YouSaid · the spoken record

Sebastian Siemiatkowski

lines on the record: 106
first: 2026-02-16
most recent: 2026-02-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“So it was just like they're all shit. So we were just like, okay, we're going to take some of the stuff that the banks do, and we're just going to do it better online. We did that. And then that grew and we were successful. I mean, people don't know this, but we raised $60,000 in our first angel investment, $30,000 of that was spent, and then we became profitable. And we were running this as a profitable company from 05 to 19. We had almost 10 consecutive years of high growth and profitability that actually got us like this reward because we were like only one of two companies in Sweden that ever had such a long streak of high growth and profitability at the same point of time. But what we realized also over time was suddenly I'm sitting one evening and I'm looking at my P&L and I'm like wow what is that line? Oh shit, that's late fees. That's a big revenue line. And I was like, that's not going to be long-term sustainable. So at some point in time I started thinking, wow, you know what? We're actually doing lending. What does that mean? What does it mean for consumers? What does it mean for their financial life? What's the implications?”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were just like, okay, look, why are we not just making these banking products better working online? Because you got to remember in 2005, the bank's internet offering were shit.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In my opinion, they do, yeah. I mean, I think that I've been very impressed with all the people I work with there. I think they're amazing. And there's a new generation now with Sonia and Andrew. And the new guys coming, so it's really cool Pat and Alfred. Yeah, I think they're amazing.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interacts with the day. He's just brilliant at that. It's just amazing. He called me in 2019 in summer. I don't know why he called me, but he was like, and this was when we had been in the US for a few years. We weren't getting any traction. The business wasn't doing. And then Nick, another Nick from Off toPay in Australia was starting to get traction in the US with Bina Pelle. And Michael just calls me out of the blue and is just like, Sebastian, I think it's now or never. If we don't do US now, we're never going to do it. And it's just like, I don't know how the hell he knew that, but he was like so spot on. It was exactly the thing. And I just dropped everything and I was just like, we have to win the US. And then I just spent, you know, the next two years focusing 100% on that.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, at $100 million. That was the deal they eventually did that. So Chris is like, I'm so sorry, I couldn't make it. And he goes into the elevator in literally 20 seconds later. This is so impressive. 20 seconds later, my phone starts buzzing and it's Michael Mortz. And Michael Moore says like, hey, I'm so sorry. I couldn't make the meeting. And if we get to do this investment, I'll join the board. So thanks to me saying that and being a little bit cocky and not being so freaking Swedish, we actually got Mike on the board. And then since then I've worked with Mike and gotten to know him. The thing people don't understand with Mike is that like Mike has this, you know, I always think that if you to be really good, for you to really understand the topic, you need to be in every freaking detail. You need to read up a lot. And he does, but the point is it's almost like sometimes I feel like he can just take this huge mass of information and he can like without a second of thought. He's just that is important. And he just gets that at a level.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, when Chris exits the room, and it's just about leave, I say, Hey, Chris, just one thing if we are genuinely the next Google, how come you're the only one from the Sequoia Partnership that's here in Stockholm today? And then Chris looks at me and he says, oh, I'm so sorry. The other guys couldn't make it, you know, whatever. You have to remember they invested. They took a 25% stake at $100 million valuation, right? It is a $20.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's how we saw it. Like, we saw this was going to be a huge brand uplift for a company. At this point in time, Daniel Leck is Spotify is getting all the tech credibility, like all the engineers in Stockholm wants to work with Spotify, Klan is some boring invoicing company. People are like, what the hell is that? So we're like, we need tech. We need tech credibility, right? So Sequoia is going to give us that. So anyways, what happens is a little bit later on, Sequoia decides to make the investment. Chris flies to Stockholm. And we had Matt Michael in a hotel breakfast here in London. And then Chris comes and he makes this beautiful presentation, right? And the presentation is like, these are the Apple guys in the garage. These are the Google guys in the garage. And these are the Klana guys in the garage. And you're going to be the next Google, you know, and we're sitting there, oh my God, we're going to be Google. We're buying it all. And then I feel after a while, I was like, this is not good. Like, we have to do something cocky here. We can't just like, you know, just swallow this and be like, okay.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly. And he did on investment. So, you know, this was just like this story where I'm talking to this guy, saying, hey, do you, because there was a guy in Stockholm that knew Siko a little bit. So I was like talking to him, hey, do you think that Sequoia could be invested in investing in Klana? And he's like, no, that would never happen. And I was like, okay, fine. So we just talked to the European funds. It's not even worth, right? But I was still looking there in Google Maps. I was looking like Sandhill Road. And I was like dreaming, could I have the chance to work with these guys? And then suddenly my phone is buzzing. And I'm like, oh, I had a message. I was like, this is Chris Olsen from Sequoia. And I was like, oh my God. I was like, uh-oh. So what I do is like, I know, okay, this is like dating, right? I can't call back in three days. I have to wait three days before I call back. So I'm just sitting there counting the hours. Like, I cannot, I don't want to look too interested. Yeah, exactly. And then I call Chris and we take a meeting and they get super excited. And we instantly wanted to work with Sequoia. We were like, they're the best.