De fundar Klarna a crear Norrsken: cómo encontró su propósito Niklas Adalberth - Podcast #256 — vídeo y transcripción

[03:22] Welcome to another episode
of the Itnig Podcast.
[03:24] Today, we've got Niklas and Mark,
[03:27] and we're going to hear
the story of Klarna and Norsken
[03:31] and what is Norrsken doing now
in Barcelona.
[03:34] Welcome.
[03:35] Niklas, tell us a little bit
about yourself.
[03:38] All right.
Where should I start?
[03:41] I guess I go all the way back.
[03:42] My father always told me
that you can do whatever you want in life
[03:45] as long as you become a doctor,
doctor like him, obviously.
[03:49] I was always competing together
with my brother
[03:52] who could perform the best.
[03:54] I always had this
performance-based self-consciousness.
[03:58] If I perform and do good
in school and so on,
[04:02] -then I get a self-fulfillment.
-Were you good in school?
[04:05] Also right.
[04:06] I like gaming too much.
[04:08] I guess there was a disturbance.
[04:10] And that was in Stockholm?
[04:11] This was in Uppsala.
[04:12] It's a one hour north of Stockholm,
but it was in Sweden.
[04:18] But I quite early got a motivation
for becoming financially independent.
[04:24] In Sweden, you can't be that
by being a doctor.
[04:27] I went in to study business school
at the Stockholm School of Economics.
[04:31] Just a couple of months
into business school,
[04:33] my friend Sebastian
came up with the idea of Klarna.
[04:38] This was all a coincidence.
[04:39] Me and Sebastian
were traveling around the world
[04:41] the year before without flying,
[04:44] and we missed the last boat
or one of the boats
[04:47] across the Pacific Ocean.
[04:49] Sebastian could not come back
to school and do his master's degree.
[04:53] He has to pass one year.
[04:55] During that sabbatical year,
[04:57] he started working
at the debt collection salesperson.
[05:01] It was like the random job
that he could find?
[05:03] The random job.
This was 2003.
[05:05] It was really hard for him
to find a decent job,
[05:07] so this was a job he could find.
[05:09] It was in this position he got in contact
with the e-commerce companies
[05:13] that said that we don't want
your debt collection,
[05:15] but we would love to offer a solution,
[05:18] where consumers can buy now,
but pay later.
[05:21] E-commerce were struggling
with debt collection?
[05:25] Yeah, it was struggling
with payments overall.
[05:27] People didn't trust to give
away their credit card number.
[05:30] That was before Stripe.
[05:32] Yeah, many years before Stripe.
[05:34] That was before all of the other platforms
that made it very easy to pay.
[05:38] -Exactly.
-But why pay later?
[05:41] Yeah, because of the sense of security
that you don't have to give money first
[05:45] and then touch and feel the product.
[05:47] If you go into a physical store,
[05:49] do you need to pay first before
you're allowed to enter in?
[05:51] Just like mimicking
that consumer behaviour.
[05:55] That's when you got the idea
[05:56] that if we do
a simplified credit check on the consumer,
[05:59] maybe we can allow them
to get a credit for 14 days,
[06:03] and then pay after delivery.
[06:04] Was it really the original idea
is people want to buy online,
[06:09] they don't want to pay
before they see the item,
[06:11] then we do a credit check,
then we send the item,
[06:14] then we charge them,
[06:15] and then we make a commission,
an interest payment?
[06:17] Exactly.
[06:17] It was exactly this idea right away.
[06:19] It was. It was.
Then later on, we have-
[06:21] It's usually not the case.
[06:22] It's not usually the case.
No, it's not.
[06:24] -We tend to pivot and iterate.
-Exactly.
[06:26] But at what point do you get involved?
[06:29] Sebastian
was the declaration agent at this.
[06:33] He presented this
to the management of the company.
[06:35] They didn't approve it really.
[06:38] Then he went back into study.
[06:39] I started the same school.
[06:40] Then he talked about this idea
to some friends,
[06:44] and me, and another friend called Victor.
[06:46] We said that, "Hey,
let's give this six months
[06:49] and see what happens."
[06:50] But I guess the issue was that
to start a fintech company,
[06:52] you need to have some money.
[06:54] We had no money.
[06:55] You need to have some experience
of how to develop the system.
[06:58] We have no knowledge of that whatsoever.
We have no knowledge of this.
[07:00] You're not developers.
You're not programmers.
[07:01] We're not developers.
We're all three business guys.
[07:04] We were supposed to build
this financial systems
[07:07] with no knowledge
or know-how whatsoever.
[07:09] It was uphill to start with.
[07:12] But we realise that, "Hey,
let's start with the money."
[07:16] We built a pitch deck
and we went out pitching
[07:18] to what we could find
in the business papers,
[07:21] the most wealthy people in Sweden.
[07:23] Business angels
didn't really exist back then.
[07:26] We just phoned them up that,
"Hey, we have this-"
[07:27] It was 2004 we're talking about?
[07:30] -Yes, 2004.
-Yeah, it's been a while.
[07:31] It's a while.
[07:34] Eventually, we were able to get in contact
[07:36] with an angel called
Jane [inaudible 00:04:16]
[07:38] that has recently sold her company.
[07:40] She got to invest €60,000
for 10% of the company.
[07:46] It's a quite good valuation
for just a powerful-
[07:48] You have a lot of young audience
listening to this,
[07:50] just realised 2003,
Euros was a brand-new concept,
[07:55] just understand how long ago
we're talking about.
[07:57] Euros were just brand-new.
[07:58] You're telling me I'm really old now.
[08:00] Well, we are getting old.
[08:03] So €60,000, were you full-time
working on this already?
[08:08] Or were you still studying and trying
to get this off the ground?
[08:11] We started off with trying to do it
simultaneously,
[08:15] but then we realised
that we cannot be here
[08:17] getting this money into the company
[08:19] and then try to just run off
to that class.
[08:22] So we decided that "Hey,
[08:23] let us put all the studies aside
for two years
[08:25] and just fully focus on this."
[08:27] But then the second problem came that,
okay, we have this money,
[08:30] but how are we going to build the system?
[08:31] How does it work?
[08:32] Is this something
that you buy off the shelf?
[08:35] We have no clue.
[08:37] But then this angel said that, "Hey,
I have this perfect developers
[08:40] that I did a former startup with.
[08:42] You should talk to them."
[08:44] We ended up actually giving them
37% of the company
[08:48] for them building the initial platform.
[08:50] Basically, before we even have started,
we only had 53% left of the company.
[08:55] But you could say, they were
your technical co-founders?
[08:58] Exactly.
[08:59] Without them,
there would be no Klarna today.
[09:01] We realise that, "Hey,
this is a big business idea.
[09:03] Requires quite a lot of competencies.
[09:04] We need to be generous with the shares
if this is going to take off."
[09:08] We were very lucky.
[09:09] This was right when the e-commerce
in Sweden took off.
[09:13] If we didn't do anything,
[09:14] we would have had an internal growth
of 30-50% because e-commerce grew so much
[09:20] and we were just connecting more and more
e-commerce platforms.
[09:24] How did people in Sweden
pay in e-commerce?
[09:27] What was the platform?
[09:30] There was a couple of players,
one called DIBS.
[09:32] I'm not sure they exist today,
[09:34] but it was credit card,
and people didn't like it.
[09:36] Credit card through the banks' widgets
and this kind of stuff?
[09:40] A little bit more complex, but yes.
[09:41] No PayPal.
[09:43] PayPal was not popular,
or it was very rare.
[09:46] When we got here and said, "Hey,
you don't have to pay in advance.
[09:48] We can just pay for it after delivery."
That was very popular, and then took off.
[09:53] We got 60, 70, 80% share of checkout
of people that really prefer
[09:57] to pay this way in Sweden.
[09:59] Wow.
[10:02] What was your business model?
[10:04] The business model was that
we charge a percentage transaction fee
[10:08] from the merchant.
[10:10] Then we also earn money on late fees
if they don't pay on time.
[10:13] From the buyer.
[10:14] From the buyer.
[10:15] Then later on, we added
an installment product.
[10:19] You buy now but you pay in 12 parts,
or 12 months, or 24 months, and so on.
[10:27] It started to go really well.
[10:28] In that business model,
we earned an interest rate, of course.
[10:32] When we started this,
it was quite hefty fees.
[10:35] We compared it
to other players in the market.
[10:38] You're saying you were expensive.
[10:39] -Yeah, quite expensive.
-Why?
[10:42] Because I guess we could.
[10:43] And that was how the other players
in the market were charging consumers.
[10:47] We just copied whatever prices they had,
and this was a profitable business model.
[10:52] What was the annual interest rate?
[10:56] You have one annual.
[10:57] It depends on what product you show,
there were different ones.
[11:00] But the most expensive one
was 19.5% interest rate.
[11:06] But then you also add a fee
for each time we build a customer of €3.
[11:11] If you add that together,
[11:12] the [crosstalk 00:07:51] interest rate
is not super great.
[11:16] It's much nicer terms today.
[11:18] But back then, it wasn't.
[11:21] You had market power.
[11:23] We had market power,
[11:24] and we were the only player
that had a new technical system
[11:29] that were outcompeting
all the traditional banks by far.
[11:33] The e-commerce just loved it
because it just worked.
[11:36] What was your role at the time?
[11:37] I was a deputy CEO.
[11:39] I was basically the-
[11:40] Does this mean
you were two equal CEOs?
[11:44] What does deputy CEO mean, I guess?
[11:45] Yeah, that's a good question.
[11:46] I guess it was a second-
[11:48] Second in command.
[11:49] Yeah. Sebastian,
the guy that came up with the idea,
[11:52] he was more of the leader type,
the charismatic.
[11:54] Let me ask you the different way,
what did he do and what did you do?
[11:58] Him being more of the charismatic leader,
[12:00] he was the man holding the vision,
being more into the product,
[12:04] more into maybe being magnetic
towards getting the best people to join.
[12:09] I was the one more of the execution,
being the managerial person,
[12:13] that "No, we should not do
too many things at the same time.
