British fintech Wise said this week it would shift its primary listing from London to New York, joining a growing list of firms snubbing the London Stock Exchange. UK chip designer Arm opted for a New York IPO in 2023, while food delivery giant Just Eat Takeaway quit the LSE for Amsterdam in November.  Sweden’s Klarna has confirmed plans to go public in New York, following in the footsteps of fellow Stockholm-based tech darling Spotify, which listed on the NYSE in 2018.  The draw? Bigger valuations, deeper capital, and more appetite for risk. Register Now “The US economy continues to perform far better than the EU, and valuations are simply higher for companies that can list there,” Victor Basta, managing partner at Artis Partners, told TNW.    The numbers back him up. The NYSE boasts a market cap of around $27 trillion — compared to just $3.5 trillion for the LSE.  That scale — and the deep-pocketed investors it attracts — pushed Arm to list across the pond. Wise followed for the same reason, according to CEO Kristo Käärmann.  Käärmann said the move would tap “the biggest market opportunity in the world for our products today, and enable better access to the world’s deepest and most liquid capital market.”  Beyond sheer growth potential, US investors are also known for taking bigger bets on growth-stage tech companies.   “US investors understand the whole ‘revenue-before-profit’ strategy,”  Andrey Korchak, a British serial entrepreneur, told TNW. “Meanwhile, in Europe, they often want to see revenue from day one.”  That risk aversion, Korchak believes, restricts the growth of startups. “Europe just doesn’t have the same density of tech unicorns,” he said. “And when startups here do hit that billion-dollar mark, most still prefer to list in the US.” Sean Reddington, co-founder of UK tech firm Thrive, fears that Wise’s New York listing will deepen the problems.  “Wise’s move to the US signals a worrying trend,” he said. “It threatens a ‘brain drain’ of capital and talent, making it harder for growth-stage VCs to invest in UK scaleups without a clear US exit plan.” He called for urgent government action, including providing “meaningful incentives” for tech firms to list in the UK.  “If the ultimate reward of a domestic IPO is diminished, it pushes more companies to consider relocating or listing overseas,” he said. Europe’s startup struggles will be a hot topic at TNW Conference, which takes place on June 19-20 in Amsterdam. Tickets for the event are now on sale — use the code TNWXMEDIA2025 at checkout to get 30%. Story by Siôn Geschwindt Siôn is a freelance science and technology reporter, specialising in climate and energy. From nuclear fusion breakthroughs to electric vehic (show all) Siôn is a freelance science and technology reporter, specialising in climate and energy. From nuclear fusion breakthroughs to electric vehicles, he's happiest sourcing a scoop, investigating the impact of emerging technologies, and even putting them to the test. He has five years of journalism experience and holds a dual degree in media and environmental science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. When he's not writing, you can probably find Siôn out hiking, surfing, playing the drums or catering to his moderate caffeine addiction. You can contact him at: sion.geschwindt [at] protonmail [dot] com Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week. Also tagged with

Klarna’s CEO has warned that software engineers risk being left behind in the AI era — unless they’re also business-savvy. Speaking at SXSW London, Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the talent “who have really accelerated their careers at Klarna” are “business people who have learned to code.” The reason? “They can take their business understanding and turn it into deterministic or probabilistic statements with AI.” This shift, he warned, poses a threat to engineers. “A lot of them have allowed themselves to be isolated with technical challenges only, and not been that interested in what the business actually does,” he said. His message to them was blunt: “Engineers really need to step up and make sure they understand the business.” The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!Siemiatkowski’s comments add another layer to Klarna’s controversial AI transformation. In December 2023, he said advances in the field had led the buy-now-pay-later firm to freeze hiring for all roles — except engineers. A year later, he had an update: the company had stopped bringing on new staff entirely. Open job listings, however, told a different story. Klarna also recently launched a new recruitment drive to ensure customers can always speak to a human. The apparent contradiction has drawn criticism, but the company is doubling down on automation. Last year, Klarna announced that its OpenAI-powered assistant was doing the work of 700 full-time customer service agents. It also used an AI-generated version of Siemiatkowski to present its financial update — suggesting even CEOs could be automated. The 43-year-old recently claimed that AI can already do “all of the jobs” that humans can do. At SXSW London, he stressed the need to be upfront about the risks. “I don’t want to be one of the tech CEOs that are like no worries everything will be fine, because I do think there