According to Fortune, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, the CEO of buy-now, pay-later giant Klarna, said he feels “gloomy” because AI is developing so fast it will soon be able to do his entire job. He stated in an X post earlier this year that the critical breakthrough in AI reasoning is already behind us, making this inevitable. His company has stopped hiring for over a year, and AI is now doing the work of hundreds of staff, contributing to a 22% headcount drop to 3,500 people. A 2023 edX survey found nearly half of CEOs believe most or all of their job should be automated. Meanwhile, Imad Riachi, CEO of AI firm Honu, argues AI’s complex reasoning will soon outpace the human brain for corporate decision-making.
The CEO existential crisis
Here’s the thing: Siemiatkowski’s honesty is refreshing, but it’s also a massive red flag. He’s basically admitting that the core function of a high-level executive—reasoning with knowledge and experience—is now a commodity that software can replicate. That’s a wild thing for a CEO to say publicly. And he’s not alone; that edX survey suggests a surprising number of his peers are thinking the same way. But his personal “gloom” is fascinating. His identity is tied to his work, and watching a machine learn to do it is an existential bummer. So what does he do? He accelerates it at his own company, replacing people with AI. It’s a bizarre, almost contradictory position: mourning the loss of meaningful work while actively making it obsolete for others.
The AI productivity push
Now, Klarna’s actions are the real story. They’ve cut headcount dramatically and have about 200 people using AI to do their core work. Siemiatkowski says some employees are “rallying” to use AI to boost their own paychecks, as the efficiency gains will let the company raise salaries faster. That sounds great in a press release, but let’s be skeptical. Is that a sustainable model, or just a short-term incentive to get staff to automate their own roles? The company’s value is still around $14 billion, so the market loves the cost-cutting narrative. But this creates a weird internal dynamic. You’re essentially asking your team to build their own replacements, with a cash bonus as a consolation prize. How long does that morale last?
The decision-making debate
This is where the vision gets really sci-fi. Guys like Imad Riachi from Honu (who you can find on X here) aren’t just talking about automating tasks. They’re talking about AI evaluating corporate performance, analyzing millions of scenarios, and executing strategy. That’s the full C-suite package. But is that real, or just hype to sell “decision infrastructure”? Other AI leaders, like Akash Nigam of avatar company Genies (which counts former Disney CEO Bob Iger as an investor and board member, per this PR), push back. They argue a CEO’s role needs emotional intelligence, adaptability, and nuanced leadership—things AI can’t replicate yet. I think that’s the crucial word: *yet*. The race is on to see if AI can crack the code of human judgment and relationships, not just data.
The brutal honesty
So what are we left with? A top CEO publicly stating his job is on the chopping block. A company aggressively replacing human labor with AI to please investors. And a split in the tech world between those who think AI will run everything and those who think it’s just a powerful tool. Siemiatkowski’s gloom might be the most human reaction of all. He sees the future clearly, doesn’t like his place in it, but feels compelled to charge ahead anyway. It’s a preview of the massive identity and economic crisis coming for knowledge workers at every level. The reasoning machine is here. Now we have to figure out what’s left for us to do.