[12:15] Let's just do these things first,"
and so on.
[12:17] Okay. And the third co-founder?
[12:19] He was more of the analytical guy.
[12:21] He was the CFO and Chief Risk Officer.
[12:23] Important.
[12:24] Yeah, also important.
[12:25] I think that we worked together.
It was just so luck.
[12:28] Now in hindsight, they work very well,
but also very important.
[12:31] I think we're equally important
for the company.
[12:33] And your tech co-founders,
[12:34] did they stay engaged
through the evolution of the company,
[12:38] or it was just a one off?
[12:39] One off.
They left after nine months.
[12:42] That was expensive.
[12:43] It was quite expensive.
[12:45] In today's dollars.
[12:46] It was quite expensive.
[12:47] They did a good ROI per hour invested,
I guess.
[12:50] But it took good risk as well.
[12:53] This was fantastic.
I was working like crazy.
[12:57] I lost a lot of friends.
[12:59] My girlfriend broke up with me,
[13:01] but I had the eye on the target
to be financially independent.
[13:06] To help us understand more or less
the scale of the revenues of Klarna,
[13:09] you went from zero?
[13:11] Zero.
[13:11] What happened in the first year,
second, third?
[13:13] So €150,000,
[13:15] and then it was about €1 million,
and was €3 million, and it was €9 million,
[13:24] and then it was €21 million, and so forth.
[13:27] In seven years in, we were able
to get the Sequoia Capital to invest.
[13:32] We had terms-
[13:33] How much revenue did you have
when Sequoia came in?
[13:35] I think we had...
I don't remember.
[13:38] I would assume... I think the valuation
was one €100 million valuations,
[13:41] and maybe the turnover was maybe...
[13:44] I'm guessing it, maybe 20.
[13:46] Those were different days.
[13:47] Yeah, it was.
[13:49] I could be completely-
[13:50] Nowadays, €100 million valuations
means a really good deck.
[13:53] Yeah, exactly.
[13:54] Back then you had to fight for it, right?
[13:58] Sequoia Capital came in,
[13:59] and then just one or two years later,
DST and General Atlantic invested.
[14:03] In that transaction, I was able
to sell off my first secondary.
[14:07] Why did you sell?
[14:10] I guess to secure some capital,
but also, I want to do and fulfill
[14:16] all the things in life
that I had expected.
[14:19] This was a dream of my life.
[14:21] I dreamt about buying this expensive flat,
[14:24] this sports car,
and these expensive clothes,
[14:30] living the dream life, right?
[14:32] I sold off $10 million of shares,
[14:36] so went from being in debt
into being financially independent.
[14:39] Just three days later,
I had a conference in San Francisco.
[14:42] We're going to get the Crunchies
Awards and TechCrunch.
[14:47] I decided that, "Hey, why don't I stop by
in Las Vegas and celebrate.
[14:52] -Sounds terrible.
-Great idea.
[14:54] It was just too short notice
that no one could join us.
[14:57] I went by business class
for the first time.
[14:59] You go to the left instead of the right,
you get a glass of champagne,
[15:03] instead of being yelled at.
[15:04] I checked into this big Panorama suite
[15:07] at the Encore in Las Vegas
with tons of marbles.
[15:11] I went out to order expensive wines.
[15:13] I couldn't pronounce and seafood
I don't really like.
[15:16] How old are you?
[15:17] Now I am 30.
[15:19] Okay, so you're not like a baby.
[15:21] I'm not like a baby.
I'm not like a baby.
[15:23] I should be mature
even though I wasn't.
[15:24] I'm not judging, but 30-year-old.
[15:26] It's different if you're 21.
[15:28] Yeah, exactly.
[15:29] But you went from zero to $10 million
in your bank account.
[15:33] Yeah.
[15:36] What happens in Vegas?
[15:37] Then going back again to the tail,
I start getting this bad feeling
[15:41] in my stomach is like, oh.
[15:44] Do I really sleep better
in this expensive bed
[15:47] compared to my IKEA bed at home?
[15:49] Did I really like that wine?
[15:50] Could I taste a difference between that
and my [inaudible 00:12:30] at home?
[15:54] These clothes are the same material
as my H&M or Zara clothes?
[16:00] What is this?
[16:02] Then I couldn't unthink that.
[16:04] I started going in a negative loop
of like, wow, this is just a myth
[16:09] of that more money
just gives you more happiness.
[16:11] All of this marketing of these all
of these happy people
[16:14] having all of these consumer goods
is just fake.
[16:18] Then I crashed, eventually,
in that hotel room,
[16:20] and just felt so meaningless
to start chasing the next dollar valuation
[16:24] or even more money for myself.
[16:26] It is a strong correlation
with money and happiness,
[16:29] up to about €5,000 per month.
[16:31] Then it's a totally
diminishing return curve,
[16:34] and I just experienced that-
[16:35] You needed more correlation
with lack of money and unhappiness
[16:38] than money and happiness, right?
[16:40] So close to zero is where
everything happens.
[16:44] Now, there is a threshold,
[16:45] which is surprisingly low,
but really doesn't matter anymore.
[16:48] Exactly. Exactly.
[16:49] Then for me to say the next one-
[16:50] You were way past this-
[16:52] Way past this. I can only eat
five times per day and so on.
[16:55] I really don't like expensive food
or wine anyway.
[16:57] I can't taste a difference.
[16:58] I don't have sophisticated taste buds,
I guess.
[17:01] It also started to made me start
to reflect on many things.
[17:06] First of all, being born
in the West of the world.
[17:09] That's just pure luck in coincidence.
[17:13] With great healthcare,
great education, lovely parents.
[17:16] It's nothing about performance
that I have done, it's just pure luck.
[17:20] What have I given back
during all of these years.
[17:23] I had this egoistic life,
just thinking about me,
[17:26] and if I cannot give back in one
capacity, who should, really?
[17:32] Also, to reflect
on the company I had created.
[17:35] We were really solving this problem
[17:37] of people don't feeling safe
buying online.
[17:40] It also solved for people
[17:41] that couldn't afford
buying a consumer good.
[17:44] But if you widen that problem definition
and you look into that issue,
[17:50] is that really then something
that is net positive to the world?
[17:53] In Sweden, at least,
the way we consume,
[17:56] we need four planets.
[17:58] My contribution to this,
enabling even more consumption
[18:03] from people that cannot afford
[18:05] buying the products
in the first place maybe.
[18:08] I maybe have a responsibility here.
[18:10] Then feeling that I might be part
of the problem here,
[18:13] not part of the solution,
got all of this luck.
[18:16] I don't believe in God,
[18:17] but if there is a God,
he would be so much harder on me
[18:21] if I should go to heaven or go to hell,
[18:23] getting all of these
extraordinary resources,
[18:25] but not taking
the extraordinary responsibility.
[18:29] This eventually led up to that,
"Hey, I need to do something different."
[18:33] After 11 years with Klarna,
I decided to quit,
[18:35] and instead devote my time-
[18:36] So the trip to Vegas was at the 11th year?
[18:40] It was, and there was some
on my seventh year.
[18:43] It took four years to...
[18:46] Okay, so this was not a 30-second process.
It was a four-year process.
[18:51] Yeah.
Because Klarna went so well, right?
[18:53] Let's understand the business of Klarna
and then let's see what happened next.
[18:58] You said you were at roughly $20 million,
then you raised venture capital money
[19:02] and then you started going global,
I guess, basically.
[19:06] Where did Klarna go, for your time,
how far did Klarna go?
[19:11] Quite well.
[19:12] I think when I left the company,
we were at $2.5 billion valuation.
[19:17] In revenues?
[19:19] In valuation.
[19:21] Revenue-wise...
[19:23] What was it?
[19:25] I would assume a couple of €100 million
in revenue.
[19:28] Is that mostly interest payments?
[19:31] Is it the fees?
[19:32] How is the split of these revenues?
[19:36] The biggest part is actually
fees from merchants.
[19:39] -Fees from merchant.
-Merchants' offerings.
[19:40] The original business model
of just enabling this buy now pay later,
[19:44] that's the bulk of the revenue.
[19:45] Yeah, exactly.
[19:46] We charge them for these installments,
we charge the e-commerce companies.
[19:51] Just to understand the business,
[19:52] you don't really have to do
anything to get consumers.
[19:55] Consumers go to their e-commerces.
[19:57] Your go-to market is getting merchants.
[19:59] How did you get merchants,
or did they just come to you, and you did?
[20:03] No, that's never happened.
[20:04] Everyone that's been in B2B knows
that doesn't happen automatically.
[20:07] You actually had to go to the merchants
[20:09] and convince them to install
the widget, the plug-in.
[20:11] Yeah.
[20:12] We realised quite quickly that
in order to be B2B and be successful,
[20:16] you need to be successful in sales.
[20:18] There's no shortcut.
I don't believe in that in way.
[20:21] We picked up a big sales department
[20:23] being on the phone,
calling up these merchants
[20:25] that, "Hey, do you want
to increase your conversion rate?
[20:27] Then you should offer
our payment solutions."
[20:30] As you know, it's all mathematics.
[20:31] If you call 100 customers,
you get 10 real conversations
[20:34] and maybe physical meetings,
or 10 physical meetings,
[20:37] you get one contract.
[20:39] If you're able to do 200 phone calls,
you double your sales.
[20:45] So we did.
[20:45] It was a sales success
in that manner as well.
[20:48] I'm a strong believer that even though
you're a tech company,
[20:51] you should also think about
all these manual processes-
[20:54] Especially if you're B2B.
[20:55] You cannot just pray
that people will find you.
[20:58] What are the rough economics of these?
[21:00] How much did it cost to get a customer,
[21:02] or, let's say, how long did it take
to recover investment
[21:05] in getting customers?
[21:06] Because hiring salespeople in Stockholm,
I'm assuming, is not cheap.
[21:09] It's a very expensive city.
[21:11] Yeah, it is.
[21:11] But in 2005, the economy
was not that strong.
[21:15] We were able to be getting contracts
that didn't have any fixed salary.
[21:18] They were just paid on commission.
