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00:04Our next guest runs Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund, which is the largest in the world.
00:10The fund is valued at $2.3 trillion. It's more than doubled since 2017.
00:16That fund is invested in 7,200 companies worldwide, and it owns almost 1.5% of all the shares
00:23in the world's listed companies.
00:24Its top holdings are concentrated in AI and technology because it is an index-oriented global portfolio, with NVIDIA its
00:32largest holding as of June.
00:34Joining us right now is Nikolai Tangent, Norges Bank Investment Management CEO, who has a new book that's out today.
00:42It's called Tell Me I'm Wrong.
00:45Nikolai happens to have a podcast, and he has talked to basically anybody and everybody in the world of business.
00:52I run through this. You've got Eric Schmidt, Bill Ackman, Evan Spiegel, Albert Bourla, Arvind Krishna, Jamie Dimon, Brian Armstrong,
01:00Michael Bloomberg, Sam Altman, Dario Amadei, Stan Druckenmiller, Bob Iger, Jensen Wang, Elon Musk.
01:06The list goes on and on.
01:08Nikolai, I want to talk to you about what you've learned from talking to all these CEOs, but first I'd
01:13really like to get your views on the market right now.
01:16You're invested everywhere and have been heavily invested in technology.
01:21What do you think is happening in technology right now? What do you think about the AI trade at this
01:25moment?
01:25Yeah, well, we saw it was quite wobbly after the election last week, but it's stabilized.
01:31What we see is huge underlying demand for compute, and we see what AI is doing to our own firm
01:38in terms of reducing our costs and improving our efficiency.
01:41So clearly, it's just a huge technical revolution.
01:46And to which extent that's now reflected in share prices or not, I think it's a very, very difficult question.
01:51They are our top holdings, basically.
01:53How long have you been focused on technology as your top holdings?
01:56And did that happen because you really went heavily into it?
01:59Or is it because technology shares have grown so much in terms of what they represent in the indexes?
02:04Well, it's mainly because they've become an increasingly important part of the index.
02:07These companies were the top performers several years in their own now.
02:11Now, internally in the fund, we've had increased AI focus basically since we had Sam Altman and Dario Amadei on
02:18the podcast like three, four years ago.
02:19And we realized that, wow, this is just incredible what's going on.
02:23So since then, we've had massive, massive efforts internally.
02:26That was your clue when you had them on the broadcast?
02:29What did they say that made you think, OK?
02:30No, I was sitting there and I asked Sam Altman, hi, what do you think, how much do you think
02:34we can improve efficiency in the fund?
02:37And I just took a number out of the air.
02:39Do you think we could do 10%?
02:41And he was thinking a lot.
02:42And he was like, no, I think you could do 20%.
02:43So after that, I went around in the firm and he said, hi, guys, where are you going to get
02:4720% efficiency from?
02:49And we've done it.
02:51So how do you use AI within the firm to get those efficiencies?
02:54Well, we use it all over the place, right?
02:57So the message from the top is consistent.
02:59It's the people we recruit.
03:00We have ambassadors.
03:01We have events.
03:02We have force training.
03:03We have AI teams.
03:05And we just put it into everything we do.
03:07And it has reduced our trading costs and improved our efficiency.
03:10So you're a believer because you've seen it happen at your own place.
03:12I'm a diehard believer.
03:13What do you think with Jensen Wang and the revelations that he's made clear this week?
03:22It's your largest holding.
03:23You've had him on the program.
03:25You've spoken with him.
03:26Where do you think you stand right now in terms of your views on NVIDIA?
03:30Yeah.
03:31Well, first of all, I have to say it's a fantastic firm.
03:34And he has done an incredible job to build the firm and, you know, as a leader.
03:39Now, when it comes to the latest events, I don't really have any comment.
03:43What about your feeling in terms of the value of NVIDIA shares right now?
03:49That's more important, like whether you think NVIDIA is just as good of an investment as it was last week
03:55and where you think that firm is with or without Jensen Wang?
03:58Well, again, I think that's a tough question.
04:01You know, the position they have worldwide in their technology is unrivaled.
