Intro
Nicolai Tangen, who runs Norway's sovereign wealth fund, sits down with the fund's communications chief Marthe Skaar for a new short Friday format built around the week's main episode, an interview with Sir Paul Marshall of Marshall Wace. They cover what the two firms have in common, why arrogance ends asset managers, the agent factory the fund has just launched, AI tests in hiring, a heavy IPO calendar, and how Tangen switches off at the weekend.
Guest: Nicolai Tangen, who runs Norway's sovereign wealth fund at Norges Bank Investment Management and ran his own hedge fund, AKO Capital, before taking the job
Host: Marthe Skaar, Chief of Communication and External Relations at Norges Bank Investment Management
Published: 27 August 2026 on In Good Company
Episode page | 13 min
Key Takeaways
Hubris and arrogance are what kill asset management companies
"And it is a very humiliating industry to work in because you are wrong so often."
"if you get 53% right, you are doing extremely well"
Marshall Wace and the fund have ended up almost the same shape
"They are 700 people, the same amount of people as we are in the fund. They have 200 in tech and operations, the same as we have."
The agent factory spread through the fund in a matter of weeks
"We just launched our agent factory and already after a few weeks, we have 270 out of 700 people creating agents at NBIM."
Internal token consumption could be the early signal that AI spending has topped out
Marshall's idea, which Tangen says he shares: the turning point is "when the rate of growth slows, like the second derivative of growth"
The AI wave reaches everything, and Europe is the part that worries him
"It's changing and impacting all areas, all industries, all geographies."
"We're seeing slower adoption in Europe. And that's really the concerning thing here."
Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine is his clearest evidence of AI's reach beyond tech
"AI is really helping research in so many domains. Healthcare sector is one of the most important ones."
Every new hire is now screened with an AI test, and the bar is code
"It's a way to screen for people who are really keen on using this as a tool."
The concentration at the top of the market is a different animal from past concentrations
"Now they're all tied into AI, which changes the risk profile."
Knowledge, not wealth, is the scoreboard
"I think the person who knows the most when he or she dies has won."
A New Friday Format, and Who Sir Paul Marshall Is
Skaar opens the episode herself and flags the switch immediately, introducing herself as "Chief of Communication and External Relations in Norges Bank Investment Management" before Tangen cuts in to say he is there too
"This is a new format for our Friday episode." She describes it as "a short wrap-up for approximately 15 minutes where I sit down with Nicolai and we will cover the highlights of this week's episode", adding "We will talk about what's been happening in the fund and the markets."
The week's main episode featured "Sir Paul Marshall, who co-founded Marshall Wace in 1997", which Skaar calls one of "the largest and most successful hedge funds in the world". She points listeners to the full conversation rather than replaying it
Asked who Marshall is to him, Tangen puts him near the start of the industry: "He started in 97. I think probably it was number three." Only Odey came earlier, and then Egerton Capital, where Tangen himself worked
"So he was kind of one of the OGs, one of the original gangsters" — very successful, and he grew the firm. "I mean, it's really an extremely impressive setup."
What Marshall Wace and AKO Capital Have in Common
Tangen names the firm's signature system: TOPS. "It's a system where they get a lot of input from broker contacts and so on, but they also have a deep fundamental side."
That second half is the overlap with the firm he ran: the fundamental side is "like deep fundamental analysis, meeting companies, doing the research. So quite similar in style."
Skaar identifies TOPS for listeners as an alpha capture system and asks what it says about innovation, pointing them to the full episode for the mechanics
Tangen's answer is that the firm is built like a technology company: they have been "very, very strong on innovation", and "It's a really data-heavy company."
