This Week’s Buzz in Silicon Valley: Is Klarna’s CEO Right About AI and Salesforce?

First published September 14.

During a press briefing this week, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff stirred debate when he mentioned Klarna’s recent decision to drop Salesforce and Workday in favor of in-house AI solutions. Benioff expressed skepticism about how Klarna, led by Swedish CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, will manage complex issues like data governance and compliance without the backing of established platforms like Salesforce. He raised concerns about whether AI alone can handle the scale and reliability that enterprise customers expect.

Siemiatkowski, however, remains confident that AI will streamline Klarna's operations and significantly reduce costs. He believes this move is a bold step into the future of enterprise technology, particularly in replacing traditional software solutions. His decision has sparked debate in Silicon Valley, with some seeing it as a risky gamble while others view it as the future of enterprise software.

Supporters of Siemiatkowski’s strategy argue that AI has helped Klarna automate customer service, reduce overhead, and simplify its tech stack, demonstrating the potential to make traditional SaaS systems like Salesforce and Workday obsolete. Whether this vision can scale remains to be seen, but Klarna’s AI-first approach challenges the status quo.

Meanwhile, Nvidia's dominance in the AI chip market is another buzz that keeps popping up almost weekly. Some speculate that AMD or another competitor might soon challenge Nvidia’s position. If or when this happens, companies like CoreWeave, co-founded by Swedish entrepreneur Peter Salanki, which has heavily relied on access to Nvidia's GPUs, might find themselves in big trouble—and they won't be alone in facing the consequences of such a shift.