Fortescue CEO: Breaking into Mining, Going Green and the Accident That Changed Everything

0:01Hi everybody, I'm Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Subway Wealth Fund, and today I'm in particularly good company because I'm here with Andrew Forrest, who is visiting us in Oslo. And Andrew, he is the chairman and CEO of Fortescue, one of the incredible companies in Australia, a mining company. You started it in 2003, against all odds, it's done extremely well, taking on the incumbents, and now you are making an even bigger bet, running this as a zero fossil fuel company. by 2030 with no offsets. And then you've given away billions. So warm welcome to Oslo. You are the type of guy we like.

0:36Thank you, Dikar. Great to be here.

0:48You know, normally I would dive in and talk about the business, but it's just you have got such an incredible background. And can we just start with a beginning, you know, your birth. Yeah, okay. I mean, where were you born and how was your upbringing? In Western Australia, immediately on a big sheep and cattle station. It's about a bit shy of a million hectares. Sounds like a lot of land here in Norway, but over there it's not that big. It's normal. Schooled in the middle of the wilderness? Yeah, but actually by boarding school from, I think it was eight or nine I went to boarding school, but my early years were by school of the air.

1:24You literally had a radio schedule for 30 minutes each day. and kids from like 500 kilometres radius used to jump on this sked, we used to call it, the school of the air, and that was all cool and gravy for the other kids to speak on a radio to their teacher four or 500 kilometres away, but not for a kid with a bad stutter. And I had a very bad stutter, so I found it... How long did that last? I didn't kick it really until I entered the school debating team, so it was either do or die. When I was about 15, 16, I started to kick the stutter. Were you given a hard time when you were small? Yeah, you get teased a lot.

2:03I mean, that's how it was in those days. Yeah, exactly. So this is all revenge of the nerd. Exactly. Good. Now, before Fortisque, you started something called Anaconda Nickel, which didn't go so well. Well, see, I'd protest that enormously. But the lessons from it were spectacular. But look, let's just talk about Anaconda. So it started from nothing like Fortescue. We did a$1.4 billion financing, which back then a billion dollars had a lot of respect. It's a long time ago. And it was bringing in a new technology which has stood the test of time. Like it got taken over by Glencore. It's now their purist nickel and cobalt metal for batteries, cathodes, et cetera, supply.

2:56But, you know, I was like a kid, right? So I didn't kick off with a big percentage. You know, you immediately got pushed around by big shareholders. And of course, being a naive kid, I thought, well, if I enter into contracts, then surely the company will be protected. Now, I've learned a big lesson from that. never rely on contracts, rely on people. Because it was an innovative technology, innovative flow sheet, huge, like straight up to 45 ,000 tonnes of nickel, 3 ,500 tonnes of cobalt, two kilometres long, one kilometre wide, utilising about a third of Perth's water supply, but it had to discover all its own water out in the desert.

3:41I mean, it had everything going against it. but it had this big type of nickel deposit which no one could commercialize except for this particular technology which was breaking tech so I built this huge plant on the back of a big engineering company who said we'll guarantee it let's call lump sum fixed price anyway they did guarantee it but they took some shortcuts so on a lump sum contract you pay them the amount of money you agree and if they can build it for less that's more money in their pocket and they took too many opportunities like that it was a company called floor corporation and the process uh failed from the outset and we had to rebuild it and we had to rebuild things which really shouldn't have failed like an acid plant a power station a pressure letdown system these are fairly basic technologies they weren't part of the innovative system but but you left that company then well i I did because before my 40th birthday reached an agreement, Glencore were coming in there saying, oh, we're going to blame you for everything.

4:46I said, you can't do that. People want us in this podcast to talk a bit more about things that went wrong, you know, because everything goes so well. Yeah. So what, just a few. So I'm happy to talk about it. Yeah, we don't have to spend a lot of time because we always spend a lot of time with the huge successes you've had subsequently. But just what did you learn from it? What did it do to you? Look, I touched on it. Contracts behind and way behind people. Now, if I'd relied on people I could do at Fortescue, we've run into equally big problems at Fortescue. But if you have a passionate group of people committed to the same set of values, so you're running with the same culture, galloping with the same culture, then you run into these huge problems and you don't dive to lawyers, which people do, right?

