 Welcome back to Slush Live Highlights, where we are right now sitting behind the founder stage in this absolutely beautiful set. I think that's our real plans right here. The air is really fresh. We're really feeling really good, and we're ready to go. With me is the vice president of the European Investment Bank, also the former prime minister of Finland, and probably one of the most recognized triathlon years in the country. Welcome, Alexander Stubb. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, how are you feeling today? I'm feeling very good, slushy and dark, you know. Yeah, as you do, as you do. Fortunately, we have the bright lights on the nice plants over here. So have you had a chance to already walk around the place? What do you think? Yeah, I have. I love it. I think it's my fifth or sixth time around, and it just keeps on growing and getting more phenomenal. So I've seen a whole bunch of interesting gadgets. Most of it, most of them link to AI or health. I was listening to the opening speeches, so now it's always good. There's a good bus here. Yeah, very good opening speeches as well. Yeah. What do you think is different right now in Slush 17 compared to previous years, if you think back? Probably artificial intelligence. I mean, it wasn't on the radar screen when it all started. I still remember the times in Kaapelitehdas, you know, the sort of artificial floor, but no artificial intelligence, bloody cold as well. So things have changed a lot. There's a lot of AI focus. I don't know if everything is AI, but it feels like it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Did you have a good chance to go to Slush music? That was in Kaapelitehdas right now. No, I haven't. I haven't gone there. Yeah, they were talking about AI over there as well, which is, you know, you can see it's coming in very, very strongly right here. So what do you expect to see here today? Are you going to be here for the full two days? Yeah, I'm here for the full two days. Today I'll be roaming around to the different desks, just looking at innovations. I saw one of these sort of ring applications today. I saw some self-driving car and kind of stuff. So I'm just, I have a curious mind, so I'd love to learn about the new things. Then meeting a few investors as well due to work, and then tomorrow I'm here with some of the founders roaming around, and I'm doing some work for the Crisis Management Initiative, the Martti Ahtizadi Center. So doing some peace mediation as well, because after all this is about how to get along. Sounds like you have a busy schedule. And of course, being the VP of the European Investment back, you probably have it all the time. So how long ahead did you have to book this, so you could make sure you could attend? Well, it's pretty much, I mean, I need an energy boost in November. So I always put it into my calendar. Being busy is relative. I think in my previous life I was a little bit busier. But I'm really enjoying the fact that I'm able to sort of think a little bit more creatively now. And I think Slush is always the kind of event where you come for some new impulses and new ideas. So I'll probably go home from here full of means. So yeah, we're going to get into what is actually happening right here today. But we also want to hear about what is going on in the European Investment Bank. Could you tell a bit about the bank and what do you do over there? No, sure. I mean, the thing is the European Investment Bank is probably the best kept secret in Europe. I mean, very few people know that it's actually the biggest multilateral bank in the world. So we're 10 times bigger than the EBRD. We are three times bigger than the World Bank. If you want to put it into figures, I'm starting to sound like a banker. Let's hear the figures. Asset 600 billion, capital approximately 250 billion. And last year we gave out financial instruments and loans for about 80 billion euros. So what we do is we kind of bring good news. So we go in with about one of our 40 instruments. It can be a guarantee or a direct loan. And then we crowd in other businesses because we're a AAA bank. People know that if we're in it, it's pretty much a safe bet. And the four sectors that we work in, and I promise I'll stop here. One is SMEs, second one is infrastructure. The third one is innovation. And then the fourth one is climate and environment. And these kinds of projects we deal with. Yeah, which one of the categories is your favorite, which is the most interesting one? Well, I'm obviously most interested always in innovation, probably combined then with climate change and environment. SMEs are then a part of all of this. Infrastructure is important as well. But I'm just interested in finding small, interesting, innovative projects which we can help and boost a little bit. And that's why it's really interesting to be here as well and see what kind of business can be found. Absolutely. And just like you said, it all ties together eventually as well. Yeah. So what about your job? What is the sort of day to day thing Alexander Stubb does at the European Investment Bank? Well, first of all, we have two set meetings per week, which is Tuesday and Wednesday. It's what we call the management committee. And