Siemiatkowski: Adyen winning Spotify forced Klarna to pivot from checkout wars
Sebastian Siemiatkowski · Klarna CEO: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Feb 16, 2026 · at 20:37
Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the co-founder and CEO of Klarna. He recounts how intense competition from Stripe and Adyen led Klarna to rethink its business model.
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“We have been trying to compete with Stripe and Adyen for five years, and we were like losing it. Like they were just, you know, crushing us. And we were like, this is it. And Adyen had just signed with Daniel X, Spotify, my neighbor. And I was like, this is over, man. Like we're not going to win in this checkout wars, like payments wars, forget it.”
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