A Big Short moment for AI?

December 20, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on December 20th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

Hundreds of billions have been made by those who bet on Oracle as a winner in the AI race. Now the opposite is growing — investors who see a chance for profit if the tech company can no longer service its loans. Some are warning of a possible bomb.

A long table in dark wood runs through the conference room. On one side sits Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale, and on the other, representatives from investment bank Goldman Sachs.

The scene from the film The Big Short has become something of an icon. Burry convinces the bank to sell a financial product that pays out if a large number of mortgages cannot be repaid. The banker explains that what Burry is asking for would be seen as a very bad investment by most in the outside world.

Burry replies quickly — and it later turns out to be entirely correct: “Everyone else is wrong.”

The product Burry buys is called a CDS — a “credit default swap.” You can think of it as a form of insurance product, in that it pays out when a loan cannot be repaid.

But unlike insurance, you do not need to own the underlying asset to buy a CDS. You can profit from other people’s misfortune regardless.

And that is precisely what has started happening in the bubbling world of AI.

Larry Ellison has become increasingly prominent and well-known in recent years. As the founder of the previously rather sleepy database company Oracle, he had long been a billionaire — with luxury yachts and the classic trappings that come with that life. The company was stable, profitable, and a little uninteresting to most. Until around 2021, that is. That is where the next great upward journey began — and into the inner circle of the tech world.

Ellison’s Oracle is a partner to TikTok on data storage, and is set to become a part-owner of its American operations. But it is with the AI wave that Oracle has truly come into its own. All these data centres needed to expand capacity have to be built by someone — and Oracle has stepped forward. Data centres are something they have built before given their cloud business, but the scale is now something else entirely.

This week it emerged that Oracle’s lease payments for data centres yet to be built amount to 248 billion dollars — around 2,300 billion kronor. These are to be paid between now and 2028. The figure Oracle reported the previous quarter was around 100 billion dollars. The increase is somewhat astronomical, and analysis firm CreditSights described the situation as a “bomb.”

The question the market is now starting to ask is what happens if Oracle cannot make these payments. And shortly afterwards, people start wondering whether there is money to be made if Oracle fails to deliver. That is where the CDSs come in.

Since September, trading volumes in these products have increased by 90 percent. For CDSs linked specifically to Oracle, volumes have tripled during the year and are now trading at their highest price in over 15 years.

This does not necessarily mean the market believes Oracle will go bankrupt. But it clearly shows that many are concerned the company may have taken on too many large, expensive projects at once — and that investors want some form of protection or insurance should things start to go wrong.

Many AI companies are building data centres at the moment, so the situation is not unique. Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta all have major projects under way in the area. The problem here is the scale.

Oracle’s commitments are larger than all three of the other tech giants’ combined. The company itself estimates that nearly 75 percent of Oracle’s revenues in the coming months will be spent on data centre expansion.

The concern also sits one level above Oracle — with its customers. OpenAI has made a deal worth 300 billion dollars with them, for example. The money is to go towards data capacity over five years, starting in 2027. For Oracle to be able to deliver on this, they need to build.

But there is another problem: at present, OpenAI does not have all 300 billion dollars to pay with. That must be resolved before the payments are due.

Given the situation, it is easy to understand why there are people thinking like the investor Michael Burry from The Big Short. Do all these AI investments actually add up? And if they do not — how can I make money from the fact that everyone around me is wrong?

The last time the price of a credit default swap for Oracle was this high was 2009.

And most people probably remember what happened in the financial world back then.

The most powerful player is never held to account

December 16, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on December 16th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

The SVT documentary “Hatet” about Joakim Lundell misses the most powerful player in its investigation. The actor that enables threats and the spreading of rumours is not asked a single question.

In ancient Rome, gladiatorial games were a popular form of entertainment. In the arena, fighters battled both each other and wild animals to see who would emerge victorious — and alive — from the spectacle.

It is hard not to think of gladiatorial games when watching the third and final part of SVT’s documentary “Hatet.”

Here an obvious human tragedy unfolds before a public audience, but SVT appears to have missed the arena in which it takes place. Back then it was the Colosseum, with an emperor dictating the terms. Today it is YouTube. Why are no questions asked of those who have the most to gain from this brutal entertainment?

We have come a long way from the entertainment monopoly that SVT once held. Not so long ago there were two TV channels to choose from — both from SVT — and you watched what was broadcast. Today the competition is something else entirely. You watch when you want, content ranging from 10 seconds to three hours — from TikTok to SVT Play to YouTube and back again.

Some of this media logic appears to have stuck at SVT. Why else would you make three hours of documentary about an influencer family and its feuds? Because they are famous. And as former SVT journalist Anna Hedenmo notes in Expressen: they want to reach a young audience. “If you can’t beat them, join them,” as the saying goes.