5:27But what do you think about the world? And the world now is moving more towards lawyers and litigations and contracts and all that stuff. Well, we won't. I mean, and I think that's probably why we've been able to move with such speed and be so successful, because I believe in people. I believe in taking a group of people around you. You could be from every part of the world, black, white, brindle, any sector like, who cares, but you abide by 10 values. And we will come back to your 10 values, which I like a lot. Now, then you started Fortescue in 2003. Yes. Tell me about it. So Fortisq in 2003 kicked off with a, well, it was like Anaconda, a concept stock.

6:09I announced that I was going to take on the iron ore industry, but not adversarially, but through building a railway and port system, which they could all share. Now BHP, Rio Tinto, even Vale, they all own their own port and rail systems and they don't share them with anyone. and of course they were underutilised, fully underutilised, but instead of being infrastructure we all share, they were used as a barrier to entry. Now, I didn't really get that. So I said, I'll build a port and rail system and we can all share it and we can all do well and I'll just be an infrastructure provider. And they really said, well, how does get stuff done?

6:52So this is how they tried to keep you out. Yeah. Did you have any money when you started up Fortisque? I think I had a mortgage. That's about it. How do you go from having nothing to building up one of the most successful companies in Australia? Look, I think grit and determination. I mean, you have your eye focused on a goal. So we had our eye totally focused on building a port and rouse system. And when the incumbent player said, well, we're never going to use it. So, OK, we'll then extend that target. will lift, instead of going backwards, will increase the danger, increase the level of difficulty and also become an iron ore producer.

7:34We thought through being port and rail to transport other peoples. When they said get nicked, I said, okay, well, we'll go find our own ore bodies and explore them and try and get into the business ourselves, which was several times harder than just providing infrastructure. Yeah, yeah. But BHP and Rio Tinto had controlled the iron ore industry in Australia for 60 years. 60 years. Okay, and then you just decided to take them on. I decided to take them on and everyone, Nikolai, thought it was impossible. Yeah. What was the most difficult part of it? Oh, there were so many times where your heart felt absolutely broken, Nikolai.

8:17What was the hardest? Oh, I think the financing was immensely difficult. The terms of the financing kept changing. We had a cyclone, which is like a big hurricane, come through. It killed three people, including two people on our site. I flew straight back. I was in an investment conference in America. I flew straight back and went with my father and stood beside the beds of those people who had survived but were injured. And I remember holding this big burly bloke's hand, tattoos all over him, and I just started to cry. And he did too. And he was a huge guy, all bandaged up, and he said, how do you feel, young fellow?

9:10I was called my nickname Twiggy. Because you were quite thin. Yeah. And I said, well, I don't care how I feel. How do you feel? He said, I'm going to get through. Will you get through this? And I said, I don't know. I feel like giving up. No one was meant to die. You're not meant to be injured. And he said, if you give up, and he was holding my hand, big guy, still injured, big guy, he said, if you give up, none of this was worth it. You must not give up. And it really shook me. And I said, well, I'm not going to. And really, the rest is history. but I needed that message to come at me hard from someone in a much worse position than me.

9:51When did you understand that it was going to be something big for this queue? Oh, look, we planned a crash or crash-through scenario. I mean, we went for, you know, what I'd say to anyone who's trying to start something off, work out what your goal is and then work out what your biggest barrier is. So our biggest barrier then, our biggest size limitation challenge was, believe it or not, not a railway line, not a port, but a shiploader. A shiploader at that stage only could do 25 million tonnes a year. There was a new technology which arguably could do 40 million tonnes a year. Now, if we could get hold of that technology for shiploader, which could do 40 million tonnes, then that justified the huge cost of the port behind it and the railway behind it and the mines behind it but it had to be big and that's what sized it we'll come back to this but you one of your ideas is crazy brave plan a was that one of those it was always always always have crazy brave plan as they most often fail but you don't have a crazy brave plan a there is no crazy brave plan a unless nicola you have a bulletproof plan b you don't go anywhere for your plan a unless your plan b is bulletproof so we have a cross fortescue even now you don't need permission to go and have a crack at something which no one else has done you just go and do it but when it fails because it most likely will then the company's not at risk you're not at risk and everything goes keeps going because you've your bulletproof plan b well if you've got big ambitions you achieve great things even if you fail.

