Series star Alexander Skarsgård gets into the act of saving the planet with a new podcast

So it’s no surprise that he is now being cast as the perfect backdrop for the conflicted world of investing, where the needs of the investor are often at odds with the needs of the planet. Skarsgård presents How Do We Fix This?is a new podcast that seeks to highlight some of the world’s most exciting, planet-saving initiatives and give listeners new access to role models in the fight against climate change.

‘A a complete, deep feeling of nothingness‘

Skarsgård hosts and narrates a new podcast series developed with the impact fund Norrsken, which was started in 2019 by Klarna founder Niklas Adalberth.

Adalberth founded Klarna alongside Victor Jacobsson and current CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski in 2005, but eventually realized his dreams of financial independence were not what he had imagined.

“I went to Las Vegas to celebrate, I ordered champagne and chicken, a huge marble floor, bought like crazy, but I didn’t hear anything. There was a complete, profound sense of emptiness.”

This forced Adalberth into therapy and re-examining whether he was making the world a better place with Klarna, a company that promoted more consumption and put more strain on the world’s resources.

He left the company in 2015, continuing to sell his shares and thus missing the chance to become a millionaire.

Next up was Norrsken, a venture capital fund focused on impact startups, or companies that address one or two of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Norrsken’s fund has assets of just under $50 million, backing startups tackling everything from the need for sustainable EV batteries to bellowing, polluting cows.

The podcast aims to raise a pool of “role models” among students and students who are ready to help change the world, according to Adalberth.

The Klarna founder thinks that the breadth of examples across the country, including Northvolt founder Peter Carlsson, is one of the reasons why Sweden is successful in achieving impact funding.

To raise the profile of the impact-based business, Adalberth needed a familiar face to convey his message. Naturally, he turned to his neighbor Skarsgård.

The Swedish woman caught Adalberth’s attention last year when she voiced a short documentary on the financial value of nature.

The actor gave a playful, profanity-laced voiceover to highlight an Oxford University study on the trade-off between GDP and environmental damage. Playing dumb, Skarsgård told his audience at the time that he would reduce the research to “something even a Hollywood actor would understand.”

Once again, Skarsgård’s role is to be the accessible voice that brings Norrsken’s stories to life.

“This movement must happen, it’s not just about having money. There is also cultural enlightenment that needs to happen. And I think that Alexander, with his platform and his ability to tell stories, that he uses that to do the best with this show. ” Adalberth says.

Sweden – a global leader in impact

Skarsgård and Adalberth partnered with another Swedish tech giant, Spotify, to publish their podcast exclusively.

The Swedes have a strong history of breeding successful companies around the world, such as Spotify, Klarna, and clothing retailer H&M. That entrepreneurial spirit is perhaps strange to Swedish culture and the “jante rule,” which often prevents people from bragging about their success.

Skarsgård sees why that can be dangerous in the business world.

“What I’ve seen as a Swedish-American, and obviously I do here, is that Americans have a real talent for telling big stories and ideas. “Swedes are often attracted to people who are humble and down-to-earth, close to condescension,” Skarsgård said. Good luck.

But Adalberth and Norrsken CCO Daniel Goldberg thinks the modesty of personal success may be why Sweden is so far ahead of its peers in investing.

Sweden receives a large share of sustainable investment dollars, and eight times more startups than the world average, according to Adalberth. Where the country may lack in self-improvement, it may gain in public conscience.

“The way we define success, what that does to the standards and programs as a whole, I think that is something that is probably being debated, maybe in Europe especially in Sweden. I think that’s where we’re seeing this next generation first, maybe even more than the US. “

“Humility or not, the key is probably to have confidence and a strong sense of confidence in what you’re trying to sell,” Skarsgård said.

Stranger than fiction

Skarsgård has taken on many roles in his time on screen, most of which make the most of his physique as Tarzan and the Viking prince Amleth in. The Northman or as an abusive husband Big Little Lies.

But it’s Lukas Matsson, the CEO of GoJo’s antagonist in HBO’s Emmy-winning series. Succession, he may be best remembered for it. It is difficult for any Succession The fan should not be drawn in the same way as Skarsgård enters the capital space.

After playing Matsson for two years, Skarsgård still doesn’t know what drives the actor, who seemed to have no boundaries as he took over the media group Waystar Royco.

He sees Matsson more as an adrenaline junkie fueled by a challenge, than someone driven by greed. So when asked if he found himself comparing Matsson to the “impact-driven” founders in his podcast series, Skarsgård had a more nuanced response.

“Maybe the world would be a better place if there were a few people like Lukas Matsson and more people like the founders How Do We Fix This?,” he says.

“But then again, tell a guy like Lukas Matsson that there’s no way he can restore all the coral reefs in our oceans.”