The irony is therefore striking when you have worked through these three hours and realise that at no point is a single question put to the platform where all of this takes place.

The conflict between brothers Joakim Lundell and Christofer “Chrippa” Lundström has been called the biggest internet drama in Swedish history. So big that the subject has also become the focus of countless videos from other creators. YouTube is mentioned constantly — it is the family’s primary source of income and channel of communication — but the company is not asked any questions.

A large share of all the threats and accusations shown in the documentary take place on YouTube, where the format is very simple: controversies work. More clicks lead to more advertising revenue. There is a reason why video titles with nuance are not popular. The headlines that attract viewers are screaming, in capitals, with garish images.

YouTube is not alone in this commercial logic. But unlike other journalistic products, there is no responsible publisher, and the platform does not explicitly approve clips before they are posted.

The advertising revenue does not only benefit Joakim Lundell, Christofer “Chrippa” Lundström, Pontus “Anjo” Björlund, and the others in the documentary. The single biggest winner is YouTube — economically too.

Without lifting a finger, the family drama drives millions of ad impressions and cements the service as an entertainment hub to visit daily. The incentives not to intervene in the content, regardless of what consequences it has for those affected, are therefore very clear. YouTube’s automated systems are designed to scan everything that is published and flag up inappropriate material. But the system is far from perfect, and many videos slip through anyway.

In the documentary podcast Badfluence from SvD and Podme, 16 examples of video clips containing potential violations were sent to YouTube. After review, one of them was taken down and another appears to have been edited. But this only happens, it seems, when they are specifically brought to attention by the media.

The standard explanation from YouTube is usually that so much material is uploaded that it is not possible to review everything manually — and that a great many clips are never allowed to be published in the first place. But anyone who has spent more than ten minutes on YouTube knows that these grey zones are extraordinarily large. And therefore also very profitable.

An obvious thing to do, therefore, would be to hold the arena where all of this takes place to account. Why does SVT not ask YouTube any questions? Why do they not see that it is the site’s algorithms that encourage the behaviour shown in the documentary?

When SVT surveyed this new media landscape, they identified Joakim Lundell as a new power player — popular with the coveted young audience. So far so correct. But they appear not to understand the context in which he operates — how one of the world’s largest tech companies provides, encourages, and indirectly pays for these controversial videos on its platform.

In their eagerness to accommodate young viewers, they forgot to scrutinise — or even ask questions of — the most powerful player in the industry.

“Hatet” makes YouTube appear to be neutral ground. It is the absolute opposite. Almost everyone knows this. Had SVT asked any of the young people they are trying to reach, they could have explained how it works.

Netflix’s masterstroke — a win even in defeat

December 9, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on December 9th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

What would you pay to hobble your worst competitor? Netflix’s answer to that question is 54 billion kronor. And should Warner Bros pull out of the deal — Netflix gets a sizeable Christmas bonus either way. The losers, whichever way it goes, are viewers.

The American media world currently resembles a middle-school disco.

First nobody wants to dance. Then everybody wants to dance — but with the same person. You might have expected deals in the hundreds-of-billions bracket to be a little more sophisticated than that, but no.

Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav has agreed to sell HBO and Warner Studios to Netflix. Immediately afterwards came a higher, hostile bid from Paramount Skydance. It is going to get messy. But everything points to Netflix being the big winner — whatever the outcome.

To understand Netflix’s strategy behind the mega-deal, all you need to do is look at one particular point in the purchase agreement. It is called a “breakup fee” — a sum of money that the buyer, Netflix, pays to the seller if the deal does not go through.

For large deals of this calibre — what Warner Bros is selling is valued at over 780 billion kronor including debt — there is significant political risk. Competition issues are sensitive, particularly when it comes to media.

For TV companies the matter would have been handled by the FCC — the Federal Communications Commission — but since this deal does not cover ordinary TV channels, it falls outside their remit. Instead it will be the US Department of Justice and the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, that will scrutinise the deal.

And one more person, of course. Donald Trump.

His son-in-law Jared Kushner is investing alongside Paramount Skydance, which in turn is owned by Trump’s friend and supporter Larry Ellison. Warner Bros also owns the TV channel CNN, which is not Trump’s favourite. There are many relationships that could come to play a role in this decision.

If any of these political institutions were to block the deal, Netflix would need to pay a breakup fee of around 54 billion kronor to Warner Bros. That might sound like a lot, but one should bear in mind that Netflix has a market capitalisation of just under 4,000 billion kronor. And before you judge whether something is expensive, you should look at what they get for the money.