11:35Even if you fail because you learn so much. Exactly. Fail your way to success. The competitors, they went into other minerals like copper and so on and you stayed in iron ore. And why that focus? Because focus is the key to success. Just, you know, I had this culture which evolved around leadership. You know, leadership is a sum of leadership and membership and the membership is critical everyone's got to believe in the same goal in the same dream and not be distracted now we had plenty of people saying well we've got a great idea for nickel or zinc or copper or this i said look if you want to pursue that pursue that with another company but for us we're going to stay just on this goal the biggest critical mineral the most important mineral in the world is iron ore stay fixed on that and we did and it's focus Focus, focus saved us many times.

12:32You have also focused in on China. Yeah. What do you think about that risk? That was hard work in the beginning because, you know, we had to persuade huge companies across the world, but particularly in China, to take this little upstart seriously. And they said, holophon, you've got BHP and Rio Tinto. Back then they were the biggest companies in the world, right? I mean, they were huge. and iron ore was the most profitable element to be in, seaborne iron ore. Now you've got big tech and everything else now, but back then massive profit margins in seaborne iron ore dominated by Vale, BHP and Rio Tinto.

13:10And they all said, no way. If you deal with him, you're not going to get any iron ore from us. So how did you solve that problem? They couldn't deal with everyone. There were enough small mills and rebels who could look at BHP, rare turn value and say, well, actually, I don't like that. I don't like that fact you're using us to push him around. So some big steel mills broke rank, but many smaller mills said, well, they don't look after us anyway. We'll deal with you. And it was enough to get us going. What's the key to success in China? Well, it's a contact sport, right? So it's rough and tumble.

13:49And look, I think the Chinese is very pragmatic remember that they're they're chasing this dream that they want to leave a better world and a better living standard for their kids that's the primary motivator it doesn't sound that different from ours but for them it's really serious when i started fortescue and i went around all the steel mills we'd hold these occasional large dinners which you know the The dinner bill was more than the market was worth sometimes. But we'd hold these large containers and everyone would introduce themselves. And I'd say, well, what did your dad do? What did your mum do?

14:30And in almost every case, their mum and dad were farmers. Like farmers not to make money, farmers just to survive. So that cultural revolution nearly undid China. And from there to the new leadership, to the mixed free enterprise economy, you had this burning ambition sparked by the suffering they've had to never go back to that suffering, to never go back to that poverty. And that ambition still runs deep in Chinese psychology. Now, the coming generation will, of course, not be anywhere near as determined because their parents can make ends meet. They can feed the kids. They can pay off the mortgage.

15:11but back then it's only one generation they couldn't

15:19are you worried that that hunger for success will disappear in your own family you know it's a great question it's my typical mate um so what we did with our kids is sit them down when they're young and say, hey kids, we're talking telephone numbers of capital now. It's not really cash you can go down to the shop and buy ice creams with. It's held in a company. Now, do you want to inherit that and be obscenely rich? Or would you like to actually make your own way? And they literally said, well, what's best, Dad? What's best, month said so much better that you know that you're probably not going to starve things go wrong but you make your own way and we take all that capital and we give it to philanthropy to people who'll need it so much more than you and they said well we don't have anything we might need it i said no no kids you've got what most people never get that's a great education and a loving home So that's where that capital should go.

16:32And they said, sounds great by us. Yeah, we agree. And one kid said... Well, you and I, we are aligned there. But we'll get back to philanthropy a bit here. But something happened in 2016. You had a personal accident. Woof, you've done your research. What happened? It was late 2015. It was a kind of life-changing event. I was hiking through canyons up in one of the most remotest regions of the world. It was absolutely wild. We took a weapon with us because there were crocodiles, which were around all the time. But we knew if we climbed higher and higher and higher, then the crocodiles would only stay in the salt water, not in the freshwater.