in that, we basically approve the approximately 650 big lending projects that we do, but also a whole bunch of smaller ones. So that's our set sort of almost like government meetings. And to be honest, quite long, you know, start off at 10 in the morning and sometimes end up at 10 in the evening after a lot of intellectual rigor and debate. Then I travel a lot. So I go and see the types of projects that we've been sponsoring. So for instance, my oversights are in the Baltic states and Nordic states. So I do a lot of traveling there, also Russia and many other countries. So that element is there. And then of course, there's a lot of speeches and communication and these types of things. So it does deviate a little bit from the regular bankers job because, you know, we're not a mergers and acquisitions bank. And us, the vice presidents are not hands on in projects. We do the big kind of strategy. The big thing that has changed the bank is what we call the Yunker plan or the European fund for strategic investment that has basically doubled the size of the bank and made it much more riskier. So we're trying to look at a lot of the risk management as well. Yeah. It sounds like you look after your investments quite a lot. Is that so? Yeah, because I mean, I think we have probably the lowest rate of non performing loans in PL. It's 0.4%. And I don't know of any other banks that have that low rate. So basically, the loans that we give are pretty safe and secure. Okay, things are probably going to change a little bit with the Yunker plan because there's much more riskier stuff there. But what we do is what makes us different is two things. One is that we are a non profit bank, which sounds crazy in the capitalist world, but we're owned by the 28 member states. And our aim is not to make profits. Of course, we do surplus, but nevertheless. And the second one is that we go into projects where others wouldn't go. So we address market failures and that crowds in other investors and they see that, okay, the EIB is there with 50%, then we can go in there as well because they're a lender of last resort. It's a trustworthy institution. So yeah, we're pretty safe bet. Yeah. So yeah, all of this, of course, sounds very big and many people who are not familiar with the banking industry probably still has a hard time thinking what it is you actually do. So let me ask you this, what is the most fun thing you've done during your time over there? What's coming to slush, of course. That was easy. No, I mean, first of all, the most fun thing to be very honest with you is for a curious mind like mine is to learn new things because I'm obviously not naturally a banker. My background, yes, is from the London School of Economics, but more from the political science side of things. So it's learning about the types of financial instruments that the bank uses. And even though I am and was still an EU nerd, I didn't know that the EIB was the EU's bank and that it was so big. So right now, the funnest thing is to look at the different types of projects that we do. They can be a 700 million euro loan for social housing somewhere down to a guarantee for a concept on baby swimming for 20,000 euros. So you learn a range of the industry and that's what I have found to be the most fun thing. It sounds great, yeah. So I'm talking a bit more about slush right now. So are you here with a big team from EIB? Yeah, I think we're somewhere between five and ten. So, you know, we have people from the EIB proper and then the EIF, which is the European Investment Fund. And we are called the EIB group to make things simple. So we have the guys who give out the loans are here and then we have the guys who invest and go into different types of venture capital funds. So the EIF, for instance, is the biggest investor in venture capital funds in Europe, 20%. And these guys are here, sort of, you know, not only smelling the wonderful vegetation here, but you know, what kind of projects they could go into. And I'm also learning from the venture capital funds that we've been in, what kind of companies they've been working with. So yeah, we're a good crowd here from the EIB. Yeah, any specific interest that you were talking about artificial intelligence earlier, is that something you are looking into with the EIB? Yeah, I've been, I mean, I've been trying to push, to be honest, I've been studying for the past two years. And I'm just a layman, you know, Joe Sicks back in these kind of things. And I'm also 50, so I'm, you know, not from your native generation, but I've been working a lot on trying to understand the fourth industrial revolution, trying to understand digitalization, robotization, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, 3D printing, and what it means for the economy, what it means for politics, and actually what it feels means for the future of mankind, because I think that we as human beings will change as we move towards some kind of a singular entity between the brain and the machine. So I'm looking at those kinds of companies. And as I said earlier, to me, it looks like the mega trend here is like, everyone is walking around with AI. You know, if my initial was Alexander, I don't know, Inkinen or something, I'd be walking