Political processes of this nature are long and drawn-out. If we look at another major media deal involving the same company — when AT&T bought Time Warner — it took 20 months before it was concluded. A reasonable guess is that this could take at least a year, if the deal is not called off beforehand.

During that time, HBO and Warner Studios will be in limbo. No major investments and changes are likely to happen while they await the new owners. A great deal of management’s time will be spent trying to get the deal approved rather than developing the business. For a market leader like Netflix, that is worth its weight in gold. Or rather — it could well be worth 54 billion kronor.

If the deal goes through and Netflix gets what it wants, they will have become the overwhelmingly dominant player in the streaming market. If the deal does not go through, they will have paid a little over one percent of their market capitalisation to ensure that their main competitor HBO has wasted a year on political paperwork.

But there is yet another way this could end. Should Warner Bros decide to accept Paramount Skydance’s new, higher bid after all — they would also need to pay a breakup fee, but in the other direction.

Netflix would then receive half — 27 billion kronor — as a consolation prize for Warner changing its mind. A decent Christmas bonus? The whole thing is very elegantly played by Netflix’s management, with CEO Ted Sarandos at the helm.

For Netflix or HBO viewers, nothing will be noticeable for the coming year at least. These are two separate services that will try to sign you up as a subscriber, just as before. But looking at a slightly longer horizon, the number of streaming services will in all likelihood decrease. Paramount Skydance clearly has big ambitions and will not give up even if they fail to push through this particular deal. Fewer services means less competition, which in turn could lead to higher prices. Consolidation of this kind rarely benefits viewers.

The winner in all of this — somewhat regardless of how it plays out — therefore looks set to be Netflix. But before they celebrate too much, one should carry a little media history into the room. Enormous deals in this category tend not to age particularly well. The aforementioned AT&T and Time Warner is one example. AOL and Time Warner another. An extraordinary number of billions have gone up in smoke when excessive confidence in the future has been allowed to steer.

And it seems Netflix is not immune to that either.

The strange number that could trigger an enormous crash

December 6, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on December 6th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

The crypto market’s central protagonist is called Michael Saylor. As one of Bitcoin’s biggest buyers, the outside world is wondering whether the unthinkable could happen. Will Saylor start selling? The answer could trigger an enormous crash.

Not every listed CEO would survive a stock price fall of more than 99 percent.

But Michael Saylor is not just any corporate leader. The share price in the company Microstrategy fell from 313 dollars in March 2000 to 0.45 dollars two years later.

Twenty years later, he was still at the company — but now with a new idea.

Microstrategy would start buying Bitcoin. That is where the next great upward journey on the stock market began. As the ever-rising Bitcoin price took hold, Saylor’s company came to be about nothing else. But now — with the Bitcoin price having turned downward — the risk is that the company has found itself in a trap. One that could drag the entire crypto market down with it.

The share price curve for Strategy — the new name for Microstrategy — looks gloomy this year. Since January it has fallen 37 percent. The equivalent fall for Bitcoin is around 15 percent down. Strategy has therefore lost considerably more, even though in all material respects the business consists of nothing other than Bitcoin itself. Why?

To understand that, you need to look at the innovation Strategy nonetheless performs. Unlike Apple, which invents new phones, or OpenAI, which makes AI chatbots, Strategy’s innovation is a financial one. If you have a company that almost exclusively buys and owns Bitcoin — how do you pay for it all?

Strategy’s answer is a series of financial products. With names like STRF, STRD, and STRE, Strategy has created new share classes that appeal to different investor strategies. In simplified terms, they pay a guaranteed dividend of around 10 percent, across various time horizons. By issuing new shares of this kind, they have brought in many billions which they have then used to buy more Bitcoin. They currently own 650,000 Bitcoin — roughly 3 percent of the 21 million that will ever be able to exist.

Does that sound complicated? That is probably part of the point.

Rarely have I read such diametrically opposed analyses of how a company actually works as I have with Strategy. It has generated both a long tail of enthusiasts and fierce critics.

This attractive share dividend must be paid out regularly. But Bitcoin is not an asset that generates any new income. Like gold, it is traded at a certain price that goes up and down — but no new money is created simply from owning either gold or Bitcoin. And it is a great deal of money that needs to materialise. Strategy currently has around 7.5 billion kronor in interest and guaranteed dividends that need to be paid annually.

Strategy therefore recently sold more shares and created an internal fund of 13 billion kronor. With this money they can pay for all the share dividends — at least for longer than the coming year. And they can do so without being forced to do what everyone in the crypto market fears: that they will start selling some of their Bitcoin.

The key metric here is called MNAV. You arrive at Strategy’s MNAV by dividing the company’s enterprise value (EV) by the total value of all the Bitcoin it owns. If that figure is above 1, Strategy’s shares are valued higher than the Bitcoin it holds. If the figure drops below 1, the opposite is true — the market values the company at less than its Bitcoin holdings. This has happened, for example, to Japan’s Metaplanet, which also buys Bitcoin as its primary occupation.