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I've worked with him so many. This is a funny story how we ended up working with him because at that point in time, Sequoia was a guy called Chris Olsen, which is an amazing still friend of mine who was at Sequoia, and he did kind of found Klana in stock. He did try.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but you know. I mean, yeah. I mean, he's so amazing. I love him so much. I think he's fantastic. But you obviously care a lot to make sure that you want to see that he's engaged. Can I ask you?”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Disengaged is the worst. Like the worst thing you don't want to get with Michael is disengaged. That's like the big warning sign.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a good question. I think that when you're in that kind of high growth phase, one thing to keep a close eye on is your multiple expansion going faster than what your revenue is growing. If your revenue is growing faster than your multiples, then you're probably fine. But if you start seeing the opposite where multiples are expanding faster than revenue growth, that may potentially be a problem longer term, right? I think today maybe that like I could have been more careful specifically on the hiring side because it was very sad and difficult to me to like a few quarters earlier be hiring at a high pace and then a few quarters later have to announce layoffs that that I felt that like I should have predicted and been more cautious about.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not entirely true there's also a little bit of media, but like, yes, there were some shares bought at 45 as well. Yes, that's right”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Use AI to reinvent themselves. Some of them will not, and they will with their way, right? Which is always what's happening in the disruption of an industry. So it will depend on the leadership of those financial institutions.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think so that again comes back to what we talked in 15. Our conclusion was there's going to be difference. So what I thought was interesting, Solomon also recognized this at Goldman Sachs. So he created Marcus and then talking about public companies. The challenge was that when fintech was like everything was high 2021, you know, valuations up, Marcus is the best thing that Goldman ever did. And then suddenly what ends up happening is markets turn. And then it's very hard for Solomon to defend Marcus. But the problem is like Marcus would have needed five, ten years to fully mature. And when you're a public company, that's hard to defend. I don't know. Maybe Solomon doesn't agree and he's like, I did the right thing and I changed it. But like in my opinion, he should have sticked the guns to doing that. Jamie is now doing Neobanking, is going in, but he's going in a bit later now. And so you will see different banks. I think some of them will reinvent themselves, become neobanks, become tech-led.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right? And then you build these campuses and you play volleyball in your office and you go and get free lunches and you live off the spoils of this money printing.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think it's very clear when we compare American companies to European companies, there's a huge difference. I mean, I think that American companies are five to ten X more than European companies do. And from that perspective, we're a European company. We have come from very low levels. We have increased because we need to stay competitive for talent. And talent today can move between US and EU pretty easily with the help of companies. But I still think also the thing that's going to happen. There's been these industries. They're called tech and they're called Fin, financial sources. They have all had this amazing thing, which is that you create this service and there's a huge switching cost so your customers can't really switch that easily. And hence, you create this money printing machine. And then life is sweet.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In and look at the insights, you're going to see how the company is shrinking. The point is that we've shrank 50%, but we also promised our employees, which was very important. We said, guys, this is going to mean we're going to do much more with much less people. This is going to make more profit for us. And you're going to share in that profit. So our employee compensation has grown almost 50% per head during the same time. So we have given a lot of that money back. And that creates safety for employees. They know that through this AI transformation and using these utilities, they are getting some of the benefit of that.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sab's going to be the Yep. I think that one thing that's important for us in relationships, we have a relationship with merchants as an example, retailers. And we have those relationships locally. So I have people in Portland talking to Nike. I have people in China talking to Sheen. I have people in Amsterdam talking to Adian, et cetera, et cetera. So we have over 50 locations, whether it's people, AI is not going to move those jobs. That we need. It's very important, the relationships with our partners. And the same customer service. It's going to be, I'm still going to argue that it's going to be vital to offer a human connection there. So those jobs will remain, but for the rest, it's going to be definitely smaller. So we're shrinking through natural attrition with about 20% per year. It's just people leaving. They stay about five years and then they move on, which is natural. And then what we have said very clearly is that we're not going to recruit. So we recruiting a little bit. People then came again on X, oh, but it's not true. Look, they're recruiting. It's like, come on, guys. Yes, occasionally we hire somebody here and there. But if you look at the neck, you go to LinkedIn.