In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - HIGHLIGHTS: Michael Bloomberg

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

We've curated a special 10-minute version of the podcast for those in a hurry.   Here you can listen to the full episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/michael-bloomberg-building-an-empire-leading-new/id1614211565?i=1000744113852&l=nbStep inside Bloomberg’s New York headquarters for a conversation with the man who built it all. Nicolai Tangen sits down with Michael Bloomberg to explore his journey from Wall Street to founding Bloomberg LP, his approach to leadership and risk-taking, and the values that fuel his extraordinary philanthropic work. Bloomberg shares stories of creating the Bloomberg Terminal, transforming New York City as mayor, and why he still works almost every day at 83. An insightful look at a life devoted to building, improving, and giving back.In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.  The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Isabelle Karlsson. Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, everybody. Tune in to this short version of the podcast, which we do every Friday for the long version. Tune in on Wednesdays. Hi, everyone. I'm Nicola Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Soverealth Fund. And today I'm in New York. I'm in the Bloomberg offices. Now, normally when I'm in the Bloomberg offices, I see a journalist or an anchor. But today, I'm seeing the man himself. Michael Bloomberg. I'm very careful to not be a journalist. The one thing you can't do is get involved. in the journalism, if you're going to have good journalism. So there's one guy, John McLaughwape, who runs it. Mike, you just have one of the most extraordinary journeys in American business, starting Bloomberg, being mayor for 12 years, being one of the most important philanthropists.

And so perhaps we can just go all the way back the day that you... I was born at an early age. Yeah, you would absolutely. No, let's start with Salman Brothers, because Uberg, you know, strange enough, You were at some stage laid off and then the next day you started Bloomberg. So what do you think then? I was, grew up in Massachusetts. Father was a bookkeeper, made $6,000 the best year of his life.

I was a Boy Scout. I was a C student. I always made the top half of the class possible was my guideline. And when I was getting out of school, I went from, college to business school in Harvard. It's lucky enough to get in. But when I was ready to graduate, I thought I was going to go to Vietnam. Partially, we were involved in that war. This was in 1966. A very nasty war in a very nasty ways Americans treated the troops who we drafted and sent over to risk their lives. Some of them came back in boxes. And some were lucky enough

and didn't, but we were just treating people terribly. And so I signed up to go. I could get a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army. I thought you'd be safer as a second lieutenant than as a private. Turns out not because the second lieutenants led the charge over the barbed wire going out into the jungle, and a lot of them were killed.

It turns out at the last minute, one month before graduation, I have perfectly flat feet. And they didn't take anybody with flat feet. And so all of us, sudden I wasn't going to go to Vietnam and I'd not thought at all about what I was going to do with my career. You took all the experience you had from Salmon and kind of put that into the startup of Bloomberg. Now, how did you come up with the idea? Because it was quite revolutionary at the time. I had worked on a trading desk and we had a couple of screens. The screens showed the prices of either

stocks or bonds. And it showed the last sale or evaluation. And it showed, plus or minus an arrow or a different color. But there was nothing on your desk that told you, that let you do what you needed that data for. And people never, didn't think about that. Well, why would I need the data? I want my drawer graph, I want to do a calculation, I want to send a message, any of those kinds of things.

And the computer could do it, but nobody had put it together. So I thought, why don't we build a computer to do it? Now, keep in mind, when I was doing this, PCs have not been invented then. Nobody believes that. There was a date before Apple. And they didn't, we wanted, I wanted to have a computer, but they didn't exist. So I hired an engineer, Ron Harris, a nice, very smart guy, and I would go up on Saturdays and work in his barn. and he had a little lab set up,

and I'd solder in the capacitors and resistors in the circuit boards, and we made our own computers. Now, fast forward until two years later, when PCs were invented, and I said, we're getting out of the PC business. That's not what we do well. That's not, we couldn't possibly compete in here. And so we just bought some, the first,

few of the first PCs and junk the other stuff, and the rest is history. In your book, you talk about the important cultural aspects, and one of them is to outwork other people, and this is an example of that, right? What does it mean in practice to outwork other people? Well, you don't say no, you don't give up, you put a balance in life. You still want to be able to go out and have a life, a family. So it's balancing hard work with enough time off to not get worn out or that sort of thing. But you are, so when are you, you are now 83, right?

83 and happy to be it. My ambition is to be 84. Are you still in the office most days? I've been taking some Fridays off, which is a little bit embarrassing, but yes. Fundamentally, I like to come in. And when are you here in the morning? I get up at 515 automatically. If I didn't even set the alarm, I probably would. Girlfriend and I both get up. I take a shower, do some exercises with a trainer a couple times a week,

and then go to work, and I'm here by seven at the latest, maybe a little bit earlier. Is this kind of work ethic which everybody in Bloomberg has? An awful lot do. People here, we have very low attrition rate. People here like to be here. At least they tell me they do, and I think it looks to me like they do. You also talk about the importance of taking risks and encouraging people to take risks. What type of risks do you want to do things? You know, it's a stupid idea, but maybe it might work. Now you can't do all the stupid ideas, and not all of them will work.

But just because it's not conventional doesn't mean you shouldn't take the shot and do it. Why did you decide to run for mayor? I think it, somebody asked me that recently, and I think it is, I was really annoyed that you kept reading that you couldn't do anything about education. Test scores were going down and everybody said you couldn't do anything about it and I thought to myself that's not true. I think you could do something about it and out of that I decided I'd run and everybody thought it was crazy.

Nobody thought I had a chance. It was the luck of the drawer at that point in time. He had the right opponent who wasn't very much of a candidate or whatever. But, and you just got lucky and got elected. So during those 12 years, the average living age in New York increased by three years. Increased by three years. Test scores went way up. It brings us to a year.

It brings us to your commitment to philanthropy. Where did that come from? Because you have now given away more than $20 billion. I do remember my father. We talked about philanthropy around the dinner table home. We talked about charity, certainly. And then, you know, I'm in an enviable position. I don't need another set of golf clubs.

But I do want to have the satisfaction of maybe saving somebody's life or helping a kid get an education or curing a disease. or that's heady stuff. You just sit there and you, before you close your eyes and go to bed, it's like, oh, aren't very many people have done those things. And I'd like to do it. I've taken care of my children. They are both very philanthropic.

They both have charities of their own. They've started because of my former wife who's still one of my best friends and I talked about it all the time. They give away part of their own money every year. Do you think you'll ever retire? No, but I think that I would change what I'm doing to give more opportunities. I've already appointed two people to be, one to be the chief executive officer, one to be the president, but I've got to, I want you to be comfortable that if I drop dead,

the services we're providing to you will be continued. Mike, what do you want your legacy to be? That, for example, Johns Hopkins, my alma mater is one of the great universities in the country and they do an enormous amount of research and help an enormous amount of people, get educated and save their lives and culture and all that sort of stuff. And I want to make sure that people go back and say, you know, he really was a guy who cared about other people and then did something about it. I don't think they're going to remember me as a great golfer.

The most ridiculous thing I do, and I'm obsessed with it. Why? But I'd like to think, and I think also my kids, my parents made a very big difference in my life. Museum of Science in Boston made a very big difference in my life. The Boy Scouts made a very big difference in my life. And I'd like to say thank you to those organizations. So I support the Boyce Serts, I support the museum. Well, you for sure care about people, and you've done more about it than anybody as I know.

I mean, what an incredible, what an incredible life. Thank you very much. But you can do it too. Everybody can do it at a different scale. And to, you know, volunteer and go in and help and put food and deliveries of free food. There's things you can do. And it's just so satisfying. I don't understand why people don't do it.