When MNAV falls below 1, it becomes cheaper for the company to sell its Bitcoin than to issue new shares. But the sheer size of Strategy has made this peculiar little metric something that everyone in the market now watches like a hawk. They are one of the world’s largest owners — and buyers — of Bitcoin. Should they start selling, the price could fall quickly. That in turn could lead to enormous cascade effects across the entire crypto market. A potential crypto financial crash, in short.

Strategy has said it will only sell Bitcoin if all other ways to finance the company have disappeared. But the ability to raise new money as the Bitcoin price continues to fall could become considerably harder than before. And money must come in regularly. The spiral that enabled Strategy to buy all this Bitcoin has now reversed direction.

Bitcoin — which was intended as a decentralised asset — now has an extremely centralised dependency. Should Strategy be forced to sell Bitcoin, for whatever reason, it is hard to see there being enough buyers to prevent the price from falling sharply.

The crypto market is now holding its breath.

But Michael Saylor does not give the impression of being worried.

Of the new money the company just raised, he put over 250 million kronor as a down payment on a new private jet.

It seems he sees himself in the driving seat of the Bitcoin economy for quite some time yet.

The deal that redraws the entire TV world

December 5, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on December 5th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

Hollywood shakes as Netflix buys HBO for 83 billion dollars. The deal will redraw the entire streaming market — and more big deals are now on the way. A hidden factor decided the final battle.

“Our goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.”

The year is 2013 and the company that made its name by posting DVD discs in red envelopes has begun a major transformation. In an interview with GQ, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos explains the company’s ambition. They are just about to launch the series “House of Cards,” and a golden age of high-quality television begins.

The goal sounds extremely ambitious at that moment. Surely Netflix cannot become like the legendary HBO?

The answer now — twelve years later — is more dramatic than a mere resemblance. Netflix is buying HBO in a gigantic media deal that values the company at 83 billion dollars, around 781 billion kronor including debt. The deal will completely redraw the streaming map ahead of 2026.

It has not been easy to keep up with all the structural changes that have happened in the American media world in recent years. But anyone who has subscribed to HBO may have had a taste of the chaos.

The app HBO Go existed alongside HBO Now. Then both became HBO Max. Then the company decided that the HBO brand was putting off some customers, and renamed the product to simply Max instead. Before most recently reverting to HBO Max again. And now they become Netflix in the end.

The name changes are indicative of a media world that has been both unclear and unfocused. The balance between the old, very profitable cable TV business and streaming led to a wavering strategy. HBO also found itself stuck in a jumble of other TV-related assets through its owners. The parent company is called Warner Bros Discovery and was an attempt to create synergies by growing and getting bigger. The combination of HBO and the Swedish Kanal 5 in the same streaming service was never particularly logical, except for those who only looked at the numbers.

Nor was it a great success. What grew primarily was the debt burden in the company — and that is also the reason for the impending sale.

What Netflix has bought includes HBO’s catalogue of well-known series and films. Titles such as The Sopranos, The Wire, and Sex and the City are examples of award-winning programmes that have seen the light of day through them. The Harry Potter series is also part of the package. This catalogue, together with the studio operations and streaming service, is what will henceforth be part of Netflix’s business instead.

For Warner Bros Discovery, the acquisition means it can substantially reduce its debt burden and then try to find a future for the assets that remain in the company.

The deal had been known about for some time, but it was not clear which of the many interested parties would pull the longest straw. Telecoms giant Comcast — owner of NBC Universal and streaming service Peacock — and the newly formed Paramount Skydance are the two other players that showed the greatest interest.

Skydance, run by tech billionaire Larry Ellison’s son, has close ties to the Trump administration and was assumed by many to have an advantage. Deals of this nature need to be approved by US competition authorities — and there, Ellison’s relationship with Trump could have helped considerably.

To counter this, Netflix needed to offer a so-called “breakup fee” of as much as five billion dollars. This means the fee is paid to HBO’s owners if the deal falls through, even if it is the authorities that throw a spanner in the works. You can see it as a form of insurance for the seller.

The acquisition will redraw the streaming market, which has largely struggled with profitability despite lower ambitions around content and investment in recent years. The conventional analysis is that the market has too many players, creating too much competition and price pressure. Consumers also become disloyal when they switch between many different services to exploit sign-up offers or watch a single series.

The deal creates a powerful consolidation. Netflix — already the largest in the segment — can cement its position and will likely force other acquisitions and alliances to meet it.

