies must negotiate with unions before layoffs. However, this was not the case at Klarna, nor is it the case at most Swedish tech companies. Klarna does not have a collective bargaining agreement (called “kollektivavtal” in Swedish) in place. This means that Klarna as an employer is not forced to negotiate layoffs with a union. Instead, Klarna is entitled to negotiate directly with each affected employee, which they are doing. Klarna is also pretty big (7500 employees according to the article) so I imagine it doesn't have to do with the company size.
- mongol 4y ago
  I never heard this before. I thought unions were always involved, regardless of kollektivavtal or not. Would like to hear from a Swedish expert on this.
  - rnd33 4y ago
    Yes, if unions exist at the company (which they did at Klarna), a company is required by law to negotiate with ALL employee organisations present at the company. This is one of the reasons large companies adopt kollektivavtal, it allows them to only have to negotiate with one union for employment changes. Source (Swedish law): https://lagen.nu/1976:580#P13S2 https://lagen.nu/1976:580#P13S2 Google translated: > If the employer is not bound by any collective agreement at all, the employer is obliged to negotiate in accordance with § 11 with all relevant employee organizations in matters relating to dismissal due to a lack of work [...]

throwaway859383 4y ago

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 from people often going beyond what was expected to "I'll do enough to keep my job". A colleague who was previously very keen working for Klarna and would often work a good 11 hours+ is now "disenchanted" and doesn't quite know what to do with themself. Job satisfaction and overall happiness has rapidly declined and is still going down. Some departments do internal anonymous surveys where people outright get asked if they are happy at work. From the ones I saw, every single one had a drop of at least 20%, some significantly more. Participation rate of those surveys has also declined. Most people I spoke to outright said they're not participating anymore because they're on the way out. A good 50% of the people I asked, outright said they are looking for a new job. I expect some are not sharing because they want to keep it a secret. I'm expecting my team to loose about 40% of its members within the next 5 months. As far as I know, there is only replacement hiring, no active hiring. One of my very talented colleagues that I have been working with for 3 years got laid off. During a chat with our direct supervisor I asked them if they could tell me the reason. Trying to reassure me, they said I had nothing to worry about and that my colleague wasn't fired for poor performance but other internal reason. I knew this colleagues salary so I also know they weren't let go because of their high salary. Since then my team has an open position that is hiring for this exact role. Make of that what you will. As you might have read from the article, communication was absolutely horrendous. One of the key things I'd like to mention is that Klarna always promoted open and frequent communication. Only this was never practiced by the C-Level. This was incredible apparent during the layoffs. Many people had questions but C-Level was dead silent and let HR people "manage" the fallout. My colleague had their meeting at the start of the working day on Tuesday (layoffs were announced the day before). My supervisor got told of the layoff 15 minutes before my colleagues meeting. Informing my supervisor was done through a 3 sentence slack message. 2 weeks after the announcement, quite a few pregnant women came forward that they also received an offer. Additionally, a lot of people on long term sick leave were contacted. Since the layoff decisions weren't made centrally, I doubt these groups we're specifically targeted but Klarna is, in comparison to the average Swedish company, quite international. I know of at least one case from a decision maker (not C-Level) that a woman was laid off because she was 8-months pregnant and due to go on her maternity leave. I'm not going to speculate on what, if any, legal actions are following from this.

jyriand 4y ago

Why do startups(tech companies) need so many employees? My first thought is that because of the rapid growth startups are plugging inefficient holes with more brains.

kqr 4y ago

Since this is presented as a voluntary separation agreement for the Swedish staff -- does anyone have information about what happened to those who went, "thanks but no thanks"? I assume they have to be let go in LIFO order, which ought to give them more time to get their affairs in order.

marsven_422 4y ago

xkbarkar 4y ago

Almost reads like a detective story as if not only mass layoffs, but poorly managed ones are unique to Klarna. Feels like the author has not really understood how incredibly common mass layffs as a tool for keeping profit margins really are. Layoffs sucks no doubt but I cant say I feel as "outraged" as the author seems to intend. My current employer cut 10% of the workforce about 3 years ago (1800 ppl).My preevious one did that twice (about 3500 people in total). Another former employer would cut 2-3% every other month or so. Then go on a hiring spree, and then cut again. Laying off 5% every year Microsoft style because of a crazy in house performance review system, now thats a news worthy evil story. This is just standard bad management vs profit margin not really interesting. Yea Sweden, it happened to you too. Welcome to the club.

literallyWTF 4y ago

Lol wow. What a complete shit show. Gotta love when a billionaire also shits on unions. And still people in this industry will forever think that unions are a waste of time.

koinedad 4y ago

Clear communication is not easy…

samcrawford 4y ago

The same author has been reporting diligently on Pollen, and has said he will do a write-up on the collapse there. I will be very interested to read that.