[21:19] That helps.
[21:20] So models like that.
[21:25] You were running sales at that point?
[21:27] I was part of my responsibilities
when I left.
[21:29] More or less, how aggressive
were you investing in sales?
[21:33] Were you investing
one year's worth of revenue
[21:36] in acquiring a customer,
or two years, half year?
[21:38] How did you measure that?
[21:39] I don't remember.
I should know, but I don't remember.
[21:41] It's been a while.
[21:43] Was the company profitable at that point?
[21:45] It's been profitable since.
[21:46] It was just the first year,
we were not profitable.
[21:47] But since then, profitable every year,
[21:50] which you have to be if you're a bank
because you're lending out a lot of money.
[21:54] If you're running at a loss,
you need to take in a lot of equity.
[21:57] Is it coming from your own balance sheet?
[21:59] Yes, it is.
[22:00] Then we have a big portion
that is debt as well,
[22:02] the absolute majority.
[22:04] But still, you need to have
some equity to finance that debt.
[22:08] Just if you buy an apartment,
you need to put in some equity as well.
[22:11] What is Klarna now?
[22:13] I know you're not in it,
[22:14] but from what you know,
what is Klara now?
[22:17] So in terms of revenue,
let's see if I get the currency right.
[22:25] Could it be a €1.5 billion
revenue company?
[22:31] At my time,
we were 1,500 employees.
[22:33] I think now, there are 5,000 employees.
[22:36] The valuation, we were the highest
valued private startup
[22:40] in Europe at the point of time.
[22:42] This was just six months ago
for the $5.5 billion.
[22:47] It's a good sizable numbers.
[22:49] Now, they just get around
at the bad timing,
[22:51] and the valuation plummet
quite significantly to a 6.5, I think.
[22:58] Okay. It's still a private company.
[23:00] Still a private company.
[23:04] One of the largest private tech companies
in China, in Europe, right?
[23:09] In many ways, it's like the Stripe
of Europe, right?
[23:11] It's similar area; it's also huge
successful private company.
[23:16] Tell me about your conversation
with your co-founders
[23:19] when you realised it was time to go.
[23:21] That was tough.
[23:22] I think that was what delayed
this for a long time.
[23:25] So Victor already left after five years,
[23:28] and I really didn't know
how Sebastian would react.
[23:31] -Sebastian was still the CEO.
-Still the CEO.
[23:33] Still exclusively working
on growing the company.
[23:38] Yeah, exactly.
-Kind of hand with you.
[23:40] Exactly, with a time horizon that is like,
[23:42] I'm going to be the biggest and best
in the world in what we're doing.
[23:46] So no expedition date.
[23:48] No, the opposite.
[23:50] When I and I had this dissonance
in my body of,
[23:54] what am I doing here?
That is this really meaningful?
[23:58] I went into happiness research
that all showed the same thing,
[24:01] which was like a happy
life is a meaningful life.
[24:05] A meaningful life is often
when you're not only for yourself,
[24:08] but actually contributing to others.
[24:10] This didn't feel like that to me,
after this discovery.
[24:15] Eventually I was brave enough
[24:18] to have the conversation
and I did a lot of charades.
[24:22] Is that what you call it in English?
[24:23] When you practice before
how a person would react.
[24:27] -Rehearsal.
-Rehearsal.
[24:29] I did that with my fiancée.
[24:31] Really?
[24:32] -Yeah.
-She was your co-founder?
[24:34] She was playing your co-founder?
[24:36] Yeah, exactly.
[24:36] Exactly.
[24:38] I remember this office.
[24:39] I went into this office and like,
[24:40] "Hey, Sebastian,
I need to tell you something,"
[24:42] but he took it so well.
[24:44] Really, really well.
[24:45] Were you tired at the time?
[24:47] -If I was tired?
-Mm-hmm.
[24:49] Yeah, I was,
[24:50] but I was very lucky
to never get burnt out.
[24:54] That was not part of the equation.
[24:58] -A little bit. I mean, I worked very hard.
-I say it because it's exhausting
[25:00] to grow these companies
at that massive scale.
[25:03] Yeah, it was.
[25:04] Of course, that was tempting as well
to just take one year off
[25:07] and just think of the next step
or going into foundation work.
[25:13] That was an upside as well, of course.
[25:15] No, Sebastian was very relieving.
[25:17] He took it super well
and was very encouraging.
[25:19] I understood where it came.
[25:21] So how did you manage that?
[25:22] He just hired somebody to replace you
or already had an executive team
[25:28] where you could transition away
without disrupting too much the company?
[25:32] Yeah, I think that you always,
especially me, tend to overvalue yourself,
[25:37] that you're so critical,
[25:40] but apparently the company managed
very well without me.
[25:42] That's always the case.
[25:43] Even Steve Jobs died
and Apple continued to do amazing.
[25:47] If Steve Jobs can move on,
I think we all can.
[25:50] Exactly.
[25:51] It's other people stepping up
and fill in my shoes.
[25:54] Day one, I think was no problem for him.
[25:56] Uh-huh.
[25:57] How much money have you made
from selling shares at that point?
[26:00] Roughly?
[26:01] When I left, I decided that maybe
the company won't survive without me,
[26:05] so I decide to sell off half of my shares.
[26:10] Once again, going back
to the ego in me—narcissist.
[26:14] Then I just continuously
started to sell off.
[26:17] Now I hold less than 1% of the company.
[26:20] Okay.
[26:21] Because you didn't want to be part of it
[26:23] or you just wanted
to have the cash to use it otherwise?
[26:26] Yes, I wanted to find as my foundation,
[26:28] so I decided to-
[26:29] but you could also put your shares
in the foundation and let them grow.
[26:32] Yeah, that's true.
[26:34] But at the same time,
I wanted to use those liquidity
[26:37] to do meaningful things.
[26:39] So I took in half of my wealth.
[26:42] I decided to put in as cash and sell
off shares into this foundation.
[26:47] Okay.
[26:48] How much is the foundation manager?
I don't know if that's public information.
[26:52] No, it' fine this €125 million.
[26:54] €125 million.
[26:55] That's how much you put
in this foundation?
[26:58] Uh-huh.
[26:58] -So it's never coming back to you.
-Never.
[27:01] -It's starting to work on its own.
-Yeah, exactly.
[27:04] What is this foundation?
[27:05] -What's that?
-What is this foundation?
[27:07] So quitting Klarna,
[27:11] I went into, "Okay,
where should I spend my time now
[27:14] to be of most value?
[27:15] How should I think about this?
[27:16] Should I sit myself
in a soup kitchen handing out food?
[27:19] What would be a good
meaningful work for me?"
[27:25] It wasn't until I stumbled upon
this concept of effective altruism.
[27:29] I don't know if you heard about it before.
[27:31] It is like a philosophy,
came from the '70s
[27:33] and it's all about
that should you do maximum good
[27:38] per hour or per dollar invested.
[27:40] This is really like thinking
about giving back with your head
[27:44] or your brain and not your heart.
[27:46] It turns out like the most effective
charities are up to a thousand times
[27:51] more effective than the least
effective charities.
[27:53] You should really look at this
from an analytical point of view.
[27:57] What it also says is that you should
keep in mind and take in consideration
[28:02] what you have as skills.
[28:05] If you're a really
successful hedge fund manager,
[28:07] maybe the best you can do for the world
is to continue to be a hedge fund manager.
[28:11] That's the Warren Buffett dilemma, no?
[28:13] Yeah, exactly.
[28:14] I think he's doing it right.
[28:15] He's an effective altruist, if you ask me,
[28:17] -His donating is massive.
-But we will see
[28:18] what happens at the end, but so far...
[28:20] Yeah so far, he's been financing
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
[28:23] to a very significant degree,
[28:25] which had done incredible lot of impact.
[28:27] Another classic example is that
if a dog leading a blind person
[28:32] cost about €30,000 in Sweden to train,
[28:35] for the same amount of money,
you can treat up to thousand people
[28:38] from a specific eye disease
in some tropical areas.
[28:41] If you only have $30,000,
where should you use them?
[28:44] So if you believe that every person
is equally value,
[28:47] you should of course
then direct it to treat it from start.
[28:51] So what does this mean to me then?
[28:52] Yeah, well,
I know a little bit about tech.
[28:54] I know a little bit
about entrepreneurship.
[28:56] Those are the components
I should use to try to do better world.
[29:02] To me was that going back again
to my experience with the Klarna
[29:07] and what I saw was that...
[29:10] Okay, I've been this
successful entrepreneur.
[29:12] I'm receiving these prizes.
[29:14] I'm being recognized,
[29:18] and I see that I'm a role model
to a large degree,
[29:22] I get invited
to speak to other students.
[29:25] At the same time, when I see
what companies people aspire to do.
[29:30] It's all about revenue and growth.
[29:32] No consideration whatsoever
[29:34] if you're net negative
to people and planet.
[29:38] If you're like, I don't know,
let's take a more classical example.
[29:41] If you create this...
[29:41] It was another company
creating this addictive computer games
[29:44] that just kept
the attention span really low.
[29:47] If you are the social media companies-
[29:50] Alcohol, cigarettes,
[29:51] I think they are even
easier examples to understand.
[29:54] Maybe even easier.
[29:55] But even in tech,
you can look at a lot of companies,
[29:58] who define the problem really narrow
[30:00] that you guys are going to connect
as many people as possible
[30:02] over the world.
[30:03] You get more friends.
[30:05] But then if you look
a little bit from the outside,
[30:07] you can see that some
of those solutions
[30:09] create mental health issues,
[30:11] create polarisations in society
and just a total lack of sense making.
[30:17] It's like, wow, these companies are...
[30:20] If we just leave this a status quo
that this is what we going to copy
[30:24] and imitate as entrepreneurs,
[30:26] we're doomed.
[30:27] All of those,
[30:28] if you extrapolate those curves,
just leads to collapses everywhere.
[30:33] What the foundation tries to do
is to instead we want to put the spotlight
[30:38] and capital on startups that are actually
solving societal and planetarian problems.
[30:44] We call them impact startups.