The headcount comparison is exact: "They are 700 people, the same amount of people as we are in the fund. They have 200 in tech and operations, the same as we have." The same emphasis on AI, learning and feedback systems, he says, is what the fund strives for
The Book, and the Master's Thesis He Never Disclosed
"He's also written a book, 10.5 Lessons from Experience." Tangen has read it and rates it — a few years old now, but on evergreen ground
What it is about: "how you should avoid biases, how we tend to stick to our losers, how we sell the winners too early", and similar. He calls it "a lot of common sense in a short and very readable book"
The connection goes back decades. Tangen wrote his master's degree on "how to invest and when you use pattern recognition and when you use analysis" — and Marshall was one of his interviewees
"And of course, I never disclosed who I interviewed, but I did interview him for my master thesis." Their history, as he puts it, goes way back
Asked whether that means Marshall shaped him as an investor, Tangen agrees without qualification: "you have to learn from the best, and he's one of them"
Hubris and Arrogance Kill Asset Management Companies
Skaar raises Marshall's argument about "how firms often grow too hubristic and too big" and asks what Tangen makes of it, both as a listener and as the person running the fund today
"Hubris and arrogance leads to death of asset management companies." He calls it one of the most important things in the business
"And it is a very humiliating industry to work in because you are wrong so often."
The hit rate is the reason: "if you get 53% right, you are doing extremely well"
The balance he describes is between conviction and revision: "you should be stubborn to a degree, but you need to change your mind" — and too much arrogance is what stops a manager doing the second part
"So I would say all the really successful fund managers I meet are very, very humble people."
Asked whether that matters more now than it used to, he says he thinks so, then reframes his own earlier word: "But it's a very humbling environment, because I mean, it's so difficult to get it right."
Agents at Both Firms, and Tokens as an Early Warning on AI Spending
On Marshall's account of AI inside Marshall Wace, Tangen says the two of them are aligned — the firm is "really onto that whole wave", and the fund is doing many of the same things
The fund's own rollout is only weeks old: "We just launched our agent factory and already after a few weeks, we have 270 out of 700 people creating agents at NBIM."
The idea Tangen singles out as most interesting is a measurement one: "the way he thought about using internal data to really understand the acceleration of AI investments", specifically by watching how many tokens the firm consumes internally
The signal is a second derivative, not a level. The turning point, Tangen says, is "when the rate of growth slows, like the second derivative of growth, when that slows down, we probably should reassess the investment levels in the AI sector"
He frames this as something a firm could track from its own usage data rather than from the market
Moderna's Cancer Vaccine, and Where Adoption Is Fast and Slow
Skaar moves the conversation to markets by way of another AI-touched sector, raising Moderna's announcement of a personalized cancer vaccine in the past week
"This is a real breakthrough from Moderna." Tangen's wider point is about where the research gains are landing: "AI is really helping research in so many domains. Healthcare sector is one of the most important ones."
He adds a plug of his own: "the CEO of Moderna is coming to our investment conference 27th of April next year"
Asked how broad the wave really is: "It's changing and impacting all areas, all industries, all geographies. It's just a matter of how quick you are."
The fund talks to companies everywhere, and the geographic split is what bothers him: "we're seeing a great adoption in Asia, in China. We're seeing slower adoption in Europe. And that's really the concerning thing here."
Inside the Agent Factory, and Screening New Hires for AI
Skaar asks him to explain the agent factory, built inside the fund over the past week
The whole point is that the technical bar is gone. "So in the past, you needed to have relatively advanced technical skills to make agents." Now it is easy
How staff actually do it: "You basically just go into Claude and, just by putting in text, say, can you make an agent which will do this and that? And there it is."
"So really democratizing the ability to create agents."
On hiring, the change is a screen: "we are putting all the people we hire through AI tests"
The bar is not familiarity with a chat box. "you really need to understand code" — more technical, he says, than being able to type commands into Claude. "It's a way to screen for people who are really keen on using this as a tool." The aim is to get more AI-able and agile people on board
He does the graduate recruitment himself: "I just today interviewed 12 potential candidates for a graduate program." His reaction to it — "It makes me so optimistic when I speak to all these brilliant young people."