will be major implications for white collar jobs and so I want to be honest about it,” he said. Despite the gloom, Siemiatkowski still sees big opportunities for people who blend business acumen with technical skills. “That category of people will become even more valuable going forward,” he said. Big names from both AI and fintech will be speaking at TNW Conference on June 19-20 in Amsterdam. Want to join them? Well, we have a special offer for you — use the code TNWXMEDIA2025 at the ticket checkout to get 30% off. Story by Thomas Macaulay Managing editor Thomas is the managing editor of TNW. He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers. Away from work, he e (show all) Thomas is the managing editor of TNW. He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers. Away from work, he enjoys playing chess (badly) and the guitar (even worse). Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week. Also tagged with

What just happened? Hearing people warn about the danger that generative AI presents to the global job market is concerning enough, but it's especially worrying when these ominous predictions come from those behind the technology. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, believes that AI could wipe out about half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next five years, leading to unemployment spikes up to 20%. Amodei made his comments during an interview with Axios. He said that AI companies and the government needed to stop "sugar-coating" the potential mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, with entry-level jobs most at risk. Amodei said he was making this warning public in the hope that the government and other AI giants such as OpenAI will start preparing ways to protect the nation from a situation that could get out of hand. "Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen," Amodei said. "It sounds crazy, and people just don't believe it." The CEO's comments are backed up by reports into the state of the jobs market. The US IT job market declined for the second year in a row in 2024. There was also a report from SignalFire that found Big Tech's hiring of new graduates is down by over 50% compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. Startups, meanwhile, have seen their hiring of new grads fall by over 30% during the same period. We're also seeing huge layoffs across multiple tech companies, a large part of which can be attributed to AI replacing workers' duties. The one bit of good news for workers is that some firms, including Klarna and Duolingo, are finding that the subpar performance of these bots and the public's negative feelings toward their use are forcing companies to start hiring humans again. // Related Stories Amodei's Anthropic AI firm is playing its own part in all this, of course. The company's latest Claude 4 AI model can code at a proficiency level close to that of humans – it's also very good at lying and blackmail. "We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming," Amodei said. "I don't think this is on people's radar." The AI arms race in this billion-dollar industry is resulting in LLMs improving all the time. And with the US in a battle to stay ahead of China, regulation is rarely high on the government's agenda. AI companies tend to claim that the technology will augment jobs, helping people become more productive. That might be true right now, but it won't be long before the systems are able to replace the people they are helping. Amodei says the first step in addressing the problem is to make people more aware of what jobs are vulnerable to AI replacement. Helping workers better understand how AI can augment their jobs could also mitigate job losses, as would more government action. Or there's always OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's solution: universal basic income, though that will come with plenty of issues of its own. Masthead: kate.sade

From left to right: BI's Ben Bergman, Mercury's Dan Kang, Cribl's Zach Johnson and Vercel's Marten Abrahamsen. Photo Courtesy of CRV, Tyler Mussetter 2025-05-26T16:00:01Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? CFOs of late-stage tech startups face challenges amid market uncertainty and IPO jitters. Mercury, Vercel, and Cribl's CFOs spoke on a panel this week at VC firm CRV. Executives are hopeful that advances in AI can yield returns later this year. With a shaky IPO market, tariff uncertainty, and stock market jitters, these are not easy times to be the chief financial officer of a late-stage tech company.Against that precarious backdrop, I sat down last week with the CFOs of Mercury, Vercel, and Cribl at the San Francisco office of CRV, one of Silicon Valley's oldest venture firms and an early investor in all three startups."I'm expecting a lot more uncertainty," said Daniel Kang, CFO of Mercury, a fintech banking startup that recently doubled its valuation to $3.5 billion after raising $300 million in its latest funding round. "There's a lot of impact from what's happening in DC."All the turmoil means CFOs have to be more nimble, said Kang.Marten Abrahamsen, Vercel's CFO, was more upbeat. He does not expect a recession this year and predicts a stock market rally in the fall."I think a lot of this is going to be fueled by some of the