[30:46] They should be the heroes of our lifetime.
[30:49] If you are like a top person
out of a specific school,
[30:52] you should, of course,
start an impact company.
[30:55] That doesn't mean non-for-profit.
[30:58] No.
[30:59] It doesn't even need to be like
a B Corp or a social company.
[31:03] It can be like a for-profit
private startup
[31:07] has a mission that is aligned
with what you believe.
[31:10] -The world needs or you as a team.
-Exactly, exactly.
[31:12] One company that could
back in Sweden is Northvolt.
[31:15] They're building the world's greenest
battery for Volkswagen and Volvo.
[31:19] For each unit of green battery
out in the market
[31:23] is one less diesel engine.
[31:25] Just like a one-to-one connection
[31:26] with a social sustainability
development goal for each unit of sales.
[31:32] Another example is Einride.
[31:34] They're building like becoming
the Tesla of electric trucks.
[31:38] It's the same thing there.
[31:39] For each electric truck out in the market
is one less of a combustion engine.
[31:44] Business models where you really
interlink the impact with the sales.
[31:49] If we can make that
as the next role models in society,
[31:51] I think everything will hopefully solve
[31:54] instead of imitating and not caring about
[31:57] what the net impact is
of a specific company.
[31:59] Why do you think that so far
[32:00] in the history of humanity
somehow we regulate?
[32:04] We didn't disappear as a civilization.
[32:08] Somehow we managed to not kill ourselves
[32:12] through massive
evolutions of technology.
[32:14] What makes you think
that now we need to regulate it?
[32:17] Even if it's regulated from a private
initiative with your own money
[32:20] and then a foundation.
[32:22] Why don't you trust
that everything will be fine,
[32:25] I guess, is my question?
[32:26] Yes, I think that it depends
on what time horizon you have.
[32:29] The only thing we know is that every
stabilisation previous to ours
[32:34] have collapsed has evolved.
[32:37] -Yeah, it depends on how you see it.
-We're here, no?
[32:39] That's true, we're here,
[32:41] but still a lot of civilizations
have collapsed
[32:43] and then evolved into something else.
[32:45] Why would this civilization
that we are in right now
[32:48] with power centres
of US still being there?
[32:50] Would that exist forever?
[32:52] Probably not. It will probably change.
[32:53] We will probably go into a darker period
than involved into something else.
[32:57] I think what we have done now,
historically up until nowadays,
[33:00] we have increased
the lifespan of human people
[33:07] quality of life and less infants
being dead when they get born.
[33:12] We improved on so many levels,
but at the expense of the planet.
[33:19] We're extracting resources.
[33:21] We're paying the cost of that extraction,
[33:23] but we're not paying the cost
of what it does to climate change
[33:27] and a million people
dying from cold and so on.
[33:29] So you're saying that we're getting
into unsustainable debt with the planet
[33:33] the same way that customers
are with Klarna on the internet?
[33:36] All planetarian boundaries,
we're about to reach the end to it,
[33:41] because we're not looking
into the negative externalities
[33:44] of the business or the way
we act as human people.
[33:48] We're about to come to an end there.
[33:50] I think we now need to look at
and take responsibility
[33:54] of what we, as individuals,
and what we, as companies,
[33:57] actually are creating
with what we're doing.
[33:59] And this is Norrsken.
[34:02] How do you pronounce it?
[34:03] Yeah, I think you do very well.
[34:04] Yes, so we trying to promote
impact entrepreneurship
[34:07] for the spotlight in that.
[34:09] We do that in some different ways.
[34:11] We have a large co-working
space in downtown Stockholm.
[34:16] It's 450 people that work from there.
[34:20] Just the idea to get like-minded
people together
[34:23] -Yeah, exactly
-and let the magic happen.
[34:25] So creating like a micro cosmos
of everyone involved in that ecosystem
[34:30] to enable these companies to flourish.
[34:33] We have an impact VC firm of $120 million
that we can invest into these companies.
[34:39] We have an accelerator,
[34:41] pre-seed accelerator with UNDP
which we can invest really early on,
[34:45] and we're building a similar house now
that is just launched in Rwanda in Kigali.
[34:50] It's 1,200 people in there.
[34:52] So that's a coworking/accelerator?
[34:54] Yeah, it's like a combination
is creating this ecosystem.
[34:57] But what's most exciting, of course,
is what we're doing now here in Barcelona.
[35:02] What's happening in Barcelona?
Mark, that's for you.
[35:05] Sorry for the monologue.
[35:07] I think that it's important
to know your story and all the context
[35:12] that actually what's
the genesis of Norrsken.
[35:17] Here in Barcelona, we are opening
[35:19] what's going to be
the third hub of Norrsken.
[35:21] It's going to be
the biggest one in Europe.
[35:24] Stockholm will not be
the main one anymore.
[35:27] -Really?
-Yep.
[35:28] Because in what? Size?
[35:30] -Like metres, how many people?
-In square meters.
[35:33] It's going to be almost 10,000
square meters building
[35:39] in front of the beach.
[35:40] For the people who knows
Barcelona a little bit,
[35:43] in Barceloneta with amazing sea views.
[35:47] Can we say exactly where?
[35:49] It's at the end of...
[35:52] Just close to the W Hotel.
[35:54] -Next to the W Hotel.
Yeah.
[35:55] I guess everybody knows.
[35:56] If you've been to Barcelona,
you've seen the W Hotel.
[35:59] We think that at the beginning,
[36:02] we thought that it was important
to have a landmark building
[36:06] because as Niklas was saying,
[36:09] it's important to put
impact entrepreneurship
[36:12] in the spotlight
to act as a showcase.
[36:17] Of course, some people are getting
familiar with the concept here in Spain
[36:21] or if we extend it to the relation
to Southern Europe,
[36:24] but we think that physical things
actually help to understand
[36:29] and to put a name on an ecosystem.
[36:34] We've actually here in Barcelona,
[36:35] I think that a few years ago
we had an amazing experience
[36:37] when Barcelona City
that was acting as an ecosystem
[36:42] decided to take the pier one.
[36:45] I think that these really act
as a catalyst for the ecosystem.
[36:48] That's why we really
believe at the beginning,
[36:50] as first step to invest
on singular buildings
[36:56] that can become
the house of impact entrepreneurship.
[37:00] Since we will have a lot
of square meters,
[37:03] that, of course, we're going to cater,
[37:05] the need of impact entrepreneurs,
we also want this to become a hinge
[37:11] between impact entrepreneurs
and other actors,
[37:16] like different tech entrepreneurs,
venture capitalists,
[37:20] academics that they want to somehow
be part of the solution as well.
[37:24] What's going to happen
in this building next to Barceloneta?
[37:27] The first thing is going to act
as one part as a co-working.
[37:31] Okay. So how do you decide
who can go into the co-working?
[37:34] Do you have to qualify
as an impact entrepreneur?
[37:36] You basically have to qualify
as an impact entrepreneur.
[37:40] This at the end, it's quite subjective.
[37:43] It is subjective
[37:44] I think that we can try to get closer
to perfection, but we will never get it.
[37:49] At the end,
you have to cut at some way.
[37:53] We will also-
[37:54] And people will have
to pay for this co-working.
[37:56] -Yes, but it's going to be subsidised.
-Okay.
[37:58] The rent is going to be
very, very attractive.
[38:01] At the end, we want to make things
easier for impact entrepreneurs
[38:04] and we understand that providing
state of the art facilities
[38:08] and also place that allows them
to show the world what they are doing.
[38:13] Especially that one of the key components
for tech startups
[38:17] is to attract and retain talent.
[38:19] We think that the place
where you work it's important.
[38:22] We don't really believe on remote working.
[38:27] Maybe on mixed models,
[38:28] but we think
that the current model is going to stay,
[38:31] and we want to put the best
facilities on everything that they need
[38:35] that makes it easier for them.
[38:39] On top of that,
we are going to have a lot of content,
[38:42] a lot of events that the aim
is also to give them an opportunity
[38:48] to explain what they are doing
and to connect with other actors.
[38:53] Okay.
[38:53] Is the venture arm somehow also localised
or that's a centralised in Stockholm?
[38:58] We are going to have still on discussion,
[39:00] but we are going to have
some kind of venture arm.
[39:03] So how do you measure the success of the
Barcelona hub, like five years from now?
[39:09] I think that, first of all,
I think that for us it would be important
[39:12] that this is a vibrant space
and that we really fill it up.
[39:16] I think that one success metric
[39:18] that we use a lot in Norrsken
is that people live our space.
[39:22] That means that
these entrepreneurs are growing
[39:25] and that there's a moment
that they cannot stay with us.
[39:28] So the success of the companies
that go through the space, basically.
[39:30] Yes.
[39:31] The fact that they are alive
to raise success.
[39:33] They are alive
and that they have grown so much
[39:35] that there's a moment
that they need their own space.
[39:37] -Graduation rate.
-Yeah.
[39:38] I think that since all these
companies should really...
[39:42] They are focusing
on one of the SDG goals.
[39:46] If they grow, we understand
that the impact is growing, too.
[39:51] That's why it's important that at some
moment they eventually leave our premises.
[39:55] So how does it work?
[39:57] Is this sub-entity
that is a Barcelona-Spanish Foundation
[40:03] that is started and funded by Norrsken?
[40:08] How does the money flow?
[40:09] Is this a money-making entity?
Is this a money-losing entity?
[40:14] How do you see this?
[40:15] Like the whole setup?
[40:16] Yes, we're basically
four co-founders into this.
[40:19] It's Mark, he's a Norrsken foundation,
[40:22] but it's also the Founder
of Desigual, Thomas Mayor.
[40:26] He has a big role in this.
[40:28] The fourth one is Sander van Diesel.
[40:32] We are four people coming
together to do this.
[40:35] Part of it is all co-owned by us.
[40:38] But it's going to be called
Norrsken Barcelona?
[40:40] Norrsken Barcelona, yeah.
[40:42] The idea at the end for practical terms,
it's going to be what in Spain we call
[40:46] [foreign language 00:37:25]
[40:49] Norrsken is also acting,
because that's what makes things easier.
