david: this is my kitchen table and also my filing system.

for much of the past few decades i have been an investor. the highest calling of mankind i've often thought was private equity. and then i started interviewing. i watch you interview because i know how to do some interviews. i've learned from doing my interviews how leaders make it to the top. jeff: i asked him how much he wanted, he said 250, i didn't negotiate and i did no due diligence. david: i have something i'd like to sell. and how they stay there. you don't feel inadequate being only the second wealthiest man in the world, is that right? the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world is a sovereign fund of norway. it is overseen by nicolai tangen. a former norwegian hedge fund manager that has the chance to oversee the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. i had a chance to sit down with him at davos and ask what it is like to be responsible for a fund that large. tell us what norges investment management does.

nicolai: it has many facets. of course, one is to lead the investment activity and also to develop the organization. there is quite a comprehensive framework around it, working with the board, the ministry, and the supervisory board. there is a council of ethics that keeps us out of unethical investments, and so on. david: every sovereign wealth fund has someone running it but none other i am aware of has a superstar private investor, member of the giving pledge, and someone who made a lot of money in the private sector. how did you come to do this job and leave your job running a successful hedge fund? nicolai: i had been running a company called ako capital for 15 years. the learning is plateauing and i need to move on in life and do

other things. i was starting to apply to go back to university, and then this job came up and i thought, wow. it combines developing an organization and also to do something good for the country. it was perfect. david: where did norway get all this money? $1.7 trillion is a lot of money. where did you get all this money? nicolai: [laughter] well, we had been drilling on the norwegian shelf for a long time. actually, this was in 1969 in the autumn on a cold day like today. this was phillips operating a platform called ocean viking. at 2:00 in the morning the platform chief was told to wake up the guy in charge. it is like, hey, why are you waking me up at 2:00 in the morning? you know what, we found some oil. it was the biggest find the world had ever seen offshore.

and then this was announced to the norwegian population the day before christmas eve in 1969. that is where it started. david: is a leif erickson had not gone to north america and stayed in norway it would have been better for norway, right? he would have discovered the oil there. nicolai: could be. david: let's talk about the current investment environment. as we talk today, president trump has been inaugurated in the united states. are you worried about some of the america first policies he said he would pursue, or as a global investment manager does it not make a difference to you? nicolai: we are a global investor. if we disregard all types of policies which can impact society and just look at it from a pure financial point of view, i think in the short-term term it would be really good for our companies in america. there will be less regulation. there will be more growth. so, that's positive.

of course, if there are lots of tariffs, our european companies would be hit by it and that would be a negative. there's a big question about whether the policies will be inflationary, which will be bad news in the longer term. david: let's talk for a moment about norges investment management. oil was discovered in 1969. when was this organization set up? nicolai: in 1996. the first deposit was 2 billion norwegian krone and it has grown to 20,000 billion. so, good growth. david: the money that comes in from the oil that you invest, does it go to every citizen in norway every year or does it stay in the central reserve for use by the government? nicolai: politicians at the time also established the spending role. you can only spend 3% of the fund every year. 3% of the fund goes into the

budget. the fund is now so large that it accounts for 25% -- between 20% and 25% of the state budget. i think it's very good to have that rule in place. david: 25% of the government's budget comes from what you do every year? nicolai: yeah, and my 700 colleagues. david: how many people work for you? nicolai: roughly 700. 100 in new york, 114 in london, 14 in singapore, and the rest in oslo. david: do people pay an enormous amount of your success? do people look in the newspapers and see how you are doing? because that will affect norway's government? nicolai: not only every day, we have a website with the ticker that shows the real value of the fund at all times. it is updated 13 times every second. david: that is a lot of pressure. nicolai: absolutely. david: your job is to oversee several hundred people making

investment decisions. they come to you if it is a really big investment decision and say we are going to put $100 million into something? or are you doing strategic things and not individual investment decisions? nicolai: it is such a large firm. we have a very good investment mandate which we get from the ministry of finance and we follow that. then we have decentralized the mandates within the firm. david: do people in norway or the government criticize you saying that you bought too much or not enough apple stock or do not get those kinds of criticisms? nicolai: we always make mistakes, and that is always in the papers. [laughter] either you have too much or too little. when you own a bit of 9000 companies across the world, there is always something going wrong somewhere. we always own it. so, we are always criticized. david: today if i was looking for good investment ideas, what is the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, what would you say are a couple good ideas?