around with an AI emblem here. So I think that's the kind of stuff that I'm looking at. And I was really interested to see some of the automotive industry as well, self-driving cars. I belong to the category of people who believe that human beings will not be allowed to drive cars in 2050, because the risks are simply too high. And these kinds of mega trends I'm trying to understand really. Does the AIB have a specific startup portfolio? Yeah, we have many different startup portfolios. I mean, if you look at it, the AIB itself, we give out bigger loans. So it's, you know, 7.5 million and above. But then through the EIF, we have invested, you know, this year, I think 800 million euros. And we've touched about 9,000 companies. And some of these are startups, some of these are not. Then there's, on top of that, there's this FC Junker plan thing that I mentioned with a lot of small companies as well. So there is a startup element to it. And what makes it exciting as well, it's not only bankers or economists analyzing this. So we have scientists and engineers looking at different types of projects. So we have a very, very big portfolio. Hmm. Yeah. What was also touched upon in the opening speeches was that how Finland is really sort of fighting above its weight class in, you know, innovative work in general and also nowadays in automation, AI and urbanization and that. But then also, you have heard the running joke in Finland that we are a land of pessimists. You know, we nothing works out and everything is just sad. So in your mind, how does it fit that we have such a thriving startup community over there, but then the national mentality is still a bit? Well, I think it could be potentially a generational thing. I mean, for all of those who come from abroad, I mean, the whole idea of organizing slush at the most miserable time of the year here in Finland just shows the audacity and courage of our youth today. I mean, look, we're here with a whole bunch of lights and vegetation behind. But when you go out there, you know, it's dark and slushy and grim. So I think there's a generation growing up that has a completely different mentality. And all of these people who are saying that, you know, oh, today's youth and so on, I always remind, I have a 16 year old and a 14 year old. I always remind them that actually the new generation is always smarter than the previous generation and especially in today's information technology world, because the life that you've grown up with and you've had at hand is just so radically different. I think this generation is growing up. I mean, you just told me earlier, you've studied in universities for six years, none of it here in Finland. You've done it in Sweden. You've done it in Scotland. You know, my kids 14 and 16 will not remember the time before smartphones. They will most probably become and are already now very international. And this is the generation that I see being much more driven, much more optimistic. There's another joke, actually. And that is, what's the difference between an introvert and extrovert Finn? I'll let you tell the point. Okay, the introvert Finn when he talks to you looks at his own feet. And the extrovert Finn when he talks to you looks at your feet. And I think that's probably something in the past. And we have a new generation growing, which is much more outgoing, much more optimistic. And I like that because I guess that's a little bit in my DNA as well, even though I belong to the older generation. Well, you still seem young and fresh and everything. I tell that to my wife. And it's refreshing to hear as well, because then you hear from other people of your generation that we have basically the millenials have ruined everything so far. I think that's absolutely not a rubbish, to be honest. And I actually also firmly believe in reverse mentorship. So, you know, Jack Welsh, then CEO of General Electric, put it out in 1990s, he noticed that he didn't know how to use internet. So he felt that he needs some youngsters to teach. And I actually think that that's the way it's going to turn out. Now, most of my geeky tech stuff, I learned from my kids. And, you know, I believe very much in the idea that you're never too old to learn, never too young to teach. And the further we go in life and as life expectancy increases, the further we go, the more that is going to be true. So wisdom is not going to come from the elderly. In the future, it's going to come from the youth. And I really empowers the individual and especially the young. And I think that's a good thing. Yeah, you're also known for being very active on social media. Is this something your children have taught you as well? No, it's probably something that I started before my kids were born 2001, 2004. And I actually started a public blog in 2004. So it was a little bit before the time that they were computer literate. But certainly, you know, if I look at some, you know, I've always been avid, well, not always, but on Twitter and on Facebook, and especially on Twitter. But, you know, things like Snapchat and Instagram, you know, they were taught to be pretty much by my kids. Yeah. And then a lot of the applications that I roam around and the behavior, you know, I mean, I