Competitors such as Disney and the aforementioned Paramount Skydance and Comcast will already be sketching out alternative deals they can make. Amazon’s Prime Video and Apple TV likewise, even though both have other revenue streams that can pay for their video services for an almost indefinite period.

In Hollywood, the deal represents a minor revolution, even culturally. Netflix — once an upstart whose content mostly consisted of leftovers that the other channels licensed to them — has come to be a new colossus. And they are picking up one of the industry’s finest brands and content catalogues to boot.

The playing field in the TV world is being redrawn, and it is a tech company sitting in the driving seat. Ted Sarandos’s goal from 2013 suddenly feels obvious.

The upstart did not just overtake — now they are taking over.

They get more than just money from the state

November 27, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on November 27th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

What happens if Stegra fails? That thought is the company’s strongest bargaining chip right now. Now the state is reaching for its wallet to try to secure the company’s future.

Almost any other Swedish company would have been overjoyed by 390 million kronor. For Stegra, the sum was likely a major disappointment — and considerably less than what they actually needed.

The signal value of the contribution from the Energy Agency may, however, be more important than the money itself. The grant sends a much-needed message to all investors and lenders: the state has not yet given up on Stegra.

It is a complicated situation the company has put itself in. The venture is so large it can be likened to an infrastructure project — something that could affect cities, regions, and the country as a whole.

But unlike other projects of the same calibre, this is being done with private money. In addition to the new contribution, Stegra has admittedly received 1.3 billion kronor in state support. But that figure should be seen in the light of the 72 billion that has come from the private sector. It is a great deal of money in absolute terms, but viewed as a proportion it looks rather meagre.

Whether the state should finance projects of this nature at all is naturally something one can reflect on. There is no shortage of critics of both the idea and the execution when it comes to Stegra.

But when SvD’s Birgitta Forsberg interviewed Pierre-Etienne Franc, CEO of venture capital firm Hy24 and board member of Stegra, he put his finger on a sensitive question. In the interview he says that “Swedish support for Northvolt was not particularly large, and if Stegra were also to fail, that would become a Swedish problem.”

Were Stegra to meet the same fate as Northvolt — regardless of whether the state has financed it or not — it could become a problem for Sweden.

That is, ironically, perhaps Stegra’s best card to play in negotiations over grants and support going forward. One more green failure and an isolated problem suddenly looks like a trend.

Is it no longer possible to run new, entrepreneurially driven industrial projects in Sweden? That is the kind of question one wants to avoid having to answer.

All the parties involved have now created a mildly unhealthy dependence on one another.

Stegra needs continued and expanded financing to keep operating. The financiers — lenders and investors — do not want to bear the entire risk alone, and would prefer to have financing from other sources too. Preferably the Swedish state.

The state does not want to get involved in private projects that could create scandals — but nor does it want Stegra to go under. In particular not in the 2026 election year. That would inevitably splash back onto the Kristersson government as well.

It is against this backdrop that one can view the new 391 million kronor in grants that have now reached Stegra. To TT, Klara Helstad, deputy head of department at the Energy Agency, says that “we have made an independent decision.” That may well be so. But no decision involving hundreds of millions of kronor is made in a vacuum.

In practice, the contribution becomes a much-needed lifeline for Stegra. The state is still in the game, even if not to any great extent. But that signal — that more parties are willing to try to make Stegra work — may be exactly what is needed to secure new funding.

According to the company, 10 billion kronor more is needed. And not a single tonne of green steel has been produced yet.

Things are going incredibly well — for incredibly few

November 24, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on November 24th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

On LinkedIn, people are cheering about “Silicon Valhalla” — the new name for the Swedish tech miracle. But how is it really going? A new industry report reveals quite a few cracks in the facade.

Ask and you shall receive, as they say. The same could be said for the flood of reports that emerge from companies with an interest in telling a particular kind of story.

One such report arrived recently from venture capital firm Atomico, in which they review “The State of European Tech 2025.” And what a surprise — this firm that primarily invests in Europe concludes that things look good for Europe. But anyone who reads the report can also draw entirely different conclusions. Such as that Sweden and Europe as a whole are light-years behind the United States, despite constant cheerleading and new slogans.

We dive into the report’s 282 pages. Here we see, among other things, that Sweden ranks fourth in Europe in terms of the amount of venture capital invested during 2025. Well ahead of countries with considerably larger populations, such as Spain, Italy, or Poland. We have also grown compared to 2024. Things are going well, one might suggest.

A slightly more nuanced way to describe the situation would be that things are going extraordinarily well — for extraordinarily few.

In Sweden, five individual investments in 2025 account for more than 50 percent of all money invested during the year. 223 million dollars went to Lovable and 266 million dollars to Legora. Just those two AI companies account for around 20 percent of all venture capital in tech invested in Sweden during the year.