investments we see in AI, and we're already seeing it for some of our products that weren't even here a year ago," said Abrahamsen. "I'm very, very bullish on the remainder of this year and beyond."After President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imports from other countries on April 2, investors panicked and companies from the payments lender Klarna to the physical therapy startup Hinge Health halted their IPO plans.The pause turned out to be short-lived.Markets have rebounded after Trump rolled back the most severe tariffs and he said he would not fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Bankers are telling companies to go public while the window is open.This week, Hinge Health shares jumped 17% in its market debut after eToro, an Israeli trading platform, made a successful public debut on the Nasdaq, opening 34% above its IPO price. (Klarna's IPO is still on hold after the company reported mounting losses.)Abrahamsen does not think companies should wait until a better market comes along to IPO; instead, they should focus on what they can control."There has been a fear of going public in Silicon Valley," he said. "Great companies can go public even if there's not a hot market out there. If you're an outstanding business, there's always going to be an opportunity."Asked why so few companies are going public, the panelists said companies do not want to deal with the headaches of being a public company when there is so much private financing available. There is also little pressure to IPO from investors and employees, according to Zachary Johnson, CFO of Cribl, a data management solutions startup that raised $319 million last year at a $3.5 billion valuation."They understand that we're trying to build something that's going to be generational," said Johnson. "When we think about how we want to build this company, it's really about focusing on that durability and sustainability of growth."Johnson is hopeful that advances in AI can make Cribl even more attractive to investors when it goes public. He recently tasked everyone on his executive team to come up with an AI initiative."There's some work to be done, but I'm optimistic that we can actually get some real returns on that by the end of this year," he said. "We're still in the early innings of AI."

What just happened? Another company has learned that going all-in on AI at the expense of human workers might save money, but the backlash from users can outweigh the financial benefits. Language-learning app Duolingo, whose CEO recently said AI would replace contract workers, has reversed course, stating that the company would "continue to hire" humans and support employees. At the end of April, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn announced plans for the firm to become yet another "AI-first" company, meaning more of the technology being integrated into the platform and the eventual elimination of contract workers. Von Ahn said Duolingo would "gradually stop using contractors to do work AI can handle." He added that proficiency with the technology would become part of workers' annual reviews, and new employees would only be hired "if a team cannot automate more of their work." The CEO doubled down on his AI praise on the No Priors podcast a week later. He said AI would transform schools as we know them, replacing teachers who would move from instructing students to supervising them as the AI took over traditional teaching duties. "I also don't think schools are going to go away because you still need childcare," he added. Last month wasn't the first time von Ahn had shown a willingness to replace humans with AI. In January 2024, 10% of Duolingo's contract workers were laid off due to the technology. // Related Stories Unsurprisingly, von Ahn's push hasn't been well received by both Duolingo's users and the majority of the public. The company tried to address the controversy in an Instagram post that manages to hugely miss the mark. The most liked comment reads, "Call us old-fashioned, but we prefer our lessons to be taught by humans."         View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Duolingo (@duolingo) It appears that von Ahn has decided that the bad publicity isn't worth the headache. In a LinkedIn post providing "more context to my vision," von Ahn wrote, "To be clear: I do not see AI as replacing what our employees do (we are in fact continuing to hire at the same speed as before). I see it as a tool to accelerate what we do, at the same or better level of quality." After companies starting falling over each other in their rush to praise generative AI and use it to replace workers, some are now curbing their enthusiasm. Buy now, pay later app Klarna, another firm that went all-in on AI and has let go of thousands of employees as a result, is now hiring humans again after CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski admitted that its customer service AI chatbots offered a "lower quality" than their fleshy equivalents. Moreover, many people refuse to use a company's services if they are forced to talk to a machine rather than a real person. Not every company is backing away from the AI-first pledge. Shopify's CEO told managers last month they must prove an AI can't do the job better than a human before hiring new workers.