nicolai: if you are a long-term investor like we are, you want to be widely diversified across asset classes come across geographies. it is very tough to do tactical asset allocation. it's nearly impossible. the best thing to do is the opposite of everybody else. what would that be today? it would be to sell the u.s. tech stocks, buy china, sell private credit, buy stuff that is out of fashion, but it's a very tough to do. if you are contrarian and different from your benchmarks, there will be period where everyone will question your sanity. david: what about artificial intelligence? nicolai: it has been fantastic. we have made a lot of money for the fund. the contributors have been the big american ai companies. i polled people in norges just before christmas when i asked how more efficient you are because of the new tools? on average, 15% more efficient. really good.

david: nvidia is still a good stock to buy? nicolai: that i don't know but for sure they make good products. david: when you look at your investment team, do they come in every week and say here's some ideas we have and you tell them yes, no, yes, no, or do you listen to what they recommend? nicolai: in order to judge how they are doing they need to be totally accountable and you can't interfere in the investment process. i do not interfere in their investment process. david: in the u.s., esg and d.e.i. seem to be in less favor than they were two or three years ago. is that the case in norway? nicolai: no. david: you do not care about what the u.s. is doing? nicolai: there is clearly a backlash. the policies that we have are anchored in the parliament. so, we have no change of our mind. we think it's important with climate reporting.

we think diversity is good, and so on. david: in most scandinavian countries, in norway, there is concern about climate change and a lot of interest around renewable energy, but you make your money from nonrenewable energy. is there incongruity making your money from carbonized chemicals and fuels, but you really don't believe in that to some extent? how do you square that? nicolai: we believe in it and we believe the gas that norway produces, which is a very high proportion of the gas supply in europe, is very important. it continues to be a big part of the energy supply and important for security for many years to come. ♪

david: let's talk about your own background.

you were not just working your way up in the government with norges investment management, you were successful in the private sector. where were you born? nicolai: i was born in a small town in southern norway that not many people have heard about. david: were your parents investment managers? nicolai: [laughter] no, my mother worked in the public sector with museums and art and my father was an entrepreneur. david: where did you go to school? nicolai: i started in norway and studied russian in the intelligent service. i went to wharton. i have done some degrees afterwards. one in art history and one in social psychology. david: is it unusual for someone in norway to go to college at wharton school in philadelphia? nicolai: it is not so common. david: when you went to wharton and said you were from norway, did people say where is that? nicolai: of course. david: did they make fun of norway and say you were a viking or something like that? nicolai: i was. [laughter] david: you graduate from wharton and get other degrees.

nicolai: the cool thing is you egalitarian society all about being very humble and so long, and then you come to wharton which is the opposite. [laughter] i went to class one day, what do you want to do? i want to conquer the world -- i did not say that. someone else did. people applauded. the mindset was different. david: you didn't find a lot of humility at wharton? nicolai: not so much. [laughter] david: you graduated, did you go into the private sector right away? nicolai: i became an analyst and worked there for five years. i joined one of the earliest hedge funds in europe. david: where was it based? nicolai: london. david: when did you say i will set up my own hedge fund? nicolai: afterwards. i'd worked for these hedge funds for five years, made some money, then i took a break and did a masters in art history. i realized i was not very good at it.

david: how do you know you are not good at art history? nicolai: you get feedback from the professor that you are not the brightest. [laughter] i am better at looking at stocks than paintings. let's set up this firm instead. david: you built a great art collection, so you must know something. nicolai: yes, but it is easier to buy art than write about art. david: how big was your own hedge fund before you stopped it? nicolai: just under $20 billion. one of the largest in europe. i'm proud of what we did. we had many of the largest universities in the world. david: you have a $20 billion hedge fund and you are averaging rates of return in the double digits. you got this opportunity to run norges investment management, did you say to your family i will not be making that much money anymore and we have to live more conservatively? nicolai: yes. david: what did they say? they were happy with that? nicolai: yeah. i have enough money to buy food and shoes.