Looking at the neighbouring country to the east, the concentration is even greater. There, 80 percent of all investments went to just five companies. And more specifically: had Finland not had Oura, the maker of smart rings, the total amount of venture capital in 2025 would have fallen by 900 million dollars — in other words, almost everything.

One of the companies that has contributed to Sweden’s concentration of venture capital is the aforementioned Lovable. The founder of the hyped company, Anton Osika, is quoted in the report saying that “Europe has everything it needs to build companies that last for generations, with values in the trillions of dollars — and we have decided to prove it.”

If Europe has everything we need, it seems strange that Lovable’s parent company is registered in the US, in the state of Delaware. And that, according to Di Digital, it is in the process of establishing the company in both San Francisco and Boston. The purpose is to “get closer to large parts of its customer base” — which is therefore not located in Europe.

Wanting to look across the Atlantic is natural. But then you have to look at the numbers rather than what is written in the text. The opening paragraphs state that “Europe is perfectly positioned to lead — if we choose to do so,” and that the story of Europe is no longer about “catching up” with the US.

The fact that we are no longer talking about Europe catching up with the US has a different explanation, however. We are simply nowhere close to doing so.

One clear example concerns investments and venture capital in tech. In Europe, a total of 33 billion dollars was invested in the category during 2025, up to the end of September. The equivalent figure in the US stands at 177 billion. But what about the growth rate? The increase in Europe is 7 percent. In the US it is 95 percent. You do not need to be a statistician to see where the momentum in this market lies.

In Sweden there is often a predilection for singing our own praises when it comes to tech — the same phenomenon we previously had with music. Could it be a reaction against the overused law of Jante?

“The Swedish tech miracle” has recently been replaced by the phrase “Silicon Valhalla” — a new LinkedIn slogan for a kind of supporters’ club that wants to showcase the momentum they perceive in Nordic tech. Everyone from investors to those whose job it is to monitor and scrutinise the tech industry cheers every time new money is invested in our region.

The enthusiasm has even made its way into Sweden’s own digitalisation strategy, where civil affairs minister Erik Slottner (KD) writes that “Stockholm has the second most unicorn companies in the world, only Silicon Valley has more.” This is not true — however generously you count. Not in total, and not per capita.

A more sober view of reality would be fitting. Sure, there are Swedish tech companies that are doing well. But in practice we are talking about a handful of individual companies — whose customer base, potential acquirers, or venue for a future stock market listing are all most likely in the US.

Arguments that people abroad are talking about momentum for “Silicon Valhalla” carry limited weight. Venture capitalists have everything to gain from being perceived as positive, and absolutely nothing to gain from the opposite.

The fact that there is momentum for certain AI companies in 2025 is also hardly unique. Look at the US, Israel, or the UK, for instance, for larger successes. The EU can — and seems to want to — improve here.

But we do neither ourselves nor the Nordic tech world any favours by viewing everything that happens through a rose-tinted filter. If you are looking for support for a more humble view of Sweden and Europe’s achievements in tech, you do not need to look far. Start by reading the industry’s own report, for example.

A big and embarrassing mistake by SVT

November 24, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on November 24th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

SVT’s Agenda using a fake AI clip in a segment is the beginning of something larger than a single act of sloppiness. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to be the last — either for them or for other media outlets.

Over the weekend, the social network X gained a new feature. With the press of a button, you could find out in which country a person’s account was registered, and from where they post their updates. It became, as expected, a little strange.

Patriotic MAGA influencers turned out to be from India. Reporters said to be operating from inside Gaza were based in entirely different countries. If you previously had to wonder whether the content they shared was actually true, the question has now expanded further: these people whose posts I am sitting reading — do they even exist at all?

It is into this new media landscape that Agenda on Sunday evening chose to insert a fictional clip about American police officers. In this particular case, you would not have needed to be a great practitioner of source criticism to sense something was off. On the officer’s chest, the word “POICE” is clearly legible — without the “L,” in other words. That type of error is typical of where AI-generated images and video stand today. SVT missing this is therefore extremely careless. But we are rapidly moving into a world where obvious signals like these will no longer exist. What happens then?

Google’s new AI model, the incomprehensibly named “Nano Banana Pro,” now creates people without the glossy sheen that previously surrounded many AI images. They simply looked too perfect. They no longer do. Perfection in AI is imperfection, if you will. We are months rather than years away from video clips and images being practically indistinguishable from the real thing.

We have already seen clear consequences of this. In August last year, during the American election campaign, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was met by a large crowd at the airport in Detroit. Enthusiastic supporters stood with signs and cheered. Nothing unusual given that it was an election year.