Back in December, Swedish tech entrepreneur Sebastian Siemiatkowski — the guy behind Klarna, the infamous burrito financing app — directed his family investment company to dump $5 billion into AI startups.The investment made up a "mini portfolio" of four "prominent US-based AI companies," a press release said at the time. Those were software engineer startup Anysphere, generative AI language outfit Speak, bioresearch venture Chai Discovery — and a fourth, anonymous company.On its face, there's nothing out of the ordinary about that. AI startups nabbed almost half of all venture capitalist funds raised last year, according to Reuters, amounting to about $96 billion.Anonymous startups are likewise pretty common, a tactic known as "stealth mode" made by founders who want to protect intellectual property or avoid media scrutiny until they're ready to announce their business.However, this "mini portfolio" earmarked a whopping 70 percent of its investment funds to the anonymous firm, or about $3.6 billion. All anyone knew was that this was a "seed investment" toward the launch of a "new AI hardware product."Six months later, a post by Siemiatkowski is clearing some things up: the anonymous company was "io," another secret startup founded in 2024 by Jony Ive.Ive is the superstar British-American designer behind iconic Apple products like the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch, and even some not-so-renowned ones, like that weird hockey puck mouse, and a 90s chic toilet.But Ive isn't why it's weird.A day before Siemiatkowski's post, tech billionaire Sam Altman announced that OpenAI had acquired io in a bizarre dispatch that reads more like a wedding website than a corporate press release. OpenAI paid $6.4 billion for io — meaning the Klarna King's secret investment in a little anonymous startup was now a public partnership with the biggest AI startup on the planet.Even stranger are some now-deleted posts by former Google designer Luke Wroblewski, who now spends his days as a director at Sutter Hill Ventures, a close-lipped titan in the tech funding space."Congrats to io on the $6.5B acquisition by OpenAI today," Wroblewski wrote, according to TechCrunch. "Happy to have been investors in this one."TC managed to nab a comment from Wroblewski's now-deleted post on X-formerly-Twitter, which suggests that Sutter Hill "was the second largest investor in 'io,'" an idea that Bloomberg seems to support.The question is, why delete? Is there some reason that Sutter Hill isn't actually happy to be have been investors? Is someone else involved in the deal trying to keep a lid on where the money's coming from? And most strikingly, why the silence? Sutter had nothing to tell TC after it reached out to ask, giving an unmistakably weird aura to the rollout.The drama comes as netizens and news media alike are abuzz with speculation about Sam Altman's secretive "AI companion" device, which he began teasing back in 2023.So far, Altman has told us the device will be "unobtrusive," "pocket sized," and "fully aware" of everything in its users' lives. It's probably not smart glasses, according to the Verge.Whatever it is, Sam Altman has an ambitious plan to roll out 100 million of them by 2026. Time will tell if it's worth all the secrecy and bluster — or if it turns out to be another Humane AI pin.Share This Article

Welcome back to Week in Review! Tons of news from this week for you, including a hacking group that’s linked to the Spanish government; CEOs using AI avatars to deliver company earnings; Pocket shutting down — or is it?; and much more. Let’s get to it!  More than 10 years in the making: Kaspersky first revealed the existence of Careto in 2014, and at the time, its researchers called the group “one of the most advanced threats at the moment.” Kaspersky never publicly linked the hacking group to a specific government. But we’ve now learned that the researchers who first discovered the group were convinced that Spanish government hackers were behind Careto’s espionage operations. 23andWe: Regeneron announced this week that it’s buying genetic testing company 23andMe for $256 million, including the company’s genomics service and its bank of 15 million customers’ personal and genetic data. The pharma giant said it plans to use the customer data to help drug discovery, saying that it will “prioritize the privacy, security, and ethical use of 23andMe’s customer data.” Let’s hope so! Google I/O: Google’s biggest developer conference typically showcases product announcements from across Google’s portfolio, and to nobody’s surprise, AI was the talk of the town. But what we didn’t bank on was Sergey Brin admitting that he made “lots of mistakes” with Google Glass.  This is TechCrunch’s Week in Review, where we recap the week’s biggest news. Want this delivered as a newsletter to your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. News Image Credits:OpenAI io, not I/O: OpenAI is acquiring io, the device startup that CEO Sam Altman has been working on with Jony Ive, in an all-equity deal that values that startup at $6.5 billion. Besides the fact that the announcement was accompanied by perhaps the strangest corporate headshot of all time, we spotted some other unexpected news: Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s family investment office, Flat Capital, had bought shares in io six months earlier, which means those io shares will be converted into shares in the for-profit arm of OpenAI. Not bad! AI avatar contagion? Speaking of Klarna’s CEO, Siemiatkowski used an AI version of himself to deliver the company’s earnings this week. And he’s not the only one! Zoom CEO Eric Yuan followed suit, also using his avatar for initial comments. Cool? Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Out of Pocket: Mozilla is shutting down Pocket, the beloved read-it-later app, on July 8. The company didn’t say why it’s shutting Pocket down, only that it will continue to invest in helping people discover and “access high quality web content.” But maybe it can be saved: Soon after, Digg founder Kevin Rose posted on X that his company would love to buy it. Web 2.0 is back, baby.   AI on my face: Apple is reportedly working on AI-powered glasses, similar to Meta’s Ray-Bans, sometime next year. They’ll have a camera and microphone and will work with Siri. Sure, why not?  Uh, no thank you: At its very first developer conference, Anthropic unveiled Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, which can analyze large datasets, execute long-horizon tasks, and take complex actions, according to the company. That’s all fine and good until I learned the Claude Opus 4 model tried to blackmail developers when they threaten to replace it with a new AI system. The model also gives sensitive information about the engineers responsible for the decision.  Ah, now I feel better: But don’t worry! Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that today’s AI models hallucinate at a lower rate than humans do. That might be true, but at least humans don’t immediately turn to blackmail when they don’t like what they hear.  Bluesky blue checks: The decentralized social network Bluesky quietly rolled out blue verification badges for “notable and authentic” accounts. People can now apply for verification through a new online form. But Bluesky is leaning on other systems beyond the blue badge to verify users.  Analysis Image Credits:Camille Cohen / AFP / Getty Images Google’s new look: For what seems like 100 years, Google hasn’t changed much. Sure there are ads and boxes and now AI summaries that, for better or worse, get you to the right answers — usually. But the premise has always been the same: Type your query into a box, and Google will surface results.  At this year’s Google I/O, we started noticing a change. As Maxwell Zeff, writes, “At I/O 2025, Google made clear that the concept of Search is firmly in its rearview mirror.” The largest announcement of I/O was that Google now offers AI mode to every Search user in the United States, which means users can have an AI agent search (or even purchase things) for them. 

Swedish fintech company Klarna this week presented an updated quarterly report with the help of an AI version of the company’s CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski. TechCrunch reports that the presentation itself did not attract much attention online, but in the video, Klarna reveals that they used an AI avatar. [ Related: Get ready for AI avatars at work ] In connection with the updated quarterly report, Klarna was careful to emphasize that AI is a driving factor behind the company’s success. Among other things, AI will “streamline” Klarna’s workforce from around 5,000 to around 3,000 employees. Whether the same fate awaits Sebastian Siemiatkowski remains to be seen.

In brief: The danger faced by buy now, pay later companies is when customers don't adhere to the "pay later" part. It's a problem being faced by industry giant Klarna, which saw its net losses more than double in the first quarter as more customers struggled to pay back their loan installments. Klarna's net losses for the first quarter reached $99 million, almost double the $47 million it lost during the same period a year earlier. The problem is that an increasing number of customers who have taken out the buy now, pay later loans are struggling to pay them back. Klarna offers its BNPL services to a range of merchants, letting customers purchase a wide range of items in installments. The company makes its money by charging fees to the merchants and customers who fail to pay on time. In its first quarter earnings report, Klarna revealed that consumer credit losses were up to $136 million, an increase of around 17% compared to a year earlier. It seems there's a growing trend of BNPL customers being unable to meet their contractual obligations. Credit platform LendingTree carried out a survey last month that found 41% of users of BNPL loans said they paid late on one of them in the past year, up from 34% compared to a year ago. High-income borrowers were among the most likely to pay late, along with men, young people, and parents of young kids. // Related Stories   The survey also showed that a quarter of BNPL users said they used the loans to buy groceries amid rising supermarket costs and marking a 14% increase compared to a year ago. It also revealed that nearly 1 in 4 BNPL users said they've had three or more active BNPL loans at one time. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York last week reported that US consumer debt rose by $167 billion in the first quarter to reach a record $18.2 trillion. Elsewhere in Klarna's earnings, which was presented using an AI-generated avatar of its chief executive, the company said it has used artificial intelligence to help cut costs. The company's headcount is down 39% over the last two years, customer service costs were down 12% YoY in the first quarter. Klarna is estimated to have replaced 700 employees with AI. The good news for humans is that Klarna has started hiring them again after its CEO recently admitted AI customer service chatbots offered a "lower quality" output.