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Less for sure. No, I think it may very well be even less than that. Yes. But listen, again, relationship cannot be replaced.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Compared to what has happened since then. So that was the reason. The reason was easy for the board to take decisions. I didn't ask for a single dime in investments.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the funny thing I went out and I was like, why was that so easy? Like I was like, how come that went so easy still? Oh yeah, now I know why because usually when a CEO comes to the board and say, we're going to do all of these new services, we're going to launch all of this new stuff. Hence, I need to increase my investment and my cost by $100 million if it's the size of our company to be able to do all of this. But I at the same point of time were showing them a budget. I mean, Klona has been shrinking. We used to be $6,000 or over $7,000 people, and we're now less than $3,000. And I didn't ask for a single dime to do all this. And the reason for that is because I've seen the acceleration of AI and I know we can ship all these things on the existing organization. We've gone from 7,000 people. We're now below 3,000. We've shrank 50%. And the majority of that is just through normal attrition. Initially, when we had 2020, we did a little bit of layoffs, but that was not that big of a number.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to do international remittances and all these things. And then the board looks at this like, yeah, you know, this kind of transitions can be hard. It changes what the bank is. We have this discussion.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Historically, yes, but this has changed due to AI. One of the things I remember vividly is that when we came to the board and said that the same plan that I said from 15, right, grow global, get customers across the board in all countries. And then once you have the love and affection of these customers and the relationship with them for day-to-day purchases, then go deeper with them, offer them more banking-like services and increase the revenue per customer, right? So we had this interesting board meeting where we're like, okay, now it's really going to happen, guys. We are now going to truly start focusing on this transition from just like single payments customer to banking. And we're going to launch peer-to-peer and we're going to launch, you know, potentially, which is also leaked to the press already trading, and we're going to do like a lot of the other banking services that we at that point in time didn't have. And we're going to, you know, increase the card and we're going to increase balances and deposits.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Happy is a strong word. No, but I think, look to us is like we have over the years so many shareholders, so many employees, like at some point in time, it's actually easier to be public for us. We were already reporting on an earnings on a quarterly basis. We're a bank. So I'm not sure that the difference is that big, to be honest, from our perspective. So it is what it is. But yeah, of course, if I could own the company 100% and be private, I would prefer it, right? But that's not reality.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I think Nick's challenge right now might be that he is so distributed. I mean, he's trying to go for the whole world, right? I mean, he's launching in Dubai, he's launching in India, he's launching everywhere. Banking is not your standard tech company. It's difficult. And so I just wonder if he's running out of bandwidth, right? Like I think it's more risky. David at least has slightly more focus. He has a very solid base in Brazil, making a lot of money from there. He has his Mexican thing. And the other thing that are growing pretty good. But he then does US, that's just like one more big market. It's very different. Nick is so thinly spread right now.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and we launched a card in the US, and I have to be careful now because we haven't released the new earnings yet coming next week. So I have to use the Q3 numbers. But if I remember correctly, we're like a 2, 3 million active cardholders in just a few months in the US. So we are transitioning these buy now pay data customers into full banking relationship customers at a very, very high pace.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Partially because competition is better. If you take your Amix app in the US and compare it to one here, it is significantly better there, right? Your JPMorgan app is significantly better. So the financial institutions in the US are just better. And the problem is that then people try to find an entry point that is probably, for example, very big lending. And then they walk into a lot of subprime and they make huge losses. Or there are other things, right?”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is very, very critical, and data was going to be very, very important. And so it was being global and having a good understanding of our customer and having a lot of trust and brand. The other thing was brand. Build a brand that people relate to, that people feel emotionally connected to and not just like in utility, right? Create something different.