Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the co-founder and CEO of Sweden-based company Klarna, one of the world’s largest providers of buy now, pay later services. Klarna started in Europe and entered the US market in 2015.
Buy now, pay later has become an increasingly popular option for consumers to make purchases: Its use has increased 10-fold since the pandemic, and U.S. regulators see it as a potentially more sustainable way for borrowers to pay for purchases instead of using a credit card.
Siemiatkowski told the AP how popular buy now, pay later has become since the pandemic, why consumers are choosing it and how the company uses artificial intelligence software in hiring.
You operated in Europe for several years before coming to America. What brought you here?
We found that there is a fairly large group of US consumers who they call self-aware avoiders, people who get burned by credit card bad practices when considering coming to the US. We found that there was a fairly large audience who preferred to use a debit card but wanted to use a one-off loan from time to time, and for whom the buy now, pay later approach suits them very well.
Klarna announced a hiring freeze in November, citing the use of artificial intelligence as a reason to hold off on creating new positions. What is the background and reason for this decision?
We became one of the first corporate customers of OpenAI when it launched earlier this year, and we have been using it across the entire organization. But as a CEO, you cannot entirely predict how a technology would be applied and what and where it will have the biggest impact. So what we are doing is encouraging different teams to use it as much as possible and double down on where it really has worked.