Donald Trump was not buying it, however. He claimed that Kamala Harris’s image had been AI-manipulated to make her appear more popular than she actually was. In this case, Trump appears to have been wrong — but his line of reasoning points to a development that will be difficult to manage. If something can be AI-generated, what is to say that everything is not? Even the things that are true?

It goes without saying that truth as a concept risks being devalued in this development. But that does not mean the search for truth needs to be.

The solution to this AI-decipherment problem will likely — ironically — be more AI. When it becomes too difficult with the naked eye to identify what is what, it may be possible for an AI tool to do exactly that. The problem is well-known to those building the products, but until now the issue has been relatively limited. The large wave of so-called deepfakes anticipated during the American presidential election largely failed to materialise. The next election campaign is unlikely to be so peaceful.

The blunder on Agenda is probably the beginning of something larger rather than an isolated act of sloppiness. Placing it in prime airtime on one of Sweden’s biggest news programmes — at the same time as the storm of criticism surrounding public service peer the BBC — is particularly unfortunate.

But it will happen again. Quite possibly at SvD too, at some point. Truth, as we know it, is under attack. And we have not yet quite worked out what our defence is supposed to be.

The CEO stands alone — now she must act

November 21, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on November 21st, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

The most anticipated CEO departure on the Swedish stock market has begun. With Georgi Ganev leaving Kinnevik, the company is left with a large cash pile, a questionable portfolio, and a long list of question marks. Now Cristina Stenbeck must show her hand.

The warning signs began to appear as early as August 2024. Kinnevik had completed the sale of Tele2, one of the investment company’s few stable, large holdings. The result was a large bag of money — 13 billion kronor in total. CEO Georgi Ganev described the deal at the time as having been done in the spirit of Jan Stenbeck.

The foundation of the old Kinnevik was gone. Less clear was what would replace it. When 6.4 billion kronor was distributed to shareholders instead of being deployed into new companies, the obvious question arose: why does an investment company exist if it does not want to make investments?

It is easy to single out Ganev in a situation like this. As CEO for the past eight years, he bears ultimate responsibility for the business. But the reality is likely more complex than that.

One level up, Ganev has been working with a mixed board. Cross-investments were made between Kinnevik and board member Harald Mix’s own initiatives at Vargas. The distance between investing over 1 billion kronor in an attempt to produce green steel in Boden and managing Norwegian food deliveries could hardly be greater. Ganev made the investments — but the board approved them.

The board also had an obvious vacancy: the company’s owner. Not until May of this year did Cristina Stenbeck return as chair of Kinnevik’s board. Now, six months later, Ganev is leaving. That is no coincidence.

But bringing the company to this long-awaited position of clarity took too long. Kinnevik drifted when governance was not strong enough. What did the owners say during this period? Which proposed investments were voted down by the board? We do not know today. But one thing is clear: Ganev was not alone in steering Kinnevik to this position. But he has had to be the public face of it, on his own.

As he now steps down, it is therefore time for others to step forward. Cristina Stenbeck, gavel in hand, needs to show her cards. What does she want? What kind of company should Kinnevik be in 2026 and beyond?

The upcoming CEO recruitment is therefore absolutely central. The list of people who would want to sit as top executive at one of Sweden’s most legendary listed companies is long. Interest is not lacking. The challenge is therefore less about finding candidates and more about finding someone who wants the same thing as the owners — and who can both articulate the vision to the market and deliver results on the ground.

The situation for the incoming chief is in many ways ideal. The discount to net asset value sits at around 40 percent, meaning confidence in existing holdings is low. You start from the bottom — and from there, there is reasonably only one way to move. The cash pile is well-stocked following the Tele2 sale. What was not distributed to shareholders is available for new investments. A new CEO can, without nostalgia, clean up the portfolio and sharpen the focus. Becoming the new CEO of Kinnevik would be an extraordinarily difficult job — but the conditions are favourable.

But a CEO alone cannot, as noted, turn this ship around by themselves. The owners must speak out clearly about what they want and expect. The board must believe in the strategy and dare to follow through when hundreds of millions in new investments are required. That is easier said than done.

Kinnevik is now initiating what will become Sweden’s most closely watched recruitment process. Everyone knows the legacy of Jan Stenbeck. These are big shoes to fill for the next person to take over. But more important still is being clear about the direction in which those shoes are supposed to walk.

I tested it: hard to escape Nvidia

November 19, 2025
by Björn Jeffery
SvD Näringsliv

This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on November 19th, 2025. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

With markets tense and nervous, Nvidia — the heart of the AI economy — reports its quarterly results on Wednesday evening. But is it even possible to avoid Nvidia in your portfolio if you want to? SvD’s tech analyst Björn Jeffery decided to put it to the test.