believe a lot in platforms, and a crowding in and machine learning and these kinds of things. So, you know, my behavior, I mean, I only listen to Spotify nowadays. And, you know, obviously use Airbnb and these kinds of things. And a lot of times I'm going to have to ask my kids, I'm stuck on this. Can you help me out? And I think it's kind of fun. It's also, it brings a social element to the family, you know, in a nice kind of a sense. Yeah. And, you know, you have your little chat communities in the family and joke around, send pictures and so on and so forth. So it's a fun way of communicating and socializing with the family. Absolutely. Yeah. So going back to the Finnish startup scene as well, of course, the generational difference is a very important one. But what do you think are the other prerequisites as well for a thriving startup community like we have in Finland right now? Well, you need audacity and you need courage. And then, I guess, a Finnish term that you need as well is sisu. So you need pierce veers or grit. Yeah. A little bit like the Angela Duckworth book on grit. But for me, it's all about an open mind. You have to be curious. You also have to have the courage to both succeed and fail. You know, it shouldn't be that, you know, your screw up if you fail. It should almost be that, what haven't you failed yet? And you have to learn from that. And then when you succeed, you should be happy about it. You don't necessarily need to boast about it or be arrogant about it. Well, hashtag brag about Finland. Yeah, brag about Finland. But, you know, there's these Finnish old sayings like, you know, kell onni on, se onnen kätkeken. Okay, for all non-Fins, who has happiness, remember to hide it? Come on. Or, you know, tears after long moments of joy, itku pitkästä ilosta. Yeah, right. Look at it a little bit from a different perspective. But then we have a lot of these entrepreneurs, also a little bit from my generation. I mean, Petar Vesterbacka was one of the founders. This is Mighty Eagle used to be with Rovio of Slash, you know, there are a lot of great guys around here, Il Capana and with Supercell and others, who come from a slightly older generation and they've shown that they paved the way. And then I, you know, I look at all these 2000, I would almost call them kids here. It's just phenomenal to look at it. I mean, I'd take it as a compliment. Thank you. You do, you should. And, you know, there's like no fear, right? They're just walking around and telling their own story and they come up and ask questions and they're positive and nice and they're not afraid to take selfies and the rest of the night. I think it's a lot of fun. Yeah. So, and especially with our generation, it's going to be a lot of challenges, which we're going to have to solve. And this is where also AI, rabbit station, automation station comes in as well. What do you think are biggest challenges with these? Of course, people talk all about the machines are going to take your jobs. What do you think about this statement? Well, first of all, if we look at the development of technology, you know, we live a little bit in a blame game. So basically, what's happened is that the jobs that we've lost somewhere are quite often blamed on manufacturing jobs, say escaping, for instance, abroad or to Asia. I don't think that's the truth. And that actually creates a juxtaposition or tension, which I find unnecessary. It's actually technology, which is changing the nature of work. And it doesn't necessarily mean that we have less and less jobs. It means that the jobs are very different. And that means that we're going to have to adapt. So the first point I would have is for your generation is not to think about your life anymore as study, work, get a pension. No, it's study, work, study, work, study, work, die, perhaps. I don't know. We might live forever. They say so. You never know. And you should use these instruments and tools. Yes, it is going to mean that we have self driving cars. Yes, it's going to mean that an X-ray analysis will be better done by an algorithm or a diagnosis on a patient. Yes, it's going to mean that medicine and the way in which Homo sapiens exist and live is going to change. It's just going to be very important in this process that the change is for the good and not for evil. So when we start creating the algorithms, so we shouldn't hide the challenges. There are a lot of them. Fake news, the misuse of social media or technology. These are all bad things. You know, I'm a little bit afraid for liberal democracy as well, you know, if people can't take individual choices. And the funny thing is if I may ramble on a little bit, remember that a lot of the constitutions, say the US constitution or French constitution, even the Finnish constitution, they were created to protect your rights. They were created to protect the individual from the state or the minority from the majority. But now what I'm seeing is a lot of big companies taking over the information and private data of individuals. So you don't need to be protected from the state anymore. It's about the big data that's floated around. And we need to start looking at some of the ethical codes for all of this. So there's a lot of opportunity. But