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, to us, like nailing US was like super high priority, super high priority. Second, we realized that data, the more I understand about you as a customer, the more likely I am to give you that advice that you said, hey, you know, you should pick up the flowers when you go there or whatever. So the key thing we saw is a difference than Revoluton all the others. We have our own payments network. Just like Amex, we have our own Rails. Every time you shop with Klana, the information that flows on their rails isn't just the amount that you purchase for. It's the exact products. We have the full digital receipt. So we know you shopped at Sephora, but also what cosmetics you bought at Sephora. And the benefit of that is if I'm then supposed to advise you on your purchases or your day-to-day finances, I just have much more richer information that allows me to provide you good advice. Oh, these contact lenses were really expensive. You can get them cheaper, etc. So if I want to help people in their everyday spending, I have more information. So we said understanding the customer depth.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but listen, it's like this. It comes back to what I said in 15, where the future financial services is going to be this digital financial system. So then the next question is, who is going to participate in that challenge? And why would Klana stand the chance? Those are the two questions we need to answer, right? And we say, well, first and foremost, there's going to be three types of company participating. The tech companies, Google, Amazon, Apple, there's going to be FinTech, Revolutants. We didn't know, I mean, at that point, Revolutions hadn't even started, but we knew they were going to come entrance, and then banks, right? That was kind of our view. Okay. So like what's going to be critical for us to win in that big transformation global. Realize first, if we're just big, at that point in time, we weren't even in the UK yet. We're like, if we're only in the Nordics in Germany, we're not going to have the scale to be able to win this big transformation that's coming. So we need to be global. And global means US. Like if you're not in the US, if you're not big there, you're just not going to be big enough. And the risk is you're going to get acquired by somebody in the U.S.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think anyone will cry for me over that. I will cry over myself. That's okay. I can fall asleep crying over that. But the funny thing is, so you have these fintechs now who are actually starting to become really big. I mean, Revolution is really big, Klana's really big new bank, you know, et cetera. But we're all coming from slightly different angles. We're all coming from slightly different. And now the people who are going to be threatened by this is the incumbents primarily. Like, of course, I'm going to partly compete with Revolute. I'm partly doing that already. But if you look at they're very big in Romania, Romania is not a big market for me, right? Like I think there's the second largest market or something for Revolution. If I look at like number of users, Romania is not a big market for me. You know, I'm very big in other markets. So that's going to differ, right? But whose market share are we eating? Barclays. Wells Fargo's Capital One, those are the companies that we are going after, right? So I don't really see there's a big conflict between us. It's more the incumbents that are going to lose customers.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, absolutely. But we all have different entry points. I mean, revolut to some degree was like an early, I'm an expat, I travel a lot in Europe and like this is better for my currency or I trade in crypto. That was kind of the early adopter thing. I think Robin Hood was like, I'm trading. I love trading. Klona is very different. Like our customers, like I shop online, I do shopping. We skew more female than male. We have a very different brand. I would think of us more like a lifestyle brand, like a digital version of American Express. That's how I think about Klaana. So I think all of these growing fintechs, you know, I know David from Newbank since early days, right? Like have a funny story where I was down in Brazil meeting David when he was just leaving Sequoia starting. And, you know, we had a fantastic conversation to talk about the future of banking. And then he sends me an email, which was like, hey, Sebastian, would you like to advise me a little bit? I'm starting this new company. And I was like, I'm sorry, I don't have the time. So I lost out on a lot.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm also terrified he's going to kill me. I love Nick. He's amazing. I've always felt very competitive with Nick. And I think he feels competitive with me. We have a common friend who we talk to a lot about these things, which is funny. But the point is that if you look at it, Klana has 110 million customers worldwide. Revolution now has 65. I'm twice the size in number of customers, but the engagement that I have is not as high yet as it is with Revolut. So people may use us less frequently and for other things, right? So what I'm doing right now, what we're doing at Klana, is moving from being kind of your infrequent payment solution to being your high engagement banking provider, right? That transition is going extremely well. It's going extremely well and it's accelerating. People are adopting our banking sources at a very rapid pace.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what, Harry? Like, in 2015, I sat down with my management team. At that point in time, we have been trying to compete with Stripe and Adian for five years. And we were like losing it. Like they were just crushing us. We were like, this is it. And Adian 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 payment's wars. Forget it. So we're like, what are we going to do as a company? What are we going to do? And then we sat down as a team and we're like, what's the future of banking? We said, the future of banking is going to be some kind of digital financial assistance.