[40:51] But at the end,
what we want is to reinvest.
[40:56] At the end, we are here to really...
[40:58] We work for the entrepreneurs
and we really want to help them.
[41:02] Also-
[41:03] Where you get the money,
from the founders?
[41:05] The capital, you get it from the founders?
[41:08] The capital on...
[41:11] These things you said cost money,
everything cost money.
[41:13] These things you said sound expensive.
[41:15] Nothing can be for free,
[41:16] because when things
are for free, no one values it.
[41:20] So in this case, people
and entrepreneurs are going to pay rent.
[41:25] It's going to be subsidised.
It's going to be much cheaper,
[41:26] but they are still-
[41:27] But if it's subsidised,
[41:28] where does the money for the subsidy
come from—the founders.
[41:32] Here we are getting
a good deal on the premises
[41:36] that allows us also to have more rent.
[41:38] Then we will have different activities.
[41:40] Especially something that's important
is our network of partners,
[41:43] and our partners really help us a lot
[41:46] on making this a cheaper space
for entrepreneurs.
[41:50] -So you're trying to make it sustainable?
-Yeah.
[41:52] You're trying to make it
break-even or profitable?
[41:55] Yeah, we're trying to make it break-even.
[41:57] -Break-even.
-Yeah.
[41:58] At the end,
this doesn't have to be a cash cow.
[42:01] That's not the purpose of this.
[42:03] If it is a cash cow,
does the cash go to the founders?
[42:08] Does it have to stay there?
I don't know how you renovate this.
[42:11] Even at some moment for any reason
it starts to become a cash cow,
[42:14] what we should do is to lower the rents
[42:17] and maybe reinvest on other initiatives
that help entrepreneurs.
[42:22] It's a good problem to have, right?
[42:24] It is hard to take things off the ground.
[42:26] We think that it's good
to reach break-even
[42:28] or being slightly profitable,
[42:30] because that's what
gives you independence
[42:32] and otherwise
we would be trapped on the charity model.
[42:37] That's something that we don't want to.
[42:38] But on the other hand,
it doesn't have to be a cash cow.
[42:41] If we are so good at attracting partners,
organizing events that for some reason
[42:47] they made us make more money
[42:49] than the one
that we were initially planning,
[42:51] the idea is to reinvest
it into the ecosystem.
[42:54] From Norrsken's perspective
is even more profits coming out of it.
[42:58] Our vision is, of course,
to open up in more cities.
[43:01] The problems we're facing
now are of a global nature.
[43:05] Even though we want to turn
in Barcelona to the capital of impact,
[43:10] it makes sense to have these
ecosystems in other cities as well.
[43:14] Why Barcelona?
[43:17] It is already now
and have been for a while
[43:19] one of the key cities
[43:21] In Europe when it comes
to tech and entrepreneurship.
[43:24] There's a lot of unicorns
coming from here.
[43:26] It's super popular.
[43:27] I think it's increasing
in traction as well.
[43:30] Absolutely, we're working on it.
[43:32] Yeah, you're doing very good job.
[43:33] But there's London, there's Berlin,
there is Stockholm, there is Paris.
[43:39] These cities have a bigger ecosystem
than Barcelona for now.
[43:44] True.
[43:45] We're working on changing that.
[43:46] But for now,
they are bigger entrepreneurship perhaps.
[43:49] Why do you choose Barcelona
instead of these other cities?
[43:51] The combination, I think,
with already now being an attractive city
[43:55] in terms of size and what's happening,
[43:56] but also, that we found
the perfect partnership
[44:00] with Thomas Mayer,
with Mark, and with Sander.
[44:02] To me, that's my experience,
to be honest, is all about the people.
[44:06] My job as a manager
is to spend 30% of my time
[44:09] just to recruit the next leaders
all the time.
[44:12] A little bit exaggerating,
but it's all about the people,
[44:14] and we found it here.
[44:17] Maybe then going back as well
what the five-year plan is.
[44:20] I think that one part is that we think
and hope this is going to be
[44:24] a very thriving, great ecosystem,
and a place that you really want
[44:28] to work from
if you want to be part of the solution.
[44:31] But also, that we put impact
entrepreneurship on the spotlight
[44:35] so that the next talent from Barcelona,
they want to start another submer,
[44:40] which we also have invested into,
[44:42] instead of another online casino
or whatever.
[44:47] Funny enough,
before I knew that you were coming,
[44:51] I was looking at your website
[44:53] and the thing that got most of the time
that I spent on the website was a part
[44:57] where you were trying to measure impact
or you were measuring impact.
[45:01] I guess I think you were trying
to measure impact,
[45:04] and it's really difficult.
[45:05] Because from what you say,
I hear a very subjective wish.
[45:09] You have an idea on how you personally
would like the world to be,
[45:14] and that's totally fine.
[45:16] I think we all have ours.
It's amazing that we do.
[45:19] But now you want
to start putting a lot of money
[45:21] working towards the world
going in this direction.
[45:24] And you call it impact,
[45:26] and you more or less
need people to agree
[45:28] that your definition of impact
[45:29] is aligned with Mark's
definition of impact,
[45:31] and if I get involved in my definition.
[45:33] How do you define and measure impact?
[45:36] Sounds a really difficult thing to do.
[45:37] It's a very difficult thing to do.
[45:39] I don't think is one unifying
to measure it all.
[45:43] We've been working with this,
and still working,
[45:45] and we will never find the perfect model.
[45:47] But our definition is that the externality
or the total impact of a business,
[45:54] if they are actually solving a real
[45:57] sustainability development goal
for each unit of sales, its impact.
[46:02] If it's just making it neutral,
it's very good as well.
[46:05] Of course, you don't take
putting the world in a worst spot,
[46:08] but we don't qualify this as impact.
[46:10] It has to have a meaningful progress
to the SDGs
[46:14] that the company such as submer.
[46:15] Once again, so for each unit
of their servers is 50% less energy
[46:22] to a normal server,
[46:24] which has a huge impact
on energy efficiency
[46:28] in the length climate change.
[46:30] We think that SDGs,
that's a framework.
[46:33] It's far from being perfect.
[46:35] What is that?
Tell us what that is.
[46:36] Well, I think that Niklas
may explain a little more,
[46:39] but that's what the UN
[46:41] define as the Sustainable
Development Goals.
[46:44] There are 17 of them.
[46:46] There are things like no property,
[46:48] access to health, life in balance
on the planet, on the sea.
[46:57] There are some more generic goals
[47:00] that they really apply
on developing countries,
[47:04] that on that case,
[47:06] we think that would not be fair
to consider it as a goal here.
[47:10] But this is a framework
that a lot of people are using.
[47:13] As I said, it's this is far
from being perfect,
[47:17] but it helps us to say, okay,
[47:20] is this company targeting
at least one of these goals?
[47:23] And if it is, what we say is that impact,
[47:27] it's going to be traditional growth metric
so that can be revenue,
[47:31] that can be user growth.
[47:34] We tried to make things very simple.
[47:37] We don't want to have these admin monster
where we are trying to clarify
[47:42] because I think that at the end probably,
we would reach a similar conclusion.
[47:47] It has to be something that it's really
embedded on the business model.
[47:51] I think that here,
for example, in Barcelona,
[47:52] we have companies
that they are not called impact,
[47:55] but to my understanding
that they are impact
[47:57] like Wallapop or Wallbox, for example,
[48:01] that they allow a transition
towards electrification,
[48:04] or in the case of Wallapop,
to make the economy much more circular.
[48:08] The more that Wallapop grows,
[48:11] the more savings
that we have in this regard.
[48:14] We think that this is a good example,
and you cannot take the impact part about.
[48:19] Or, for example,
another company that was here,
[48:20] and that I was part of it
that's [inaudible 00:45:00].
[48:23] The more that it grows,
the more sustainable meat that we have
[48:29] and the more that it contributes
to reducing CO2 footprint.
[48:35] We think that the metric has to be
in that case, the revenue, for example,
[48:40] as long as the company has a clear purpose
of solving one of the SDGs.
[48:45] To be even more specific,
[48:46] the way we measure impact is that
we use a model called Theory of Change.
[48:50] It's a model that seems
to be quite widely accepted.
[48:52] You came up with it?
[48:53] No. I'm not that smart.
[48:56] Well, you or somebody in the team?
[48:57] Yeah, they are very smart,
so they could have come up.
[48:59] But these have existed for some time.
[49:01] It really looks at the impact
in three different lenses.
[49:04] Particular classic example of Tesla.
[49:06] The way you look at this
is first look at output.
[49:11] Tesla, they produce
a million cars per year, that's output.
[49:15] The outcome of that
is that actually saved
[49:19] two billion tons of CO2.
[49:22] But the impact, the third stage of that,
that's really that they influenced
[49:26] Volkswagen, and Fiat, and Volvo
how to produce cars.
[49:30] That's a real impact that Elon Musk
should be super proud of.
[49:34] We look at each company
in these three different ways,
[49:36] so looking at output, outcome, impact.
[49:39] Okay, so I agree,
but I want to play devil's advocate here,
[49:43] because a lot of people, Tesla haters,
[49:47] will say that the electricity
that you're using
[49:49] is produced by fossil fuels,
[49:53] and it can be either as bad or worse,
depending on how they do the numbers.
[49:57] They will tell you that some minerals,
[49:59] and some materials for the batteries,
and for the production of the car
[50:03] has actually worse environmental impact
than a normal diesel car.
[50:08] They can do the numbers,
[50:09] and I've seen them
done a thousand of times,
[50:11] and they can claim rationally
and objectively
[50:14] that actually Tesla is
bad for the environment.
[50:19] How do you decide which one is true?
[50:21] You just say, that's my opinion,
I like Tesla,
[50:24] or you go all the way
to the bottom of it
[50:27] until you have a perfect absolute
objective measure of this?
[50:30] No, it's a very good question.
[50:31] I think that in the investment committee
of the different investment vehicles,
[50:34] this is what we debate is this impact,
this is not the impact,
[50:37] what's the total impact of this,
and so on.