17:21water so we climbed a long way as a result to make sure that when when we stopped and had and met a helicopter with the family that would be right out of danger part of this climb involved going around a ledge over a large pool of water and the ledge gave way and I slipped into the water um and my leg got caught on a tree root like which came out of the bank of the river into a loop and back into the bank of the river and it snapped my leg like like you snap a match stick um but the wrong way like it did that it went the opposite way to how knees normally bend and I think I might have passed out but I remember when I first realised where I was and I was looking up at the surface of the water and it had gone still, it had gone still like a mirror so I realised that A, I was on my own and B, I was drowning and C, I'd been there for a little while because there was no ripples in the water, I'd fallen and it was flat and I then had to get back to the bank with my leg facing away from the bank but I had to bring my body to face towards the bank to climb out and so I had to this is not a pretty story but I had to break my leg even further to twist it to get back to the bank to pull my head above water and anyway I got flown out it was a wonderful helicopter pilot and and I had surgery and I came out of that in a wheelchair how did it change your thinking about life look i mean what it did is just it the kids really had the biggest impact the kids said you know dad you're in a wheelchair they say you'll be able to walk again one day if you're lucky um maybe maybe not um uh there's still discussion would the leg be amputated so so it was unhappy time and um and uh and the kids said look on the bright side you've always taught us that um you've wanted to study the oceans all your life i mean the whole time when you when you get more than two or three days holiday with us kids you start talking about the damn oceans all the time go study the ocean junior wheelchair what could go wrong go do it i thought oh my god okay and i applied for a master's i got rejected i said why did i get rejected they said well masters are for people who want to learn how to do research You've been doing research for 30 years.

20:00In fact, every one of your business enterprises involve new and breaking technology. That's research. You can do a PhD. We're not going to take up a master's position on you. So I said, what, a PhD on nothing? They said, yeah. Oh, okay. And so I applied for a four-year PhD and studied marine ecology. How old were you then? That was in 2016 I applied. So you work it out, mate. So you're 64 now, you're 54. Yeah, 54, yeah. Why did you want to study the ocean? Because it's the most important part of the planet by a mile. It's in this very thin veneer of atmosphere we have above terrestrial earth, above land.

20:47That's one or two percent of the world's livable space. the other 98 plus percent is all ocean you know from top to bottom it's full of life it doesn't matter if it's in the bottom of the mariana trench or on the coast of norway it's full of life and most people don't care so much about the ocean but why do you care so much too about the ocean because of that because you know i i grew up i actually grew up in the middle of australia right So I've mentioned that huge sheep and cattle. I'd call it a ranch or farm over here, but it was massive. And whenever I could get to the ocean, which was a long way away, I used to just love it.

21:26I'd just marvel at it and get in it and try and put goggles on and see what else was underneath it. So, yeah, I've really loved it. So having studied it, how did you change your business? Ah, that's a big question. So what the study... In relative short. Okay, I'll be quick. The study of marine ecology taught me the four major threats are plastic, pollution, overfishing and climate change. And I was able to do papers in my thesis on the first two. But climate change was such a huge area I was allowed to study it. But if I tried to publish on it, then they said it's going to delay your PhD by up to two years.

22:08But the most impactful part of that PhD was learning the massive impact which global warming is making on the oceans, on the marine environments. And I thought, I've got to do everything I can personally to stop that. Now, I had this very successful company called Fortescue. By that stage, it was already Australia's most successful company by a margin in shareholder returns in stock exchange history. I thought, I've got to do more with this company than just sit on it. bit of a tacky question in here how much money did you have then uh tacky question yeah i i said a third of the company say 20 billion um that was 60 billion dollar company you're trying to you've got 20 billion you do a phd in marine ecology and decide to focus in on the climate yes and to use this very successful heavy industry heavy mining company everyone said well your company will be the last to change you're in the hard to abate sector and i thought what mining and heavy industry yeah they're the two hardest and said right so then you decided for zero this company is going to be is is going to be the one that changes and so yes we we we studied it for years and years and years uh um the the first concept we had of trying to replace oil was back in 2013 but we're kind of noodling with it and right you know just just not taking it super seriously um and then i did the phd and then we really started to look hard for solutions electrification hydrogen all of that and um and by 2022 we believed we had enough answers to commit the company to going without any fossil fuel by 2030 and we're on track and probably ahead of track yeah no super impressive and now you're also into electrification yes green grid and these kind of things yeah very very seriously look uh uh an oil minister of saudi arabia a few back are no longer with us but he declared never let the oil price get over 80 dollars a barrel otherwise we will be replaced um and i think that guy was about right because the total reconstruction of the energy market from the Straits of Hormones and whatever else may be thrown at it is upon us.