The Year of IPOs, and a Concentration That Is Now All AI
Skaar brings a chart to the conversation showing the combined value of newly listed companies on the US stock exchange, and asks Tangen to talk through it
"No, this is the year of IPOs." He lists what has come and what is queued: "We had SpaceX earlier in the year just before the summer. And we now have potentially Anthropic. We have OpenAI." Plus a lot of other companies, and the same wave of new introductions in Asia
The listings amplify something already visible: "there is this huge concentration of companies on the stock exchange"
"Now the top 10 companies account for 25% of the value of the fund."
What has changed is not the concentration but its composition. "In the past, when you had top 10 companies accounting for a big proportion, then you had like one bank, one mining company, one retailer and so on. Now they're all tied into AI, which changes the risk profile."
Skaar makes the same point back to him about the new arrivals: "most of these companies that are coming in have some sort of relation to AI or tech. So it's really driving up the value here."
Charging Stations, Sailing, and How He Handles Stress
Skaar turns to the personal half of the format through Marshall again: "Paul, he talks about stress. And he claims that he handled it remarkably well." She says she believes him, and asks Tangen how he handles it
Age is the first answer: "it helps to get a bit older because you've seen many things before"
Volatility becomes an input rather than a threat: "you get more used to volatility and you can kind of use it as your friend. When things sell off, ideally, you want to add to those positions."
"I think it's important to find your charging stations" — knowing, by the time the weekend arrives, how to relax and what gives you energy
His own list: "For me, it's being out in the forest or, you know, out sailing or, you know, mushroom foraging or whatever." The specific activity matters less than identifying it
The sailing turns out to be shared. "Absolutely. I do love sailing and I gather you have started sailing too."
Skaar's own version of it: "We bought a sailboat two years ago with absolutely no skills. So there has been a true learning journey."
Learning as the Point, and a Question Coming Back at Him
Asked how important it is to keep learning new things, Tangen calls it totally key, and says he sees the same appetite across the fund
"there is a huge desire to learn. I think everybody's trying to learn. That's why people think it's fun with AI."
His closing formulation is a scoreboard: "I think the person who knows the most when he or she dies has won. It's not about accumulating wealth, it's accumulating knowledge."
Skaar ends by turning his own standard question around on him for the next episode: "you always ask all your guests about their biggest failure so I will ask you. So now you can prepare." He agrees to it
Tangen's bottom line is that the industry punishes arrogance harder than it punishes being wrong, that AI is now reshaping who his fund hires as much as what it owns, and that the concentration at the top of the market has changed character rather than merely deepened, because the companies sitting there are no longer diversified across industries.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Marshall Wace (Sir Paul Marshall's firm, co-founded in 1997; TOPS pulls in broker input alongside a deep fundamental side, and at 700 people with 200 in tech and operations it mirrors the fund almost exactly)
AKO Capital (The hedge fund Tangen ran before joining the fund; its deep fundamental analysis, company meetings and research make it "quite similar in style" to Marshall Wace's fundamental arm)
Norges Bank Investment Management (Tangen's fund — 700 people, a newly launched agent factory, AI tests for every hire, and a graduate program he interviews for personally)
Odey and Egerton Capital (The two other hedge funds Tangen names when placing Marshall Wace third in order of founding; he worked at Egerton)
Moderna (Announced a personalized cancer vaccine in the past week, which Tangen calls a real breakthrough and his example of AI in healthcare research; its CEO is booked for the fund's investment conference)
Claude (The interface staff type into to spin up an agent, and the reference point for how much more technical the fund's hiring test is)
SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI (The listings Tangen names in "the year of IPOs" — SpaceX already done before the summer, the other two potentially ahead)
Books & Resources Mentioned
10.5 Lessons from Experience – Paul Marshall (On avoiding biases, sticking to losers and selling winners too early; Tangen calls it "a lot of common sense in a short and very readable book")
Tangen's own master's thesis (On how to invest, and when to use pattern recognition versus analysis; Marshall was one of the interviewees he never named)
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