[50:39] It's very difficult.
[50:40] How do you measure the impact
of extracting these minerals
[50:43] for this part of the battery?
[50:44] I would have no clue where to begin.
[50:47] Yeah, it's very hard.
[50:48] But our assessment is that Tesla
on the net has a positive impact.
[50:52] I agree, obviously, but...
[50:55] It will not come in synchronicity.
[50:58] I think it will come
a little bit sequential.
[51:00] So they start here.
[51:01] They're much tougher on their suppliers
and how to source their minerals,
[51:05] but it will take some time before we know
that is completely a circular system.
[51:09] We will see different innovations
for different parts,
[51:12] and hopefully,
in 50 years in the companies
[51:13] where you support,
and invest, and promote,
[51:16] in total, they have really moved
society to a better place.
[51:20] I guess another case is you said
that you felt that people buying for stuff
[51:28] they couldn't afford
was bad for society in the long run.
[51:32] But what if we find this example
of this person who's unemployed
[51:37] and wants to start building something
but needs an investment,
[51:40] and then thanks to Klarna
they can buy a sewing machine,
[51:43] and they start producing handmade wallets.
[51:45] They sell them on Etsy.
[51:46] They start having cash flows,
they pay back the sewing machine.
[51:49] Then with more credit, they buy,
I don't know, whatever,
[51:52] more machines, and they have a business,
and then they go out of poverty,
[51:56] thanks to credit, thanks to Klarna.
[51:59] How do you know that it is destroying
more than it is creating or enabling?
[52:05] Do you have a study or research
[52:07] that says that people buying more
than their liquidity allows today
[52:11] is a net negative thing?
[52:14] Or is just a feeling?
[52:15] Yes, a very good question.
[52:17] I think that,
and I've been through this
[52:19] in my head many times,
and there's no research paper
[52:21] showing if Klarna, for example,
[52:22] is a net positive,
or net neutral, or net negative.
[52:25] I think that when I was still part of it
and still responsible,
[52:28] the rates we had, I think, were too high
so that consumer buying stuff
[52:34] could end up paying twice the next year,
twice as much.
[52:38] That is not sustainable.
[52:40] You know what is best?
[52:41] I don't know.
[52:42] It could be if you buy a computer
and that enables you to go
[52:44] into this university,
and then you're able to pay off and so on.
[52:46] But I think on average,
I'm not sure that's a good solution.
[52:51] Maybe it's better than to take
a cheaper bank loan to finance that part.
[52:54] Today, Sebastian takes
Draconian measures,
[52:57] and have increased
[52:58] that the rates are probably
the best among all the peers.
[53:02] Now I think
they're in a different position.
[53:03] I think this is a reason
why they're being hurt
[53:06] on the stock market about
in the secondary market.
[53:09] Who knows what's happening
in the stock market nowadays?
[53:12] One question though, it's interesting.
[53:15] I would define you as a capitalist person.
[53:17] You have created billions of dollars
of capital through your execution,
[53:23] your idea, hiding people,
raising money, creating an economy.
[53:27] You have done a really important role
in the capitalist system.
[53:32] Why don't you think the market is able
to take out this unsustainable mechanism?
[53:40] Because usually, there is a very
strong force that aligns things,
[53:44] and gets rid of things
that are not sustainable,
[53:46] because if they're not sustainable,
[53:47] it's like evolution,
people just stop doing that.
[53:51] Why do you think
this needs intervention?
[53:55] Yeah, it's a good question.
[53:57] If you look where we are in society,
if you look at climate change,
[54:01] for example, we're so dependent
on economic growth, really enjoy it.
[54:06] I love the AC here in this room.
I wouldn't take it away.
[54:10] We're becoming short term
incentivised to keep it on as it is,
[54:16] but never looking into what
this means in the longer future.
[54:18] I think that we as humans
and we as societies are just bad
[54:22] in taking in those negative personalities,
[54:26] and it will take time
before we correct as a market.
[54:29] Nothing market will always be behind,
which makes sense.
[54:32] You cannot regulate too much in advance.
[54:34] But if you look at the advancement
[54:38] of all different techs out there,
it is increasing by the day.
[54:43] It's exponential.
[54:45] If you look at where AI could turn up
[54:47] and you see that all different companies
are competing, the states are competing,
[54:52] and everyone has a race
to build an even smarter AI
[54:57] to build maybe weaponised weapons on it,
otherwise, your competitor would do it,
[55:01] and we're doomed.
[55:02] Completely.
[55:03] In that race, if you just extrapolate
[55:05] that for AI synthetic biology,
for things that influence climate change,
[55:12] for all different aspects,
you're introducing some global risks
[55:17] at scale, and that just makes
me a little bit scared.
[55:23] Even though we are
in a good place here right now,
[55:27] that might not be the way we are
in 100 years from now,
[55:32] especially not looking into
that other civilisations before us
[55:35] have ended up in dark periods.
[55:38] It is fascinating how fast
technology is evolving.
[55:40] So fast.
[55:41] We go from AI,
not being able to play Spotify,
[55:45] to mention another
successful Swedish company,
[55:46] and play your favourite song
[55:48] that you might be struggling
with CD for 10 minutes,
[55:50] and then you see this beautiful piece
of art or this text auto generated
[55:54] that sounded like science fiction
one year ago.
[55:57] Now I was playing with OpenAI's GPT-3,
and then DALL-E the other day,
[56:02] and I was like...
And I'm a computer scientist,
[56:04] so I should understand
more or less what's behind it.
[56:05] I'm like, how is this possible?
[56:07] How did we get there so far?
[56:09] It is a bit scary.
[56:11] It's a bit scary.
[56:12] I agree.
[56:12] But we tend to eventually use technology
more for good than for bad, no?
[56:16] Otherwise, it will be gone.
[56:18] We had a lot of technology,
like atomic technology.
[56:22] We eventually use it for good.
[56:24] Hopefully, for the first time in history,
we're all to have the power of God almost.
[56:30] But we don't have the wisdom of God.
[56:32] We don't know really how to steer this
into a flourishing civilisation.
[56:38] If we continue to celebrate growth
at any cost,
[56:42] if you're an entrepreneur,
you reach a certain valuation,
[56:44] you celebrate that to get a price
from the prince or whatever.
[56:47] If that's what we define
as role models and success,
[56:51] I think we will be in trouble.
[56:52] I think we need to be much more
sophisticated now in 2022
[56:55] to look into what are the net actions
from that result of what we're doing.
[57:00] Let's go back to Norrsken
in the investment arm.
[57:04] You mentioned that there is the space,
[57:07] which we have now three houses
or soon-
[57:10] Soon to be three.
[57:11] By the way, when do we open
the house in Barcelona?
[57:13] That's going to be, let's say,
Q3, second half of next year, 2023.
[57:20] Cool.
[57:21] It's like a big project.
[57:23] It's a big project.
[57:23] Is it already happening?
[57:24] It's already happening.
There's a lot of renovation to be done.
[57:28] -So second half of 2023.
-Yeah.
[57:30] Good.
[57:31] So we have the space,
we have the accelerator,
[57:34] which is somehow,
also related to the space,
[57:37] because it's, I guess,
cohorts and stuff like that,
[57:39] of people starting up together.
[57:41] Yes.
[57:42] So we had 2,500 applications
all over the world.
[57:45] We select 20 of them.
[57:46] They are in Stockholm for two months
and have been supported by 115 mentors,
[57:52] a lot of them unicorn founders.
[57:54] We hope it will be like
the YCombinator of impact.
[57:58] Will you also do this in Barcelona?
[58:00] We were exploring and talking
about it every day.
[58:02] How can we also provide capital
in a meaningful way to the ecosystem?
[58:06] I think it's needed at different stages,
and yes, we're exploring ways of doing it.
[58:10] Then tell us about the venture arm.
[58:11] I think you said €120 million fund.
[58:16] How does this work?
[58:17] It is a for-profit VC firm.
[58:21] Standalone.
[58:23] Standalone.
[58:24] It started off with...
When I started the foundation,
[58:27] we got a lot of inbound leads
and thought that, hey, oh, wow.
[58:30] You can actually combine,
you can actually invest in technology
[58:35] that actually has meaningful impact.
[58:37] Then we thought we're going to scale this.
[58:40] But the institutions said that
cannot combine impact with profitability.
[58:44] It is a tradeoff.
[58:46] It never worked previously,
so we don't want to invest.
[58:49] The only money we could find was
[58:50] from three other unicorn founders,
the founder of King,
[58:53] the founder of Mojang, Minecraft,
and the founder of Daniel Wellington,
[58:56] and Norrsken.
[58:57] We jointly put in €25 million.
[59:00] We said that, okay, we will not compromise
on impact and financial returns.
[59:03] The maximum money we get back is 1x
because we don't want to compromise.
[59:08] We want to go impact first
and be legit into that.
[59:11] What happened was that, of course,
[59:12] the companies that had the best impact
were the ones with a nice business model.
[59:19] Once again,
connecting the revenue to the impact,
[59:23] they were the ones that scaled the most.
[59:25] They could hire even more people,
doing even more impact,
[59:27] as well as earning money.
[59:29] That's when we realised that,
hey, it's not a tradeoff.
[59:32] Let's prove now to the world
[59:33] that you can combine
impact and profitability.
[59:36] Because if the investors
into VC funds understands this,
[59:41] that will really enable
the capital needed.
[59:43] If you look at, for example,
[59:45] the SDGs that we've been
talking about a lot here,
[59:47] we need 16 times the money
to finance the SDGs.
[59:52] We cannot solve that with charity.
[59:53] What do you mean?
I didn't get that.
[59:56] The United Nations
have put up these 17 goals
[60:00] to end poverty, to enable life underwater,
life on the planet, and so on.
[60:05] To finance to be able to reach that,
a sustainable planet,
[60:09] the money going into this now
is way too less.
[60:12] We need 16 times.
[60:14] The money going into what?
[60:16] Sustainable solutions.
[60:18] Worldwide.