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Unfortunately, I think that is going to happen. And I feel like Dario is one of few that actually is willing to stick up and say that officially. I feel a lot of the other executives of these big tech companies are getting nervous. They're seeing the negative backlash of talking about this. And then they're trying to portray something different. But I don't want to be one of them. I'm more in Dario's camp. I want to be honest about the fact that I do think there's going to be a very big shift. Now, in addition to that, then I think more like Elon that it might lead to a golden age of humanity where, you know, AI does more of jobs and more people can enjoy themselves and do other things that we can have a richer society. That is not an unthinkable outcome. It could be a positive outcome. It could happen. And I think it's not unlikely that it could happen. So I still, I'm an optimist at heart, but I also want to be realist around what's going to happen in the shorter term and it's going to be a lot of turmoil in this.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was just laughing with them because yesterday on X, somebody wrote company is going to offer buy now pay later on rent. It was Klona-like. So it was actually another company. But people didn't see that. They just say Klona is going to offer buy now pay later on rent. And then suddenly we're all over the press. People are calling us like, I'm just like, what are we going to do? Like, it's just not true.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Service, and obviously the MPS and the customer satisfaction of those interactions with our customers is through the roof. So we to a point, we need to change, and that was what we were trying, but it's like very hard in the Bloomberg article. I'm not going to blame the journalists. I think actually if you read the article, the original article, it's actually fairly balanced and it kind of tries to describe this. But then the headline is like the rolling AI back, you know, and then the whole media circus go on. So it's like, oh, Klan has just announced that they're rolling it back. It's like, no, that's not at all interesting.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you're right, and that's exactly why we started changing. So, one thing that we've done that has worked fantastic for us, and we're rolling this out, we started saying, okay, to your point, if we looked at like these agents that we were hiring previously, even through other companies, we didn't really have a relationship with them. We don't know who these people were. Some of them were great, but it was like to your point, a mix, right? And we said, how do we create something very different? And so what we started since then, which has worked amazingly well, and we were kind of just starting to ramp it up, is we actually built our own Uber model. which means that we encourage today, we recruit our own customers, the most passionate customers that live in rural areas and so forth. And we say, hey, do you want to work extra? Would you want to work part-time in our customer service? And they actually just like somebody can go and drive an Uber for a while. They can actually jump on and work for Klana's customer service. And these are our most passionate customer. They love our product. They love how it works. They know Klana in and out. And now they earn extra money by actually working on our customer.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cost. There's been too much focus on that. We have to rethink this and make customer service into this human part of what Klana is and make sure that we offer everyone who wants a human connection. That's going to be what VIP service looks like in the future. Like, oh, I'm not dealing only with machines. I'm dealing with a human. That's what we think at least. So that's the message we try to get out.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we don't think so. I think Bloomberg changed kind of the headline and then I got misinterpreted. But what we were trying to say a little bit later on is that like to me as we explore this further, we were like, well, but to be honest, if AI can do customer service, it means it's going to be the cheap customer service. It's going to be the one that everyone gets because it's cheap and simple. as has always happened historically like when people started in factories making cheap clothing or cheap furniture, we started appreciating artisan things. We started appreciating an artisan coffee shop and artisan furniture that was done by artisans. So we said the future of VIP experience would be the human connection. The relationship. And then we genuinely believe. So we said we need to transform our customer service from thinking about it as like, okay, yes, it's officially just like good customer service, but to some degree when I kind of challenge it internally, I said, look, what I've seen has happened is also too much focus on custom.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. But it's a good, very valid question. And one of the things we also realized is that as a Polish person, I think when things are about to change, I look at them very cynically, right? Like I'm just like, okay, this is what's happening. I'm not that kind of person that's going to try to gloom things over. I'm like, okay, this is happening. It's going to be a big change to the world. How do I adopt? What do we do the best out of it? And I'm sure there's going to come a lot of positive things, a lot of negative things. In this case, also, when we announced this, we obviously had some people being very frustrated with us. Like, oh, you know, you're laying people off because of AI. People were angry to some degree as well. And I respect that. I understand why, right? And that's why a few months later we tried also to go out and say a different story.