david: usually hedge fund managers don't say they have enough money to buy food. they want to buy airplanes and art. nicolai: that is a misconstrued perception of what happiness is. in my mind, happiness is about learning. that is how you measure happiness, how much you have learned. some people measure success with how much money they have when they die. that is a total failure. the person with the most money when they die has lost, they do not have it. david: i did not realize that. [laughter] i have something that i have to learn. you set up your hedge fund. when you left your hedge fund it do have other people running it? is it still around? nicolai: it is still around. it has been a great transition. really, really nice. they are doing better than ever. it is a total win-win. when i left for the position in norway, i had to give away my ownership stakes.

i gave it to a charitable foundation. so, the stake in the hedge fund is funding that charitable foundation. david: you did so well that you joined the giving pledge? that means that you have a net worth of at least $1 billion or so. are you the only person in norway that is on the giving pledge? nicolai: there is one more. david: when you go to the giving pledge meetings, do you say, guess what, i'm giving away money now but i'm really running the norway sovereign wealth fund? or do people not talk to you about what you do now? nicolai: they talk about that too. david: do you go to reunions at wharton and say -- nicolai: i was on the board for some time. david: i guess they ask for contributions from time to time? nicolai: yeah. [laughter] i did give them a building. david: all the people in your class and bragging about how great they were and they would conquer the world, did you show up and say that you were the guy that did that didn't brag about

it? nicolai: i never felt i conquered the world, no. david: for five years you have run the fund pretty well. your term is up. you have another five-year term that you could get. nicolai: i applied last week. david: do you have to apply or you already have the job? nicolai: you have to apply again. i turned in my cv and applied. david: did anyone else apply? nicolai: i think so. i don't know. when it comes to this i'm very humble. if they find anybody else who's better at doing the job, he/she should get the job. it's a very important job in the country. i applied and i hope i will get an extension. if not, i need to do something else. david: you are willing to do another five years? nicolai: yeah. david: your compensation is modest, i assume, compared to what you used to make? nicolai: it is a well-paid job, but it is a public sector job. david: any thought about going

into politics and running for government positions? prime minister or something like that? nicolai: no. david: no interest in anything like that? nicolai: no. david: suppose you do another five years. after 10 years of this you would probably say, that's enough? nicolai: i will hopefully spend the rest of my life doing good things. i would love to go back to university at some stage and learn some more things. david: art history, but you're not that good at that, so you would do something else? you have a big art collection. what art do you collect? nicolai: we have the biggest collection of nordic modernist art and we gave it to a museum last year. the new york times recently said it was one of the 50 most important places to go in 2025, so you will have to go. david: if someone is watching this and has never been to norway, what would you say about what is great about norway that we deserve their visiting? what can you see in norway?

nicolai: the nature is unrivaled. it is like switzerland with a lot of sea around it and it is absolutely beautiful. you're really close to the fjords, to the mountains, it's good for skiing and hiking. it's perfect. and not too many people, so it's not so crowded. david: how many total people? nicolai: 5 million. david: when alfred nobel was developing his nobel prizes, he had the prizes given by people at the swedish academies, but he didn't think that the swedes were peaceful, loving people. he said that the peace prize was given by people in norway. norway is very peaceful. you have no interest in international diplomatic things? something like that? nicolai: no. david: your children, are they interested in investing? nicolai: no. thank god for that. i think, in my mind, you don't want to follow your parents. you want to create your own destiny.

you don't want to be measured against the success of your parents. i do not believe in inheritance. i think to inherit a lot of money is not a good thing. if you are successful, it is because you inherited a lot of money, and if you fail you are a total failure because you started with a lot of money and you didn't manage to do it. i think, let them do what they want. david: today, are you worried about your borders because of what is going on in russia and ukraine? is that something you worry about with the impact of russia and ukraine on the impact on your investment appetite? nicolai: i am not worried about russia invading norway anytime soon. we are a member of nato. we do border russia, but since finland and sweden joined nato, we feel stronger than before. learn, learn, learn. you have to believe in what you do. you have to be able to be contrarian, but when things change, you have to change your mind. that is the rarest combination. ♪