I think that, you know, we as human beings will change with these machines as we become more singular. I'm waiting for the moment when I can have an injection of a neural lace that helps me to communicate directly with some kind of data that I have on my iris. You know, that's going to happen one day. I find it exciting, but I also understand why some people find it scary. Yeah, change is always scary. Yeah. You mentioned this neural interface. Is this what you're looking forward to the most? Or is it something else? Well, a little bit scarily, but yes, you know, it'll be nice to get the information sort of in real time. But at the same time, you know, sometimes I will be getting information which I don't like. And sometimes that information will be siphoned through a certain algorithm which I like. And I want to have impulses from different ways. And I don't want to become just, you know, someone who's living in my own liberal, democratic, social market economy, globalization, international type of a bubble. I want to see other realities as well. It's exciting, but I admit at the same time, it's scary. But I do believe that you have to have an open mind to this because it's a development that you can't stop. You can direct it. So I belong definitely to the sort of tech optimist category rather than tech pessimists. Yeah. So probably many of the people watching right now, many of the people attending right now are with you in tech optimism. But what is your message to the people who are still afraid of the change? What is the one thing you want to tell them that will convince them that not to be afraid of the future? Well, my dad will turn 83 next year. He's still the chief scout of the National Hockey League in Europe. So all the European players go through him. Wow. He loves technology. He's on Twitter. And he's dating Miss Finland from 1956. What am I trying to say? I'm trying to say that be open-minded, embrace technology rather than reject it. Make the effort to learn. I think I'm going to be behind all of this for the rest of my life. But I'm not willing to give up and say no to technology. Just say I want the doves back to distribute my letters. No, I want to learn about it and see how all of this can work for the good of mankind. Just recently there was a report that was released on the state of artificial intelligence and this industry in Finland. Unfortunately, I don't have the name of the report in my notes here, but you know what I'm talking about. Do you remember? I haven't read the report, but I've heard of it. More generally, it basically claims that Finland is in a prime position to become the AI superpower. I don't know if that's the word they use, but that's what was implied at least in my years. So what do you think? Is this legitimate? Do you think Finland does have a good standing for this? Well, I think we're probably good, but it belongs to the same category of, we were phenomenally good in telecommunications in the 1990s, early 2000, through Nokia and all of its spin-offs. It also belongs to the category of we were very good at education in the PISA studies. But the problem is, if at one stage you think that you're the best in the world, you're not going to be the best in the world for a very long time. So you have to have that ambition and hunger to keep on improving. But certainly we have a very good coding scene. Certainly we have an advantage in technological infrastructure. We might have even a personality advantage if one could generalize. We certainly have a climate advantage, because probably this time of the year it's nicer to be inside and try to think of artificial intelligence rather than roam out there. But I do have one word of warning, that if we live in this balance between the brain and the machine that Eric Brunyolfsson and Andrew McAfee talk about, or if we live in this world of a balance between a product and a platform or an individual in a crowd, I think the coin always has two sides. One is the human brain, the emotional intelligence, the warmth and the love and the way in which we behave, the empathy factor. And on the other side we have the artificial intelligence or the machine or the algorithm or the hard figures. I think we need to find a balance between these two. I don't want to lose the human touch. And I think things could actually be quite good at that, because we have a certain sort of empathetic way. We might not always show it, but empathetic way of doing things. So yes, let's be good at artificial intelligence, but at the same time let's be the ones who remind us of the emotional intelligence as well. Absolutely. And also of course there's a lot of exciting stuff going on here, beyond artificial intelligence as well. Lots of young entrepreneurs walking about, thinking about their idea, even looking for their idea. Did you ever have this idea of starting a company yourself? Well, I actually have and I have. First of all, my dad's company, I'm part of that, the European sports services. That's basically ice hockey and national hockey league and so on and so forth. But I do now have my own company as well. But to be quite honest, it only sells me. So it's called Alexanderstube Global. So that's what I've been using as an