04:06The innovation they have is unrivaled.
04:09It's a very, very impressive firm.
04:21Okay.
04:22Let's talk a little bit about your technology and your stock holdings versus your bond holdings, because government bonds were
04:32part of the reason that the fund, I think, lost $30 billion in the last quarter, all the turmoil that
04:36was dealing with it.
04:37I think you've raised some questions about whether you'd like to lessen your exposure to sovereign bonds as a result.
04:42Yeah, so we roughly speaking have 70% equities and 30% bonds, and that's a position we've had for
04:48a long period of time.
04:49And then the board has suggested to the ministry that we should replace some of the treasury with mortgage-backed
04:55securities, because you get an uplift in the yield and you get a, you know, somewhat more diversified portfolio.
05:04And so that's what we are looking into.
05:06And is that simply the U.S. treasuries that you're talking about pulling back from?
05:11Yeah.
05:11But it's like, it's a dollar-neutral exercise, so it's not a view on the U.S. as an investment
05:17area.
05:17It's just because you get better, better pickup, mortgage-backed securities.
05:22Yeah.
05:23What else do you see when you look at sovereign bonds?
05:26Is it just the United States where you're making these changes?
05:28Well, that change is in, it's in the U.S.
05:31Generally speaking, we, when we speak to companies and CEOs, there is quite strong inflationary pressure.
05:39It's in many parts of society, and it could be that we generally are underestimating the inflationary pressures.
05:46Okay.
05:47Let's talk about all of these CEOs that you've had in for your podcast, what you've learned from them, and
05:54why you came out with this book.
05:55Yeah.
05:57Well, since we own all these companies, we managed to speak to them.
06:02And so we decided to make a podcast to basically increase transparency even further, because what's the point of me
06:10speaking to them if we don't share it with other people?
06:14And so we have interviewed now 60 of the top 100 CEOs in the world.
06:20You know, we are at a total of close to 200, and we thought, you know what, why don't we
06:23just distill it down to a book and add some of our own kind of reflections on top of it?
06:29And that's why we made this book, and it's just been fascinating.
06:33And I think what you learn from this, well, first of all, I kind of think that CEO stands for
06:37Chief Energy Officer, and I think we underestimate how important it is to have that energy from the top, you
06:42know?
06:42And so the vision, the drive, you know, the ability to do storytelling, all these kind of things that is
06:48becoming increasingly important.
06:50Yeah.
06:50And what have you learned?
06:51What was the most interesting conversation I think you've had, and what did you take away from it?
06:56Well, the thing is that we have so many interesting conversations.
06:59And in addition to the CEOs, we also interviewed social psychologists.
07:02We interviewed the best chess player in the world who happens to be Norwegian, Magnus Carlsen.
07:07So we've had all these type of different interviews also to highlight different aspects of leadership.
07:13What's something that you take away?
07:14What's one successful quality that many of these leaders have?
07:19Delegate.
07:20Don't micromanage.
07:22Micromanagement is death.
07:24You take away, you know, pleasure of life, accountability, creativity.
07:29So, you know, give people a lot of responsibility and just let them run with it.
07:33And sometimes they come up with amazing things that you never imagined that they could do.
07:36Yeah.
07:37Any other examples you can give me of something that really surprised you, something you learned from one of these
07:42conversations?
07:43Well, it is fascinating to talk to the people who make the, you know, the language models,
07:49to which extent they can kind of, to a certain extent, see into the future and have the roadmap for
07:54what's going to happen over the next year or two.
07:57Yeah.
07:57That is really fascinating.
07:58Yeah.
07:59That's like new things that maybe nobody was thinking of before.
08:01Absolutely.
08:03Nicolai, thank you for coming in today.
08:04The book, again, is called Tell Me I'm Wrong.
08:07It is out today.
08:08You can see a copy of it right there.
08:11But it's really fascinating.
08:12Thanks for joining us today.
08:13Thank you.
08:14We'll be right back to you next week.
08:14Bye.
08:14We'll be right back to you next week.
08:16Bye.
08:18Bye.