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For a prolific artwork collector, Nicolai Tangen is remarkably relaxed in regards to the prospect of masterpieces created by robots. The specter of AI-made work, not possible to tell apart from human brushstrokes, has sparked soul-searching and paranoia within the artwork world, however not with Tangen.
“Hey, if it creates higher artwork that’s unbelievable,” says the Norwegian philanthropist, artwork historian and boss of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. “In case you create one thing which is much more aesthetically pleasing, what’s mistaken about that?”
Tangen’s personal gallery, a transformed grain silo within the Norwegian seaside resort of Kristiansand, will open later this 12 months to show one of many world’s largest collections of Nordic modernist artwork. Tangen has amassed greater than 5,000 works by 300 artists. Originals and copies will grasp facet by facet. “There are a few instances the place we expect the artwork is basically lovely. And we principally made a replica of what we had and hung it there as an alternative. Is it much less lovely to take a look at? No it’s not. So it’s simply in regards to the mindset you’ve got.”
Tangen is much less relaxed in regards to the impression synthetic intelligence could have on the greater than 9,000 firms that the £1.1tn Norwegian sovereign wealth fund – colloquially often known as the oil fund – invests in. The wave of disruption has already began scything by means of the inventory market: final month nearly £1bn was wiped off the worth of the tutorial writer Pearson after a US rival warned of a major spike in pupil curiosity in ChatGPT, the generative AI program.
“AI is so unbelievably large. Invoice Gates says it’s extra necessary than the pc, web and so forth,” Tangen says. “We could have numerous stranded belongings due to AI, as a result of should you’re on the mistaken facet of that you’ll be decimated rapidly. So I feel over the following couple of quarters we’re going to begin to see victims of this; share costs shall be creamed. That is so quick.”
Tangen is deploying AI throughout the fund, utilizing predictive fashions to cut back the 36m trades that it does yearly – central to his goal of enhancing the fund’s effectivity by 10% a 12 months. He needs to see “correct, worldwide regulation” in order that AI is developed ethically. “How will you guarantee that it’s not disadvantaging you due to race or these sorts of issues?” he says.
Tangen, 56, barrel-chested in an open-necked blue shirt, is sitting within the Mayfair places of work of Norges Financial institution Funding Administration (NBIM), the funding arm of the Oslo-based sovereign wealth fund.
The fund was constructed on Norway’s resolution to take a position its North Sea oil and fuel revenues right into a fund to profit its residents in perpetuity, following the invention of an unlimited offshore oilfield in 1969. That call (which the UK failed to repeat with its personal North Sea fuel wealth), has paid off handsomely for the reason that first proceeds have been deposited within the fund in 1996.
A ticker on the fund’s dwelling web page climbs by the second. It owns 1.4% of the world’s listed firms and Tangen makes use of that affect at shareholder votes – and by quizzing the bosses of these firms on his podcast, In Good Firm.
The fund not too long ago chastised the US oil firms ExxonMobil and Chevron, backing motions from the local weather activist group Observe This at their shareholder conferences urging them to do extra to deal with the local weather disaster. However notably it additionally backed BP’s board, regardless of its boss Bernard Looney’s resolution to water down its local weather change ambitions.
Is there an inherent hypocrisy on the coronary heart of Norges’s lectures on decarbonisation, and Norway’s speedy adoption of electrical automobiles? The nation will get wealthy off the proceeds of oil and fuel, with devastating penalties for international heating and the local weather disaster.
“I all the time get that query [about hypocrisy] within the UK and Sweden,” says Tangen. “I don’t assume it’s; I don’t assume it’s unethical to develop oil and fuel. You’re simply growing the assets you’ve got. After which our job is to take a position it in the very best approach, to actually generate returns in a accountable approach. In order that’s what we do. Oil and fuel, and particularly fuel, is part of the vitality answer for very a few years to come back.”
Why not give the strongest potential sign to the dirtiest large oil firms and promote up utterly?
“You are able to do two issues when you’ve got these conditions,” he says. “You may both divest. Now who finally ends up as shareholders of these firms? Properly, the individuals who don’t care. Or you may keep and attempt to persuade them, work with them.
“And I sort of assume it’s a bit like in a wedding. Sure, you may divorce straightaway. Or you may keep, and attempt to have a dialogue together with your associate.”
Would dialogue stretch to debating local weather change on his podcast with the Swedish environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg?
“Properly, I typically interview individuals who run firms once we make investments. She doesn’t run an organization the place we make investments,” he says awkwardly. “I feel it’s unbelievable that we’ve got younger individuals who care, who interact themselves and put a few of these subjects on the desk. That’s only a basic assertion.”
Will future generations look again favourably on how we, and Norway, have used the planet’s pure assets? A pause stretches for nearly 20 seconds earlier than Tangen solutions. “I don’t know.”
It has been a painful 12 months for Norges: the fund misplaced 1.63tn kroner (£118bn) in 2022 as shares and bonds crumbled after Russia invaded Ukraine and central banks elevated rates of interest amid surging inflation.
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“I was the biggest loser that the world has ever seen,” he laughs. “No person in the history of the world has ever lost that much money.” But, he adds, the fund lost less than the rest of the market, and Norwegians have been accepting of the loss.
“There’s surprisingly good understanding in Norway that things go up and down. And I think it’s because we have roots back to hunter-gatherers, fishermen, where we have big volatility in our industry, and in our income.
“I walk through town or sit at a restaurant or in the ski slopes, and everybody wants to talk about the fund. And they love it and they feel a really big part of it.”
From the age of 14 it was Tangen’s mission to work in the City. “London, finance, bang. It just was my dream. I just had this idea that London was the financial centre of the world and that’s where you make it.”
He turned that dream into reality: Tangen worked at the Mayfair hedge fund Egerton Capital, and in 2005 he set up his own fund, AKO Capital, named after his children. By 2020 the Sunday Times Rich List put his wealth at £550m.
But in between he was able to take a career break, aged 36, to study art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. “I had a period where I minimised my earnings,” he smiles. “I started collecting art pretty seriously, just wanting to put all my knowledge into it.”
During 30 years living in London, he has witnessed its rise and fall, especially since Brexit. “I love the Brits. But it is having some challenges on the back of Brexit.”
Can London reclaim its preeminence as a financial centre? “I think it’s very tough to say.”
In 2020, Tangen joined Norges as chief executive, not before transferring his stake in his hedge fund to the AKO Foundation, a charitable fund that supports causes ranging from the educational charity Teach First to galleries including the Tate and British Museum.
Tangen has vowed to give away all his money before he dies. “I want to die with zero. People who want to die with a lot of wealth, they have completely misunderstood the whole thing. I have hardly met a really happy person who has inherited a lot of money. You take away the whole meaning of life from your kids. I think it’s the worst thing you can do to a kid.”
His three children have come to terms with their evaporating inheritance, he says. “They’re OK with it. It didn’t go down so well within the politicians and the other wealthy people in the country.”
CV
Age 56
Family Married with three grownup children.
Education Finance at the Wharton School, Pennsylvania; Russian studies at the Norwegian Armed Forces School of Intelligence and Security; master’s in history of art from the Courtauld Institute; master’s in social psychology at the London School of Economics.
Pay £550,000
Last holiday London
Best advice he’s been given “Always go for the most difficult thing.”
Biggest career mistake “I don’t think I’ve made many of those.”
Phrase he overuses “Onwards and upwards.”
How he relaxes “I have a 10- to 15-minute nap in the afternoon every day on a sofa in the office. That really re-energises me. It is scientifically proven – fighter pilots do it, for instance, and it really can increase your flying time.”
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