SahAssar 4y ago
Got some links? A quick search of the blog turned up nothing besides a quick mention here: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/pragmatic-engineer-test/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/pragmatic-engineer-test/
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  It was on his Twitter AFAIK, for some reason Twitter search wouldn’t find it but here is the thread! https://mobile.twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1557841469674758146 https://mobile.twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1557841469674...

justin66 4y ago

> The CEO said employees at Klarna are superstars, and superstars don’t want unions negotiating for them. Actual superstars are happy to take advantage of what the Screen Actor's Guild does for them, just as the crew working on their shows are also happy to have their union, the writers are happy to have their union, and so on.

m8s 4y ago

Buy now pay later schemes are usually really terrible ideas. Companies like Klarna and Afterpay should be avoided at all costs. Often the loan repayment schedules are intentionally confusing and predatory. Here’s a relevant You Need A Budget podcast episode for those looking for more on this topic: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Z9NQoseq5nvutAInURR2r https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Z9NQoseq5nvutAInURR2r

Cornelius267 4y ago
The Venn diagram of C-levels who are willing to work at a company with an inherently predatory business model, and those who will lay people off and screw them over is basically a circle. It is impossible for someone who leads a company like that to be a good person. Why would anyone be surprised at them being heartless to their employees?

Maro 4y ago

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 story points to any (cultural) problems at Klarna. Layoffs are always tough and people will be unhappy. Based on the timelines presented in the article, everybody knew within 1-2 days whether they are affected or not, and affected people got a good severance package. By "good" I mean more than Klarna had to pay based on the law, based on the article. It's important to remember that 99% of working people in the world would not get this deal in a layoff. I think we (tech workers) need to stop expecting to always be treated as unicorn snowflakes (esp. in the current market conditions).

doktorhladnjak 4y ago
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).
- Maro 4y ago
  Based on my reading of the article, Klarna didn't _target_ new joiners, they were just part of the unfortunate mix.

jupp0r 4y ago

Seems like a poorly executed layoff. I’ve seen a few of those in my previous job. Things like an SVP of Product congratulating the machine learning team for an awesome alpha demo and asking when we would be ready to ship this to customers. The answer he got was that it would never get to customers because he laid off the whole team the day before.

drakonka 4y ago

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.

Ekaros 4y ago
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...
- drakonka 4y ago
  Swedish unions aren't perfect for sure, but so far I've only had positive experiences myself. I've luckily never had an actual conflict at work to bring my union in over though, so the extent of my experience has been calling them for general advice and getting an extra week of vacation as part of a collective agreement. I've also heard a few stories of coworkers bringing in union reps when they felt they were being pushed out on unfair terms and negotiating much better severance packages.
Kiro 4y ago
From my experience, it's not very common in tech companies in Sweden. They often lack collective agreements and in the last company I worked at I never heard anyone talk about it or say they were a member.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

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.

mise_en_place 4y ago

These articles are a good reminder that everyone is expendable at a company. Plan accordingly and remember that income is way more important than net worth.

travisgriggs 4y ago

I admit that I was barely aware of this apparently largish company? I'd heard the name Klarna before, but knew nothing of it. And yet, I found myself reading this in a riveted fashion. Why is that? Is it just the macabre nature of humans to slow down when passing accidents? My anxiety about how the little guys world can suddenly be turned upside down? I'm honestly intrigued why I couldn't quit reading this.

CRConrad 4y ago

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.

CRConrad 4y ago
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? ___ [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2022/05/28/klarna-chief-defends-handling-of-staff-cuts-in-call-that-angers-some-employees/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2022/05/28/klarna-ch...