24:31And we're seeing massive increase in orders in interest from all over the world for Fortescue's electrification, like 10, 20, 30X. How will you take this going forward? What's the plan? I think that... No other miner have, no other mining company has followed your direction here. No, no. We have, I mean, look, no other miner followed me into I &O. No other miner said you can break the cartel between BHP and Rio and Vale. They're the biggest mining companies in the world. They'll crush you like an ant. So I accept no other mining company is following us now either. But when we save a billion dollars a year because we eliminate a billion litres of diesel, diesel equivalent from our supply chains, then they will all follow.

25:23But they will watch until that happens. And that is happening. We're already starting to save operating cost. And that's a massive competitive advantage. We consider we're the most efficient mining company on earth because we have the lowest cost already per tonne. but when we go fully green, our costs will go completely out of reach of any competition until they turn green. And that's my message to the world. If you don't believe in climate change, well, you're an idiot. But if you don't, fine. But believe in a better life, believe in a lower cost of living, believe in a lower cost of energy, that's green.

26:03Some pretty high-profile people disagree with you on a few things. Yeah, apparently. what are some of the public i just i love this kind of stuff you know but what are some of the public fights you've been in ah look um well we're clearly uh going green in the first place everyone thought well he's an idiot um why would you do that he's super successful on fossil fuel um i've challenged that plus i've i've started to challenge around the world but you know everything should begin at home, right? You don't try and change. But I mean, the American president has named you. Yeah. Elon Musk has named you.

26:38Yeah, well, that's okay. But I still feel the world's making a huge mistake subsidising fossil fuel. If it's not going to subsidise renewable energy, I'd say take the subsidies off all energy and let us all compete. And you'll find renewable energy will compete. And that is removing the biggest threat which organic life, including, by the way, humanity, has in front of it. And climate change is no joke. I mean, you don't feel it in Norway, but in the tropics and subtropics, you get humidity. And humidity kills. Humidity rises seven to ten times quicker than heat. And humidity kills. You call the fossil fuel CEOs for oligarchs, fruitcakes, invaders.

27:20No. I said, if you want to protect yourself from oligarchs, fruitcakes and invaders, like someone invading a perfectly beautiful country like Ukraine or other examples, which really smashes your overall cost. So you don't know what it's going to cost to run your business or your household from year to year or even day to day. That means you don't have sovereignty. You don't have freedom. And until you make your own energy, you can't really claim you're a free sovereign country. What do you think about diesel fuel tax credits? Well, that's part of the subsidies. I mean, that locks in everyone to just consume as much diesel as possible.

28:04And that is crazy, right? Diesel is in short supply. You've got these huge companies like mine with massive balance sheets who are competing against mums and dads at the bowser, at the distribution pump for their cars. And by the way, they pay us to compete with them. So not only are we bigger and uglier and with bigger cash at bank, but they pay us to out-compete them. And as I said, that's crazy. Why should we, like a dozen of these big mining companies, $2.5 billion per year paid for by mums and dads to compete against mums and dads for diesel? I mean, that's crazy. And it's stopping all these other mining companies from going green.

28:49They all watch Fortescue, and they say to me behind closed doors, why should we change? The government doesn't want us to change. The government's giving us a huge credit and cash, baby, for not changing. I'm saying, well, that's got to stop, right? That's just crazy. You should be the people who can afford to innovate, can afford to take the risk like I'm doing. You should be the perfect people to lead this country, yet you're saying the government's stopping you. But that's really an excuse. So let's remove the excuse.

29:22Let's move on to leadership and culture. You've written a book about your 10 values. And in good Australian style, they involve some crocodiles and these kind of things. And here we have it. Yeah, I just... I love it. It's a very small book. I can't wait to read it. It's, you know, like Mao Tse Tung's, you know. Yes, thank you, thank you. What are the most important values in your company? Oh, look, it's really just saying who's your favourite child in your family. I mean, you really can't single one out. I think the one which protects us most, I think you're a perfect example, is humility. Knowing, you know, greater than anyone else, you've got gifts which are different to other people, but you might get great bricklayers or great singers or whatever.

