
đŠŸ Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm rails against AI regulations and explains why he's a tech optimist: "It has always turned out to be the right thing so far"
"If your fastest growing employee category in Europe is lawyers, then I have some serious concerns. I still donât know a lawyer who has built a product," says Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm about AI regulations.
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This is the first piece based on the interviews I've done for my book about AI. Most of the content will be in the book, but Iâll also share parts of it here on Warp News. Subscribe to our free newsletter so you donât miss anything.
The unexpected CEO
Börje Ekholm had actually started to wind down. Heâd stepped down as CEO of Investor and moved up into the Colorado mountains. Then one day the phone rang. It was Ericssonâs chairman, Leif Johansson. Nothing strange about that in itselfâthey sat on Ericssonâs board together and were looking for a successor to Hans Vestberg, who had recently been let go as CEO.
Ericsson is one of Swedenâs largest companies, with over 95,000 employees, operations in over 180 countries and a central role in developing global mobile standards like 3G, 4G, and 5G.
The strange part, at least for Börje Ekholm, was the question Johansson asked:
"Would you consider taking this job?"
What was your first thought, Di asked Börje Ekholm later after he'd been appointed CEO.
"That he was drunk," Ekholm replied.
Even though he had to give up his retirement plans, Ericsson was something of a dream job for him. Ekholm is an engineer by training and has always found tech and industry more exciting than finance. Despite that, he had spent most of his professional life working in finance.
Börje Ekholm moved out early to attend high school in the small Swedish town, VĂ€stervik. Having to fend for himself at fifteen led to a high degree of independenceâsomething heâs also noticed in his daughters, who moved out fairly early too. When he tried to get them to stay at home longer, they asked rhetorically: Is that what you did, Dad?
He almost ended up living permanently in the US earlier in life. After earning his engineering degree at The Royal Institute of Technology and an MBA at INSEAD, he started working at McKinseyâs New York office. But his girlfriend wanted to move to Sweden. So he quit and followed her back.
"Of course, the relationship eventually ended."
Back in Sweden, he got a job at Investor, where he later served as CEO for ten years. Investor is one of Swedenâs most influential companies, serving as the investment arm of the powerful Wallenberg family and holding major stakes in many of the countryâs largest and most important industrial firms, including Ericsson, ABB, and AstraZeneca.
Fastest-growing employee category: Lawyers
I and Börje Ekholm were members on the Swedish government's AI Commission and I immediately noticed heâs not afraid to speak his mindâand heâs something of a quote machine. For years, Iâve criticized the EU for overregulating, especially in AI, where the union oddly seemed satisfied regulating before we even know what problems might arise. Ekholm has been even more active in this space for a long time.
âThereâs been a handful of us who have been harping on about this like crazy,â he says.

That was one of the reasons I wanted to interview Börje Ekholm for the book Iâm writing about AI. (Iâll also publish parts of these interviews here on Warp News.) Another reason was that when the AI Commission visited Ericsson, I saw they had been very quick to act when it came to generative AI. Large companies often risk being slow because of their size, so when they act differently, itâs interesting to understand why.
But letâs start with the issue of excessive regulations. I say excessive because thatâs where the problem lies. That there should be laws and regulations is obvious, but they need to be kept at a reasonable levelâotherwise, they become a wet blanket that slows progress.
In the tech space, the EU lags far behind the US. One analysis shows that in terms of market value, the seven largest American tech companies are together 20 times larger than Europeâs top seven, and ten times larger in terms of revenue. European AI investments are about one-tenth of those in the US.
âIf your fastest growing employee category in Europe is lawyers, then I have some serious concerns. I still donât know a lawyer who has built a product,â says Börje Ekholm.
Why heâs a tech optimist
His criticism of regulation partly stems from this, but it has a deeper root.
âI have this kind of naive belief that technology brings good to society. Thatâs why technological progress is something to embrace, not block. If you regulate something before the development even happens, you are by definition slowing it down.â
In my view, itâs not naive at all. But I ask why he believes technology improves things and why fast development is a good. His answer comes immediately:
âItâs always turned out to be the right thing so far.â

So what does he want to see done about the problem of excessive regulation?
âThe first thing the EU should do is just freeze all new regulations. Just say stop. And then step two is actually to remove some of the existing ones. I think you really need to go through and ask: Do we need this regulation? What exactly are we protecting against? For example, we donât need such a strict GDPR regulation.â
The EU seems to be coming to a similar realization. Last year, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asked Mario Draghi to look into this, and he delivered strong criticism in a report. Now there are rumors that GDPR may be loosened.
Börje Ekholm has noticed a shift in tone too. âIt sounds different now, so I think thereâs a bit of hope after all.â
Ericsson was early with generative AI
So how did it happen that Ericsson was so early on generative AI?
âWe made a push in 2018â2019 by asking: What in telecom networks is actually valuable? Itâs the data. So we asked: How can we use that data to make better products? To teach products to act in different ways. Thatâs when we started hiring people weâd never had before, and several of them had AI knowledge. When they looked at the data, they said: âWe can build a large language model here.â So someone started working on that. It costs a bit of money, but thatâs something you just have to allow. So thatâs why we were quite earlyânot because we knew ChatGPT was coming, but simply because we wanted to manage our data better.â
Several of Börje Ekholmâs insights on AI will be in the book, but Iâm sharing a few here because I think he really nails how we should think about AI.
First, he sees AIâand especially generative AIâas something truly major:
âI think this might be the most powerful horizontal technology weâve ever seen.â
Second, he believes that efficiency shouldnât be the main focus:
âThereâs too much discussion about efficiency. What it really does is create digital employeesâwhether you call them agents or something else. But your supply of competence becomes enormous. And this allows me to do lots of new things in the company. I can develop new products, I can do it faster. I can add other features to them. I can sell them to customers in completely new ways.â
Finally, I had to ask if he regrets saying yes to becoming Ericssonâs CEO. It doesnât seem like it:
âItâs not easy. I think itâs hard. But Iâve never done anything this fun.â
Mathias Sundin
Angry Optimist
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