EXPresso Media

Norway and the US both have strong cultures of homeownership, but the incentives are very different. In Norway, about 76.5% of households own their home, and almost all mortgages are on floating rates. When interest rates move, homeowners feel it quickly. In the US, homeownership is lower at around 65%, but the dominant mortgage is a long-term fixed rate. Millions of homeowners are still sitting on loans below 4%, while new buyers are paying well above 6%. Based on what the data shows, it has created a strange dynamic. In Norway, higher rates make staying in your home more expensive. In the US, higher rates can make moving more expensive because selling also means giving up an unusually cheap mortgage. The tax systems push behavior in different ways too. Norway has historically favored owner-occupied housing heavily, while US incentives are more limited and structured differently. The discussion between rent vs buy is an interesting one. In Norway, the incentives are strong to get in on home market early, but it also comes with a longer-term commitment. Renting gives you flexibility and more options.

When Nejra Macic joined episode #23 of EXPresso in 2020, we talked about the Norwegian housing market (in Norwegian). This month she became chief economist at NHO after 12 years at Prognosesenteret - congrats on the role! House prices fell sharply in July, new-home construction is still in a very difficult place and Norges Bank kept the policy rate at 4.25 percent this month. In the episode, Nejra did not take us through any dramatic predictions but instead, she explained what is actually happening underneath the headlines. It’s useful for everyone that wants to learn more about how the macro events can impact us individually.

King Harald V of Norway 21 February 1937 – 28 August 2026 King of Norway from 1991 to 2026. Thank you for a lifetime of service to Norway. Hvil i fred, Kong Harald 🇳🇴

In 2020, Christoffer O. Hernæs and I talked about open banking, PSD2, mobile payments and what happens when banks start opening up their technology (in Norwegian). See it below. Six years later, he is CTO at STØ, the company behind BankID and BankAxept, and the questions have moved on. At Arendalsuka recently, he was discussing who is responsible when AI writes the code. Developers at Stø are already using AI coding tools heavily, and Christoffer wrote last week about what that means for software engineering. We see this more and more, and it's not just about the speed of what AI code can deliver; it's what comes with it... Who understands it well enough to check it? Who catches the bad decisions? And who owns the result when the machine gets something wrong? Quite a different technology conversation from the one we had in 2020. But probably a much more important one now.

A few weeks before we recorded, Kristin Harila stood on top of Everest for the fourth time. This time, without supplemental oxygen. We talked about the record, the risk, Lama, and what happens when you decide the 8,000-metre chapter is over. Kristin Harila on EXPresso.

We can highly recommend episode #21 of EXPresso with Mathias Ekornås (in Norwegian) this week. We recorded it in 2020 and talked a lot about routines, time in nature, getting away from the phone, and something Mathias kept coming back to: discipline gives freedom. Mathias has proven time after time that he keeps on testing it. He still runs Dundas Explorer and continues to work around security and the outdoors. Last year he spent more than 21 hours climbing the ice wall at SNØ and finished with 8,000 vertical meters, breaking the previous world record. And earlier this year he was Troppsjef on Helvetesuka, where 13 Norwegian sports profiles were put through ten days of military-style training. The season finished in June. Going back to the old episode after seeing all of that makes the conversation feel a bit different, but still showcases what a legend Mathias is. He was my leader during my time in the Norwegian army and played a huge part in my development. Mathias never really lived what most people would describe as a structured life. He travelled, went on expeditions, worked in difficult environments, and deliberately put himself in situations where he did not know exactly how things would play out. The routines were what made that possible. We often think about “discipline” mostly as being good at habits. Training consistently. Getting up when you said you would. Doing the work even when you did not feel like it. Mathias shares that if you choose a life with a lot of uncertainty in it, it probably helps to be extremely consistent about the few things you can control. That idea has aged pretty well.

Why you should let your children experience other cultures from an early age, and what that will give them in the long term. Latest episode: 136 with Andy Hamer.

Looking up, seeing people, and being willing to do acts of kindness. Moving to a completely new city/continent can be extremely scary, but Andy Hamer talks about the importance of acts of kindness and seeing people. He shares his own experience when his friend saw him and made sure to introduce him to more people in a completely new city.

Episode #20 of EXPresso has aged in a way Odin Teigland and I definitely couldn’t have predicted when we recorded it in 2020. Our guest was Geir Øivind Gulliksen. He had been central to building Crayon in the US, and we spent quite a bit of the conversation comparing Norway and America - including the slightly provocative question of whether the US was “a developing country wearing a Gucci belt.” The expression is quite funny, and the topic is something we have discussed a lot over the years. We talked about what actually happens when a Norwegian company enters the US, why transformation is usually more complicated than management expects, and how easy it is to underestimate the amount of communication required when a company is changing underneath people. Geir eventually left Crayon after 21 years. Crayon itself was acquired by SoftwareOne last year and is now being integrated under the SoftwareOne brand. Geir has meanwhile gone in a very different direction and is now part of Kanzant Group, an independent advisory business in the same broader technology ecosystem. In 2020, we were talking about transformation mostly as something companies have to manage. Neither of us knew that Crayon itself would eventually undergo one of the biggest transformations a company could go through. I also didn't know at the time that I would move to the US, and after spending much of the last six years working between Norway and the US, I must say I hear the international part differently now, too. There is a tendency in Norway to talk about entering America as if it is mainly a question of ambition. Ambition does help, but the reality is much more operational, and the dynamics of go-to-market are vastly different. How people buy, how decisions get made, and expectations around speed can't even be compared. What creates credibility is different. Even the way people communicate what they want can be surprisingly different. In Norway, we lead with product, but in America, more often than not, they sell first and then build the product.

You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with - a great quote and even better explained by Andy Hamer on the latest episode of the show. Big shoutout to the legend Kristoffer Braaten - always making adventures more fun! We all should be aware of what gives us energy and take our energy, as well as who we choose to spend our time with. Are you surrounding yourself with people that help you develop and be better, that gives you energy?