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not sure. I think there will be no, I think obviously I believe that for clona the right thing was to be early, to try to find what we can do with this technology and where it can bring us. And I think it's going to be a competitive advantage over time to incumbents that haven't done that. But a lot of incumbents will obviously procure fantastic AI customer service solutions in order to try to reduce the gap between what we're doing and they're doing. So, you know, who knows? We'll see what happens. But in our case, it was very evident that we needed to do this ourselves.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Agent that answers questions sooner or later you wanted to read the source code than explain to the customer how it works. You want them to provide as much context as possible to be able to give the right answers.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Never rolled a product improvement out that instantaneously took away 600, the equivalent of 600 agents worth of work. Now, because we don't hire these people ourselves, they work for customer service companies, they just shifted and started working on Ovid. So fortunately, in that situation, nobody lost their job, but it was still like an eye-opener for us, like, wow. And then the point is, what you realize when you're early on that journey is, again, full customer service agents, whether it's AI or humans for that sake, for them to be able to answer questions really well, they need as much context as possible. Where is that context? It's in the source code of your software. How does Klana calculate interest? Well, we can have a documentation of that, but at the truth is in our source code, is somewhere deep in our source code with that interest calculation is actually explained, right? And documentation may be inaccurate. So what you realize when you pursue this is that like customer service isn't just like, hey, I need an”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, we were one of the early ones, right? So, this is actually one of the things we were surprised, but I think I announced already in 23 that our AI customer service had done the equivalent of 600 agents' jobs. And it caught a lot of attention. At the point of time, now, you know, media always tends to simplify these stories a little bit. The truth was that at that point of time, our customer service was doing very simple questions. It was like, hey, did I pay Klana? Yes, you did. Okay, thank you. So obviously that wasn't that hard to do. But it's still like, I mean, to some degree, large company like ours, what do we do? We try to improve our product. Partially, we try to do that. For fewer people to contact us and ask, hey, it isn't working or I don't understand what I'm supposed to do, right? I mean, part of it is you just want your product to be so good that people don't feel they have to do that. So we've always tried to reduce customer service calls, right? The only to me shocking experience back then was that like we roll this thing out, we rolled a lot of product improvements out.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Depends on what kind of company you are. As I said, if you are a plumbing company, maybe Claude will offer a solution for all of this, an anthropic, or maybe there will be somebody else who kind of uses Claude and empowers this kind of company in a box experience. That, I think, is still the kind of unknown answer. We don't know what's going to happen.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's one of us. It's a competitive. Yeah, I'm happy to try it. We incubated it. So you see what I mean? So it's just like for a large company, I think that obviously not everyone needs to reinvent everything. I don't think the plumbing firm will reinvent it. I don't think they're going to wipe code. That's not the point. I think they will buy something that looks like Claudebot or company in a box kind of thing.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is the operating system of the company. And what we realized when we looked at SaaS and all of these things already two years ago, which is why we started closing down SaaS, for us was because we need to provide our AI the best context. We need to provide as good context as possible to be able to perform a job. And if your data is separated in these silos a little bit in this SAS, a little bit in that SAS, a little bit here, here's all the project management stuff. Here's all the product definitions. Here is the accounting stuff. Here is this. Here's that. It's just harder to provide it the appropriate context, right? So to us, it was like, no, we need to reimagine the tech stack with AI first being AI native and incorporate AI and deterministic and probabilistic code into one text that it becomes the operating system of the bank. I think that that's like the future of larger enterprise. And that's why to us, we're very mindful. We do still use some SaaS for sure. Like we use Slack as an example today.”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can you fix this invoice, or how much money do I have on my cash? What's the current PL look like, et cetera? But now I have Claude as an accountant on top of the accounting open source software. And then I'm just asking, hey, bookkeep this invoice or check me my balance. And it works really, really well. So I think I'm not saying I don't think the plumbing firm, the electrician of the future who code vibe code this themselves. Definitely not. They will buy off-the-shelf products for this. But the thing is, the question is, most of our ERP systems that we see today or software as a service, because coding was so difficult and hard, are still fairly siloed. They are not broad in their spectra what they cover. And the kind of winner of the future is much more likely to be extremely broad. They're kind of coming with a clawed bot or clawed bot of companies. Like those services, that's how I think the future of that kind of things is. It's different for a company like Klana because in our case, to some degree,”
2026-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source