[60:19] Worldwide. I think it's between 1 and 2%
of all capital is now impact,
[60:24] which means that the other capital-
[60:25] That's a lot of money.
[60:26] It's a lot of money.
[60:27] -But we need certain times.
-But it's still not.
[60:29] No, it's not.
[60:30] Especially not when you can see
the 98% is net neutral or even negative.
[60:35] Yeah, exacerbate
in the existence of problems.
[60:37] It's probably 1%
was going to negative impact.
[60:41] Very much more.
[60:42] We need to change this.
We need to change this.
[60:46] Now I lost the thread.
What was questioning?
[60:47] Sorry, you were talking about the fact
that you can make money through impact.
[60:52] Right. Yeah.
[60:53] More money is to go into impact.
[60:55] That's the mission.
[60:56] We're going to try to prove
[60:57] that with this VC fund,
we have stellar impact,
[61:01] meanwhile having stellar returns.
[61:03] So you have LPs.
[61:05] We have institution LPS.
[61:06] Institution LPS like as any other-
[61:09] SomInvest, Nordea-
[61:11] They have a target
of making money on their money.
[61:14] Then some of them are nonprofits,
[61:16] and they want to use it
for their good causes.
[61:19] Some are for-profit wealthy people
that brings you a lot of money.
[61:23] Yes, I would say almost
all of it is for-profit, except most-
[61:25] They're just people who want more money.
[61:27] You wouldn't mind more money
to do more good things, I guess.
[61:31] Exactly.
[61:31] They want to make more money
by investing in companies
[61:33] such as Submer, Northvolt, and the likes
where we can combine this,
[61:37] because if we can prove that even more
[61:39] impact VC funds will be created
to finance even more startups.
[61:44] And how's that going?
[61:45] Quite well.
[61:46] How much did you invest already?
[61:48] So we're fully deployed in this one,
so now raising the next successful fund
[61:52] You already invested €120 million?
[61:55] Yeah.
[61:56] Wow.
[61:56] We save for follow-ups.
[61:58] It takes a while to invest €120 million.
It takes a while to invest so much money.
[62:01] We launched this 2019 already.
[62:03] We've been investing now for three years.
[62:07] We're in the middle of the next one,
which will be bigger.
[62:11] So far so good.
[62:15] What's next for Norrsken?
[62:17] Then just something that
I would like to add on top of that,
[62:21] there's also direct initiatives
[62:23] that I think that it's also
worth mentioning,
[62:26] that these are direct investments
[62:28] that the foundation is doing
where the returns are so long term,
[62:32] or there's such a risk on the project
that no venture or capital firm would-
[62:37] From the foundations money directly
[62:40] without having to justify
financial returns.
[62:42] Exactly.
[62:43] Predictable timeline.
[62:45] For example.
[62:46] Here that's the last project.
[62:47] It's been a four-generation
nuclear project
[62:51] that I think that in the best case,
the reactor is going to be ready for 2028.
[62:56] So this is long term.
[62:59] There's also one project that's combining
psychedelics with mental illnesses.
[63:05] These are the projects that take guts
[63:08] and probably where most of the venture
capital firms that, at the end,
[63:12] that's normal.
[63:12] They aim for short-term returns,
they could not invest.
[63:17] That's where foundations
can play a different role.
[63:20] I think that this is important mentioning.
[63:24] Another example is that we launched
the corona testing lab
[63:26] in the middle of the beginning
of pandemics.
[63:28] Runs 25% of all tests in Sweden.
[63:31] It was quite important infrastructure
in the beginning of that.
[63:35] But I think the initiative
that we probably
[63:37] pour the most donations in
[63:39] because it's their own foundation
is called 29k.org.
[63:46] The story behind that is that
it stands for 29,000 days,
[63:49] because that's the average time
you have on Earth as a human being.
[63:53] I mentioned that
it was so important for me
[63:57] to take therapy when I was struggling
with these questions.
[64:01] I think every person
should go to a therapist
[64:04] to see their shadow sides,
and discover their parts of the ego,
[64:09] and so on, and why they're acting
the way they're doing.
[64:12] With 29k, we want to enable that
for everyone for free.
[64:16] The best scientific
evidenced interventions from researchers,
[64:23] we put in them in this app
for everyone to be able to do,
[64:28] and then going to share that
with peers in that network.
[64:32] So basically trying to increase
the level of consciousness
[64:36] to some degree and also
the level of wisdom we have a society.
[64:40] Because I think that if you don't know
your own motivation
[64:43] and who's behind the CV,
who's behind those feelings,
[64:46] I think some other aspects
could be tough to deal with as well.
[64:52] I guess before what's next for Norrsken,
if we stop today,
[64:58] do you think you have already
paid back your debt?
[65:02] Do you think you have a net positive
with the money you generated from Klarna
[65:07] and everything that you've started
from Norrsken?
[65:11] How do you measure this?
[65:12] Because maybe going back to this,
how do you call it? Effective altruism?
[65:17] Maybe you're talented in actually
starting fintech companies
[65:22] and you should start three
more fintech companies
[65:24] and then make a lot more money,
and then put that,
[65:27] maybe that's 3% of the 16% that we need.
[65:30] I don't know.
[65:31] How do you see
if you have reached that point?
[65:35] I guess these are questions
that at a different scale,
[65:37] but also people like Bill Gates
or Warren Buffett also asked themselves.
[65:42] Obviously, their answers are different
because Bill Gates stopped operating
[65:46] and making more money
and then he went into deploying the money,
[65:49] while Warren Buffett
is 90 something already today
[65:53] and still generating more money
and donating some,
[65:56] but most of it is still being reinvested.
[65:59] How do you measure when to stop
[66:02] creating wealth
if you're skilled at doing that?
[66:04] Right.
That's a very good question.
[66:06] I don't know.
[66:07] Have I paid back sort of?
[66:08] I think that, luckily, Klarna
[66:10] is a much more consumer-friendly
company today.
[66:15] Why did it change?
[66:17] I think we all realised that we had put
the merchants in too much focus
[66:23] and we don't really care
as much about the end consumer
[66:25] and their shopping experience.
[66:27] I think that we started to realise that.
[66:29] The founders, the management team,
the investors-
[66:31] Yeah, the founders.
[66:32] I think Sebastian
was really in the lead here,
[66:34] taking these brave decisions
[66:36] to actually cut a lot of revenue
and profit-generating areas
[66:40] to enable a really smooth, nice experience
from then the customer coming back.
[66:47] I think that has a lot to do
with how much depth I have
[66:50] to the civilisation or society.
[66:53] But then I think that going back again,
the motivation why I'm doing this
[66:56] is it all maybe it started
a little bit of guilt,
[66:59] but I think that I never, ever
in my life felt more meaning
[67:03] into what I'm doing.
[67:05] Sometimes I'm running to work
because I think it is so much fun.
[67:09] I don't think that one part of the reason
is you should go into impact
[67:14] so that you might have
a great responsibility
[67:16] if you're born in the West, for example,
[67:18] but you should definitely
go into it because it's so much fun,
[67:21] so much meaning
to both be able to earn money.
[67:24] I do throughout foundations
and not for me,
[67:26] because I have enough aside,
[67:27] but if you can do that as well
as doing around the world.
[67:32] That's my main motivation today.
[67:33] I wouldn't do this if I didn't think
it was super meaningful and fun.
[67:36] Yeah, you don't have to, obviously.
[67:38] What's next for Norrsken now?
[67:41] What's going to happen
in the next few years?
[67:43] I don't know.
[67:44] I think we're going to have plenty
of work to turn in both.
[67:46] You don't know the next capital of impact
in the world or in Europe.
[67:50] But who knows?
[67:51] Maybe you can open even more cities
if this becomes successful.
[67:55] I think we're going to hopefully
able to raise even more capital
[68:00] going into impact.
[68:02] But most importantly,
maybe inspire other entrepreneurs
[68:05] to do something similar.
[68:06] If you are successful entrepreneurs,
[68:08] it would be great if they could start
their own ecosystem somewhere.
[68:11] It doesn't need to be Norrsken,
[68:13] because I think the beauty
of what we're doing is that
[68:17] if these companies win
or if this win, we all win.
[68:21] It's like, it's no competition
in this area, which is fantastic.
[68:25] If this can be an inspiration,
it would be really meaningful and great.
[68:29] Basically, keep going.
[68:31] Keep going.
[68:32] Does this have
an expiration date for you?
[68:33] Do you feel like Sebastian about Klarna,
where you're just set for life?
[68:36] You're just doing this forever?
[68:38] Yeah, today, I cannot see
anything more fun thing to do.
[68:43] It would be very hard to go back
to start another fintech company.
[68:47] I'd rather invest
in great fintech companies
[68:49] in Africa, for example, which we do
with our Africa €200 million fund
[68:54] that we think are changing the country
in a good, meaningful way.
[68:58] And you Mark, do you have a horizon
for Norrsken Barcelona?
[69:01] Not really.
[69:02] Is this your full-time dedication?
[69:04] It's my full-time dedication?
[69:05] I would say that it's the first time
[69:07] that, of course,
in a very different scale,
[69:09] but I'm also coming
from the tech industry.
[69:13] As I said, totally different scale,
[69:15] but also there was one moment
that I felt like I reached the top
[69:19] of the Maslow pyramid
and that actually had to take
[69:23] a sabbatical to reflect
on what I wanted to do next.
[69:28] I also realised that money
was not making me happier
[69:35] I think that that's the first time
that I really feel that I can help.
[69:41] I'm also I feel that I'm very fortunate
to the life that I've had also first
[69:46] because I was born here in the West.
[69:48] I had all the opportunities
that many people cannot have.
[69:54] I was lucky also to be
in the tech industry in the beginning
[69:57] because I think, at the end,
this is pure luck,
[69:59] which gives me wealth,
but also gives me the freedom also
[70:02] to endeavor in such a project.
[70:06] So I see here a long run.
[70:10] I think that there's a lot to do.
[70:12] Actually, there's a lot going on.
We are not in anything that...
[70:15] It's also fair to say
that we are not the first ones.