If there is anyone who has made a name for themselves with simple, sober advice about the stock market, it is the legendary investor Warren Buffett. In his annual letter to the shareholders of his company Berkshire Hathaway in 2013, he wrote the following about how he would like a future inheritance from him to be managed:

“Put 10 percent of the money in short-term government bonds and 90 percent in a low-cost index fund tracking the S&P 500.”

The advice has not aged quite as intended. Today, around 8 percent of such a fund consists of Nvidia. More than a third is tech companies overall.

With markets now buzzing with anxiety ahead of the chip company’s report on Wednesday evening, I grew curious. How do you put together a broad stock market portfolio that does not contain Nvidia?

I decided to run an experiment and test it. It turned out to be harder than I had expected.

Let me start with the obvious: of course it is possible to trade around Nvidia. If you only buy Swedish equities, your exposure to Nvidia is essentially zero. The same if you buy property bonds or similar instruments.

But most Swedish private investors do not invest in securities that way. They want to buy funds, and preferably ones as broadly diversified as possible to avoid excessive concentration in any one sector. This is what I tried to replicate in the experiment.

So what happens if you simply buy broad global index funds? You end up with something considerably more concentrated than you might expect. In particular, global funds, US funds, and tech funds have all begun to look very similar to one another.

I looked at Länsförsäkringar Global Index, a popular Swedish global fund. The fund tracks a particular index and therefore does not pick its own stocks. This explains why the global component of this global fund has shrunk considerably.

Today it consists of more than 75 percent US equities. The single largest holding is, once again, Nvidia. Among the ten largest holdings, nine are American tech companies.

If you compare Länsförsäkringar Global Index with its sibling fund Länsförsäkringar USA Index, you find quite a few similarities, to say the least. The ten largest holdings are identical.

The pattern is similar at other global funds too.

Another popular fund, Handelsbanken Global Index, tracks a different index than Länsförsäkringar. But the contents are familiar. Eight of the ten largest holdings are tech. Nvidia is the largest at 5.9 percent of the fund. And this global fund too consists of more than 62 percent US equities. China is the second largest, at around 5.7 percent.

I went broader still. Surely there must be entirely different kinds of indices that distribute stocks more globally?

Here I found ACWI — the All World Country Index — which nonetheless suffered from something similar. The US accounts for around 65 percent of the holdings, and all of the ten largest are in tech. Topping the list again: Nvidia, with just over 5 percent.

Global funds were therefore no solution to my problem. But what about entirely different markets?

Even there I found pitfalls. Länsförsäkringar Tillväxtmarknad Index does not, admittedly, have Nvidia among its holdings. But the largest holding is TSMC — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — also known as the world’s largest chip manufacturer. TSMC is the company that produces the majority of Nvidia’s chips. Second and third among the holdings are the Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba — both very active in the AI market.

To avoid Nvidia while still maintaining broad exposure, I had to hunt considerably further down the fund list. The exchange-traded fund “Amundi MSCI USA ex Mega Cap” is an attempt at precisely this — it removes the very largest companies (“mega cap”) entirely.

But there a different problem arose: performance.

So far this year, that fund has fallen half a percent. Had I bought it at the start of the year, I would have successfully avoided Nvidia — but I would also have lost money.

The explanation for this dismal performance is the same reason Nvidia is so overrepresented in so many other funds.

In a stock index, specifically prescribed rules determine which companies are included and which are not, and also the frequency with which the index is rebalanced. When a stock performs well over a period, it gets a larger share of the index. And Nvidia has performed extraordinarily well — rising more than 1,350 percent over the past five years. Together with other tech giants like Apple and Microsoft, that success has meant they have slowly become an ever-larger part of these indices. Remove these stocks entirely and you have also missed their entire rise.

Economists tend to talk about the importance of diversification — not putting all your eggs in one basket. The tricky part is that what was a fairly diversified portfolio a few years ago has now become considerably more concentrated. If you bought a blend of global, emerging market, and US funds ten years ago, you might well be surprised how often Nvidia now shows up — directly and indirectly.

Even for someone like me — relatively informed and purposeful — attempting to build a broad fund portfolio without Nvidia was neither easy, clear-cut, nor particularly successful. Sure, it is possible. But it is unfortunately not as simple as it sounds. I am now left holding financial products with names along the lines of “iShares Inflation Linked Govt Bond UCITS ETF EUR (Acc)”. You would not find that in the average person’s portfolio.

Have you made no active choices about your savings at all? With your money in a savings account, Wednesday’s quarterly figures from Nvidia can pass you by without worry. But if you have not made any particular choices about your pension either, I have bad news.

The single largest holding in AP7 Såfa — the so-called “sofa fund”, which you are allocated when you have not chosen anything yourself — is, of course, Nvidia.