30:16I mean, they're incredibly gifted people, but they're not worse or better than you. So it gives you an understanding of that urgency of great teamwork. Are the values your personal values as well? Is this how you run your life? They are, as you ask. It's funny that, isn't it? How personal values define company values. Yeah, they are. I haven't been asked that question, but you've put it on the table. they actually are. Now, look, I'm imperfect. They're very hard to keep to all 10 all the time. Okay. One on courage and determination. Yes, sir. Hit the crocodile closest to your canoe. What is that?

31:02Hit the crocodile closest to your canoe. It means don't get distracted. When you're on a mission, make sure that you stay absolutely focused. And when you're challenged, don't get distracted by big challenges over the horizon, fix the problem which is closest to you so you can stay on course. Be the most positive person in every group. Why? First of all, why are you so positive? Where does it come from? Well, I don't think you can be a negative leader. I don't think I've never heard of a very pessimistic, downtrodden, unoptimistic leader. I think positivism and belief in the truth of what you're doing is really important, but it's not just having the deductive power to know what is true, what is false.

31:53It's also once you decide what is true, what is good, what is going to create value for humanity, then stay absolutely focused on it. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Yes. That's pretty clear. Yeah, that's pretty clear. Be in the deep end of the pool. Okay, that's... Learning to swim. Yeah, that means as soon as you're comfortable with where you are, step out further, become uncomfortable again. Try and get used to a state of being uncomfortable. Try and get used to failure being around the corner. And when it hits you, it's annoying, it's sad sometimes, but be grateful for it because you'll learn at least 10 times more from that failure than you ever will from success.

32:40Yeah. We are one family. I mean, what... That's critical. Sure. But what do you do with people who don't perform? We find... Look, we find people, if they stick to the 10 values and they live and breathe them, there's no doubt they're going to perform. It's more the other question, Nicolai. It's what do you do with people who are really, really good performers, but they're not great people to be around. What do you do with them? It's really tempting to keep them because they really perform their errors but they make sure no one else does. You've got to let those people go. They're going to be better doing something else but not in your business.

33:24I had expected you to have some crocodile quotes like that's not a knife, that's a knife. Exactly, exactly. AI, how is that going to change the company? Well, AI already is changing the company. I mean, we have an operating cost of several billion a year, so you can only make that much difference by changing it. But I think we'll be able to take operating costs down by hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars a year and our efficiency through the roof. And it's already had massive impact. And I just want to tell you two. One is it taught us how to automate our truck fleet better. Our trucks are huge trucks, right?

34:10The hubcap would be above this ceiling from where we're sitting. So obviously the tyres are twice this ceiling. And they go around the world in terms of mileage or kilometrage twice a week. Do you enjoy driving them? Well, they drive themselves. They're fully automated, fully automated. And the other is operating a green grid. You know, we have this 600 kilometre long, nearly 500 kilometre wide grid measured in gigawatts, measured in gigawatts of storage, and it's massive. And that grid has to be run at lightning speed because with renewable energy, everything changes in an instant. If the wind changes or if there's a cloud bank goes over a solar field, everything changes in an instant.

35:00or somebody drives under a power line with a crane or there's a bushfire, that grid is attacked. AI heals that grid through a distributed battery system and artificial intelligence, and it heals that grid so fast that if you were watching a light when the grid was attacked, you wouldn't see it flicker. It would just be seamless. And it's freakish for electrical engineers because all engineering electricity systems in countries and cities rely on a thing called rotary inertia like these big spinning wheels or these big spinning turbines and that's called inertia it's it's kinetic rotary energy so when there is a drop in the power or collapse in the power that huge wheel or those huge turbines keep on keep on giving you that rotary energy to keep the grid going you don't need that anymore that's that's what gets attacked in Ukraine by Russia.

36:00Those huge generators, those huge turbines. Now you can have a distributed system with nothing bigger than a shipping container. Can't attack that. And the rest is artificial intelligence. Can't attack that either. So it is going to transform the world as we know. We call them smart grids. Very interesting. Circling back to foundation and philanthropy you set up your foundation 25 years ago what are the what are the priorities what do you feel strongly about um i think for the world um uh the natural world it's the oceans now we've got to protect the brazilian uh the the latin american and the african rainforest it's an absolute must we have to protect species, et cetera, et cetera.