david: sovereign wealth fund leaders, do they get together from time to time and exchange ideas? nicolai: yeah, we do. it is great, actually. there's a lot of cooperation between the large funds. david: when you see the other people, do you ever say, how did they get this job, or they are really smart? nicolai: they are generally really smart. david: what are you most proud of having achieved in five years? nicolai: there are so many things that can go wrong when you run a large fund like that. there haven't been any major disasters, and that's good. that's because of the great team we have working together. david: have you ever thought of running a norwegian tracking fund that lets people invest their money, tracking your fund, and they can do that? nicolai: no. there have been talks about it, but i'm not going to do it. this is my last money job. david: you will not go back and manage money again? nicolai: no.

david: why not? you have made enough money? nicolai: no, i've had this job, the most fun job in global finance, and i don't think there's anything else out there. david: where did you meet your wife? nicolai: at a nightclub. [laughter] we were introduced through some friends. david: it wasn't just a regular pickup? nicolai: no, it was organized. the first time i asked her she said no. that is why i never take no for an answer. ♪

david: today, what would you say your biggest investment concerns are? you are running a $1.7 trillion fund. what are you worried about? nicolai: you have the known unknowns. at the top of my list would be two things. one is inflation because there is an argument that in a tight labor market when you decline supply or reduce supply of labor -- in the u.s., you put on tariffs and these could be inflationary. there is a moment where given the high level of government debt the investors decide that we want to have a higher coupon to lend to governments. you could see a step up in interest rates, which could be negative for financial markets. of course, all of the ai-related stocks, the epicenter here is taiwan. you need to watch that. the thing that really scares us when it happens is the unexpected, you know.

whether it be a meltdown of nuclear reactors in japan, covid, or a financial crisis, is the stuff that you can't model that derails markets. they come about every so often, and there will be a lot of them coming up. david: suppose i am interviewing you for your reapplication for this job for the next five years. what would you say is the reason that you deserve the job? you've done pretty well? you like the job? people are happy? your rate of return has been good? why would you say that you should get this job? nicolai: the organization has done well, there is great teamwork, we have done a lot of great things. we are now the most transparent fund in the world. we've done a lot of things like that, right? there is always lower risk to take the incumbent than changing. pros and cons, other people out there are really excellent. david: what do you do for outside activities? are you a skier?

nicolai: i spend a lot of time in nature. i walk in the forest. i do cross-country skiing. i pick mushrooms in the autumn. david: you do what? nicolai: pick mushrooms. [laughter] not the magic ones. [laughter] you walk around in the forest, and you pick mushrooms, and you cook them, and you make spaghetti. david: that is unusual. [laughter] wow. generally, you strike me as a very happy person. i generally don't find that many happy people in the investment world. they are always worried about something else, but you are pretty happy. how did you get to be so happy? nicolai: you have to figure out what makes you happy and i think people mistake that often. just try to make more money. they try to buy more things. that is not where true happiness comes from. it comes from spending time with friends and family and learning.

in terms of learning, as you know, i also do a podcast, and i learn a lot through that podcast. david: if you are giving advice to someone watching about how to be a good investment manager, what is the single most important advice that you can give someone? nicolai: learn, learn, learn. the combination of being stubborn and agile. you have to stick with their guns, you have to believe in what you do, you have to be able to be contrarian, but when things change you have to change your mind, and that is the rarest combination in investment management. david: you think humility is better than arrogance? nicolai: confident humility is the magic. david: have you ever met warren buffett? nicolai: no. david: no interest? nicolai: i would love to meet him, but -- david: he has not called you for ideas? nicolai: i have not met him -- well, i met him briefly. david: is there one person who is a role model for you? if it is not warren buffett, maybe it is even though you haven't met him, is there anyone

that you would say that you have a role model in the investment area? nicolai: i think it's difficult not to mention bill gates as a role model if you are a philanthropist. you make a lot of money, and then you are very organized and structured in the way that you give it away. i think that's really impressive. ♪

haslinda: this is nita ambani, the powerful matriarch of asia's richest family. she is a key player in one of corporate india's biggest conglomerates, reliance