instrument for talks and columns and these kinds of things. But yes, I would love to be an entrepreneur one day. And I've left life in politics behind and I was involved in politics for 13 years in government for eight years. And it's wonderful now to be able, as a banker, to look at the world from a different kind of a perspective and perhaps start to understand financial markets and business a little bit better. And this is all part of the learning process here. Yeah. So at Slush this year, our theme is how entrepreneurship can solve the most pressing problems in the world. Well, this hypothetical startup you might have, what kind of problems would you want to start solving? It would be a peace machine. Peace machine. In other words. Yeah. Well, basically, I just yesterday became the chairman of the board of the crisis management initiative. Congratulations. So thank you. Peace Mediation Organization that was founded by Marty Achtisari, our Nobel Peace Laureate, who's been leading it as a chairman of the board for 17 years. And I joked around yesterday that, you know, I've read a lot of stuff on artificial intelligence and there's a very good Finnish professor who's written a book even called the peace machine. And I think that algorithms can be helpful in solving major world conflicts. So if you gather a lot of data and you have a lot of these good nerds who can put that data together and analyze it, you can get warning signs for a potential burning conflict or you can start to find a compromise on how to solve a conflict. So my startup would basically be in some kind of a peace machine that would work then for peace on earth. You see, that's an excellent pitch right there. You know, I could have listened to that over there and I could have not told the difference or your age. So that works out. Yeah. Who would you look for investment for the peace machine? The EIB, of course. But I can't do that now because I'm on the giving side, conflict of interest. So someone else will have to come up with a peace machine in the meanwhile. Yeah. What about who would be your co-founders? Who would you like to start this company with? Anybody? So even me. Yeah. I mean, I'd probably take a wide range of people from both old to young. Obviously, I think the peace machine should be called Marty as in Marty Ahtisari. But for instance, yesterday we had a CMI event and I think there's a causal effect between three things. Peace, women and technology. So I think it would be quite a strongly female organization because I think women are much better at solving conflict than men are. So that would be my starting point. That's a very good starting point. Yeah. Okay. So obviously, lots of things are shaking up the world economy right now. There's a lot of uncertainty up in the air, how the financial markets will do. And people are pretty worried. Even over here, people who are the biggest optimists on the planet are thinking about is this the right time to start their company? But you're Mr. Positive. You can make a great motivational speech. So could you just for a while, maybe 30 seconds or so, give a motivational speech to all the potential founders out there, why this is the best time to found your company and get your idea started? Okay. My first bit is tongue and cheek. Remember when I came into government in 2008, everything started to go up shit creek. War in Georgia, Lehman Brothers, financial crisis, Euro crisis, indebtedness, sovereign debt crisis, unemployment goes up, growth goes down. And when in 2016 I left office, the unemployment figures are looking better, growth is happening, slush is doing even better than ever. So the first marker is that when I leave office, things start going really well. Now when we move from the tongue and cheek part, certainly the investment scene right now is much better. Technological advancement is helping us grow in many kind of ways. There's no shortage of capital at this particular moment, not from the EIB or from anywhere else. The regulatory framework, for instance, in Europe is much more liberal than what it used to be. So I would argue that there's always a good time to invest, especially right now. Yes, there are two risk factors in all of this. One is Brexit and the other one is Donald Trump. But as we can see, we can live with that as well. Absolutely, yeah. So we're approaching the end of our time right here. Do you have a program for yourself over here? Where are you going to go from here? Yeah, I'm going to roam around from table to table and look at interesting type of innovations. I just saw one on genetic analysis, on basically a system that analyses your genes and then tells you once you're sick what your basic deficiency is. So I'm going to do a lot of that. And then tomorrow I'm going to hang out with the founders, foreign people. But I'm going to be looking for the tech-savvy, digital era, fourth industrial revolution type of stuff just to be able to understand it better. All right, Alex, this has been great fun. Thanks. Thank you very much for joining us right here. And I hope you have a great Slush right now. Slush is always great. This is it, us from Live Studio at the moment. Stay tuned for more program from Slush itself. Thank you very much.