36:49So we are pouring capital into that. But the part of the ocean, which part of the world no one sees is the ocean. So in the terms of natural world, we tend to focus in hard like my PhD did is on oceans. In terms of the human world, what disturbs me most is the risk of AI and trammelled AI controlling us instead of us controlling it, particularly between very vast military forces like China and America. So we focus hard in working with both China and America and with tech companies to make sure that AI is safe. Now, we do our best here, but AI companies have to lean in themselves. And then on the more humanitarian side is modern slavery.

37:38Slavery will be a new thing to all your listeners. they'll think, oh, that went out with the Middle Ages. No, it hasn't. You've got a greater number of slaves now who suffer the indignity of not being paid, of not having their own passport, of not being able to leave their jobs. Forced labour of an extreme extent. How do you attack that problem? Well, first, we've brought it to light. We measure slavery in every part of the world through a document called the Global Slavery Index. and secondly we advocate for changes of laws and recognition that all countries you'll have slavery here in Norway you know we have slavery in Australia in Australia it appears in our agricultural sector it appears in our seafood and processing sector but it's all over the world no country can say they don't have slavery because they do and so we measure that and we advocate against them just because most people I know aren't psychopathic they're not going to want to have someone operate as a slave.

38:39But there are industries which still exist where if they can get away with slave labour, they do it. Where do you get your energy from? Where do you get yours? I get mine from talking to people like you. You've just been sleeping a couple of nights on trains and that kind of stuff, you know, 64. Yeah, no, look, I absolutely love life. I did actually witness someone dying slowly in my arms as I sang them nursery rhymes as a child from a burn, from a bushfire. And I decided at that point in time I would cherish every single day. And I kind of have. And, yeah, I like you. I love to get up in the morning.

39:29I don't like it after taking the night train to Kiev, which rattles like a washing machine without water and you're the sock in it, and then rattles all the way back. And then you sleep a night in the middle in a hotel and your brain is just going nuts, so you can't sleep then either. So I think get lots of sleep, like I haven't. Drink plenty of water. Eat as healthily as you can. limit alcohol i mean i don't care if or me or anyone else has a drink but but don't make a huge habit of it and um and you'll have abundant energy oh and most important thing keep an optimistic view of life that's the key how do you how do you unwind how do you what unwind How do you relax?

40:24Oh, unwind. What's that again?

40:29I unwind by dropping my phone on the floor. Look, I love to get out into the wilderness anyway. I love to get out into the wilderness in Norway. I love to get out into the wilderness in the Pilbara, in the Kimberleys in Western Australia. I love to get on the back of a horse and ride for hours and hours and hours. Have you got horses? Yeah. Yeah. Are you a good rider? I can stay aboard. But no, look, whenever I go back home, that family farm station is still in the family. Whenever I go back home, I get dropped on the horse truck miles and miles away from the homestead, and I ride back. And it's you and the horse, and it's just divine, and the wilderness.

41:14Do you barbecue? Yeah, sure. Of course. Of course you do. Now, when you look at everything you've done, what are you the most proud of? Oh, coming on this podcast, mate. Of course. Being a guest of yours, one of the most important people in the whole investment ecosystem. And here you interviewing me, why have you got interest in me? What are you the most proud of? Oh, okay. Back to the story. Okay. Oh, Nikolai, I think probably employing people, making a difference in people's lives. How many people have you employed? Look, if you include construction, probably over 100 ,000 people. We keep now about 25 ,000, 30 ,000 people within the private equity, the foundation and Fortescue.

42:04But I suppose I'm proud of not wasting a day, you know, to live what this old Aboriginal guy told me and this old Australian stockman, non-Aboriginal, told me, live your life usefully. Now, enjoy it too, young fella. I remember the words. Be useful, but enjoy it. Now, you don't always enjoy achievement because it's tough because you fail, but you kind of always enjoy looking back on it. And at the time, you can also enjoy it. So I try and live through those very simple rules. And if you were to translate that into advice for young people? Yeah, I'd say simply that. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor.

42:54If you want to live a happy life, that's really what you should think of. You know, how to live your most fulfilling life. And I'd say always think of being useful. That's useful to others in particular. Be useful and enjoy it. Andrew, I would say you have been very useful to very many people. and you for sure have enjoyed it. It's been a great pleasure. Thank you, sir. It's been great being aboard this podcast. Famous podcast, by the way. One of the best in the world. So I'm very grateful. Thank you so much. Thank you.