Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Swedish fintech firm Klarna, says the group is about to make use of drastically fewer folks. And he says he shares his outlook on the workforce with one other CEO: Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.
Siemiatkowski made the feedback on the 20 VC podcast with Harry Stebbings earlier this week, the place the CEO didn’t deny that the corporate has been steadily shrinking.
The CEO mentioned that at the moment the corporate has about 3,000 workers. That’s down from 7,000 simply 4 years in the past. In one other 4, he says there’ll probably be lower than 2,000—a discount of one-third.
Siemiatkowsk mentioned workers leaving the corporate aren’t being changed, and defined that AI’s integration permits for fewer workers.
Klarna’s slimming down comes whilst buy now, pay later (BNPL) services are booming. Round 30% of Individuals say they’ve used them, in line with a 2025 Bankrate report. And in 2025, in line with a PartnerCentric survey, 35% mentioned they deliberate to make use of the companies much more. The recognition is pushed by the truth that Klarna, like different BNPL choices, permits buyers to separate purchases into interest-free installments, pay inside 30 days, and even go for longer-term financing choices. Likewise, 1000’s of outlets now settle for BNPL.
Nonetheless, the success of such companies not appears to equate to the necessity for extra workers, as AI’s impression looms bigger—one thing some leaders have been more and more warning about.
Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei wrote of his gravest issues about AI in a recent essay that included gadgets like lack of autonomy, “misuse for destruction” and “highly effective AI” which he writes is “undoubtedly coming.”
Amodei writes: “I feel it ought to be clear that this can be a harmful scenario—a report from a reliable nationwide safety official to a head of state would in all probability include phrases like ‘the one most severe nationwide safety menace we’ve confronted in a century, probably ever.’ It looks like one thing the very best minds of civilization ought to be targeted on.” The CEO additionally predicted AI may take away the necessity for 50 p.c of all white-collar entry-level jobs within the subsequent one to 5 years, doubling down on a stance he’s warned about previously.
Worryingly, Klarna’s CEO doesn’t disagree with Amodei’s stance, acknowledging that he’s “in Dario’s camp” on issues round AI.
“I need to be trustworthy about the truth that I do assume there’s going to be a really large shift,” Siemiatkowski mentioned on the podcast.
Particularly, he echoed the issues round job loss. “I’m an optimist at coronary heart, however I additionally need to be a realist round what’s going to occur within the shorter time period, and it’s going to be loads of turmoil on this.”
Regardless, whereas the CEO appeared to precise some main issues round AI’s fast developments, Siemiatkowski has leaned into them closely. In 2024, he introduced that AI may deal with a rising variety of jobs because the company paused hiring and reduced its size by 2,000 employees. However, as Business Insider reported, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than buyer satisfaction dipped, and the corporate needed to scramble to reassign workers to buyer help to deal with the fallout. (Klarna says that as a result of AI can deal with the easy requests, those remaining are extra complicated and required hiring new buyer help brokers).
Quick Firm reached out to Klarna to inquire on whether or not the corporate would cut back its relationship with AI. A consultant mentioned Klarna “didn’t lean an excessive amount of into AI,” however its “pondering on human customer support” has modified.
The consultant continued, “Once you automate a considerable amount of the easier customer support requests, you might be left with essentially the most complicated and delicate circumstances . . . So we now have begun to straight rent a small variety of human brokers straight employed by Klarna, not at outsourced suppliers.”
This text has been up to date to mirror the truth that Klarna’s discount in measurement has been as a result of attrition, to not layoffs. Moreover, we now have eliminated a reference to a social media submit by Siemiatkowski that was taken out of context.