[70:18] Here in Barcelona, there are already
other organisations like SHIP2E,
[70:21] that they've been into this
for a long time.
[70:24] They even have a €50 million fund.
[70:28] I think that this is a team effort.
[70:32] I think that if we can really
inspire others
[70:35] and help that the ones
that are already doing this,
[70:40] we can help them that they become
the new role models for society
[70:44] that second generation entrepreneurs
or third generation entrepreneurs say,
[70:48] look, before I start my next project,
I'm going to try to incorporate
[70:55] the impact angle.
[70:57] And also for talent,
[70:58] I think that one of the things
that we should get is that the most
[71:05] beautiful minds on especially here,
they consider impact.
[71:11] We've seen the same
in the tech industry.
[71:13] I think that 10 years ago,
when people that was leaving,
[71:17] when they were finishing business schools,
they were just going to investment banking
[71:21] or big corporates, and suddenly,
thanks to a few tech startups here,
[71:26] they started to consider another path
because there were certain role models.
[71:30] I think that basically
that's part of our job
[71:33] to show that there's something else.
[71:34] And then, of course, always
people are free to choose.
[71:38] We don't we don't want to impose anything.
[71:41] Our long term goal
is to not enable another unicorn,
[71:45] but enable another impact unicorn,
[71:48] because if that can be
the next role model in society
[71:51] and not a company valued
at a billion dollar,
[71:53] but a company that is somehow
[71:54] influencing a billion people positively,
then that can be the next Norrsken star.
[71:59] Okay, amazing. I like this idea.
[72:01] Who are the top impact unicorns
in the world right now?
[72:05] Well, good question.
[72:06] I would probably regard maybe Tesla
[72:08] as getting there in the way they inspire
other car companies that produce cars.
[72:12] I think Wikipedia could be one as well,
creating all of this knowledge.
[72:17] So Tesla for profit,
Wikipedia, not for-profit.
[72:20] Yeah. I think that even though
we are very much focused on for-profit,
[72:24] impact tech companies,
[72:26] you also need
the charity side of the world.
[72:28] You cannot solve everything
with business model.
[72:30] I think that this is a team work,
[72:32] team effort for all the challenges
that we're facing.
[72:36] Yeah, we can put this as a counterexample
[72:37] because one of the takeaways
I was actually getting to
[72:41] is you need profits to have impact,
otherwise you're not sustainable.
[72:49] Wikipedia, I guess, it's unfair
because it's software,
[72:53] and it's so cheap to actually run it
that with a few annoying banners.
[72:56] Eventually, they raise enough cash
to run this.
[72:59] But Tesla, there is no way you can
do that without profitability.
[73:03] So you do need profitability
for impact in most of the cases.
[73:09] Do you have any relationship,
or let me ask you the different way.
[73:13] Does the government and public money
have any relationship with Norrsken?
[73:20] In Sweden, we have an institution
that invests in first-time funds.
[73:27] They've been a big backer
of this Norrsken VC impact fund.
[73:31] Like Fond-ICO here.
[73:33] -Like Fond-ICO?
-Yeah.
[73:34] But it's not an impact fund.
[73:36] -It's just an economic.
-Yeah, it is.
[73:39] It would also help a pure non-impact
focused for-profit fund?
[73:45] Correct.
[73:45] But already now in Sweden,
[73:47] I think this is part
of the Greta Thunberg effect
[73:50] the biggest pension fund in Sweden,
which is owned by the state.
[73:55] Their new mandate now
is to only invest in impact.
[73:58] I think Sweden has come
[74:00] a very far way here in the Netherlands
as well and a couple of other countries.
[74:05] I think this will come more and more.
[74:06] The pension money should be spent on
improving the world, not making it worse.
[74:12] Once again, going back to,
[74:13] I think that if you are
an impact tech company
[74:15] in Barcelona five years from now,
you will hire the best,
[74:19] you probably get the most capital,
and you hopefully get the most consumers
[74:23] because they more and more
want to shop sustainable.
[74:27] So this will be the competitive edge.
[74:28] We can accelerate
a couple of percentage point.
[74:32] We will be really happy.
[74:35] Would you wish be that the governments
[74:37] would get more involved
in initiative like yours,
[74:39] or would you like to mind
your own business
[74:41] and keep doing it the way you have?
[74:44] I know your government way be too bad
if they should get involved or not.
[74:48] But I think in general,
I think this is a team effort.
[74:50] I think that we all have
the joint mission of improving society.
[74:53] If we can tag along,
I think it's beneficial.
[74:58] What do you think?
Leave you from here.
[74:59] Yeah. Well, I think that it's desirable,
[75:02] but as long as it doesn't come
with other costs and burdens.
[75:07] Slowing down bureaucracy and paperwork.
[75:09] I think that, of course, it's desirable
because, again, it's all of our money.
[75:14] And as a tax payer,
[75:16] I think that I would like that my money
is also going to these initiatives.
[75:20] But at the same time, normally,
[75:22] or at least our experience here in Spain,
is that it comes at the cost,
[75:26] that there's a lot of burden,
and it goes against speed.
[75:29] And that also you understand
[75:32] because it's public money,
so they have to take extra care.
[75:36] It depends on that, I would say.
[75:37] Yeah, but I think that one end solution,
[75:40] I think, is that when we get enough data
and enough sophisticated,
[75:45] governments should tax negative outcomes,
negative externalities.
[75:51] We should really look
into what is the real cost
[75:53] of extracting this piece of oil
[75:55] to the entire society
and tax it for the total cost.
[75:59] Then that if that's included then
in all business models,
[76:02] then the market will self-regulate.
[76:05] Over there yet? No.
[76:07] I think we need more
sophisticated models.
[76:09] But I say that that's the next level
of initiative going in this way
[76:15] that every company should have
an income statement balance sheet
[76:19] and an Impact-weighted
accounting statement.
[76:22] This has been driven by Harvard.
[76:24] I think this should come.
[76:26] Interesting.
[76:27] Yeah, I think that
on the regulatory matter,
[76:28] of course, policymakers,
they have a lot of power.
[76:32] But also we have to understand
[76:33] that they have to get elected
every four years and you need...
[76:37] Ironically, they're more short term
than many private initiatives.
[76:41] That's why we think that we focus more
[76:43] on the entrepreneurial side
and on the technology.
[76:45] If we really allow the technologies
[76:46] that make that eating plant-based meat,
it's much cheaper than normal meat
[76:54] or the electricity, solar electricity,
or wind electricity, it's much cheaper.
[77:01] It will come in a natural way
without regulation.
[77:03] That's why I think that we focus on that
and on what we have some leverage.
[77:09] That's not on the part.
[77:11] Good.
[77:12] So just before we wrap up,
I wanted to ask a couple of questions.
[77:15] One is, you're probably an inspiration
nowadays for many entrepreneurs
[77:20] having created one
of the largest tech companies in Europe.
[77:23] Who were the people you followed
when you were a kid?
[77:27] Who inspired you when you were a kid
or young growing up?
[77:32] When we started Klarna,
to start off with that one,
[77:35] it was a one shining company
in Sweden called Price Runner.
[77:39] Revalued at $10 million.
[77:42] And they were like, wow, imagine
[77:43] if we one day can have
a $10 million company.
[77:47] Then what happened
was that Niklas Zennström
[77:49] sold his Skype just a couple
of years later for $2 billion.
[77:55] And just overnight-
[77:56] You raise the bar.
[77:57] Raise the bar completely, like, wow.
[78:00] Can you build a unicorn out of Stockholm,
this tiny country in the north?
[78:05] And I think that has such a big impact.
[78:06] You clearly can.
[crosstalk 01:14:48].
[78:11] That, as an inspiration, was so powerful.
[78:13] And that then connects to
if we can instead
[78:17] enable and impact you
and you're going to act in the same way.
[78:20] Wow, what's an effect
that could do to society.
[78:23] Today, somebody inspires you?
[78:25] Yeah, a lot of people.
[78:26] So I look most up to a guy
called Daniel Schmachtenberger.
[78:32] He does a lot of work together
[78:33] with Tristan Harris
that did The Social Dilemma.
[78:36] You see that on Netflix.
[78:38] And to me, they are the biggest thinkers
out there on catastrophic risks and so on.
[78:43] So if you're interested
in some of the concepts
[78:47] I were saying here,
they are the brains behind it.
[78:49] So just Google or just look into Spotify
[78:52] and try to type in
Daniel Schmachtenberger.
[78:55] Impossible to pronounce.
[78:56] More Swedish unicorns.
[78:59] He's American?
[79:00] No, I mean Spotify.
[79:04] What do you consume?
Do you follow podcasts?
[79:06] Do you read newsletters, blogs,
follow people on Twitter?
[79:10] What is your main source
of information nowadays?
[79:13] Yeah, I guess going back a little bit
to this, that the attention span
[79:17] on average have gone down so much
[79:19] to our ability to digest
complex information
[79:21] and read books is I assume lower,
at least it is for me.
[79:26] So I just have a hard time reading books
[79:29] from start to end now
because my attention span is gone.
[79:33] I consume mostly through documentaries
and podcasts while doing something else.
[79:38] Recommend one?
[79:40] The Tristan Harris
and Daniel Schmachtenberger
[79:42] is obviously one.
[79:44] I think the Making Sense Podcast
is another one.
[79:48] Emerge is another one.
[79:50] It's a great podcast with great thinkers.
[79:52] Good.
[79:53] We'll copy the links in the description.
[79:56] Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mark, Niklas.
[79:58] It was a pleasure, and good luck-
[80:01] Thank you very much.
[80:02] -and we will see the space
in the second half of 2023.
[80:04] Where can people find you
if they want to get involved
[80:07] or they want to participate or learn more?
[80:08] On our website.
[80:10] Just follow us
on our social media channels,
[80:13] I would say.
[80:15] That's the easy way.
[80:16] And what's the address?
[80:19] Well, the address is going to be
Norrsken.org/barcelona.
[80:23] Perfect.
[80:24] We'll put the link
in the description as well.
[80:26] Thank you very much.
[80:26] Thank you and see you next week.