Building on Norway’s Oil Legacy
This is Part 2 of our series exploring Norway’s history and industrial context. If you haven’t read it already, we recommend starting with Part 1 here.
This article was co-authored by Max Samuel. Max is a General Partner at SNÖ Ventures, an early stage, Nordic-focused VC firm partnering with entrepreneurs embarking on uniquely challenging journeys. Before moving to Norway, Max worked closely with Peter Thiel at his investment firm, Thiel Capital, in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Before Thiel Capital, Max advised tech companies as an attorney at Wilson Sonsini in SF, and was an investment banker at Credit Suisse in NYC.
Special thanks to Tim Woodcock for his help.
The Atlantic Road. Image: Visit Norway
A Foundation for Innovation in “Atoms"
The past decades have brought a remarkable transformation of Norway’s fortunes. And despite its conflicting legacy, the success of the oil and gas industry will also be the foundation for Norway’s future success – not least because it led to a high concentration of talent in areas which supported the industry’s development.
The oil industry drove a strategic focus on "hard" sciences, leading to a surge in engineering education: between 2005 and 2013, enrolment in petroleum-related studies increased by 160%, and by 2013, 21% of Norwegian master's degrees were in science and technology fields, far exceeding the OECD average.
This focus on physical technologies created a talent pool skilled in solving challenges that require deep integration of mechanical, chemical, and electrical engineering. As Norway seeks to diversify its economy beyond oil, this expertise is being redirected toward emerging sectors that promise to address global challenges.
A Contrast to Silicon Valley Stagnation
This focus on "atoms" rather than "bits" – physical rather than digital technology – stands in stark contrast to the narrow focus within Silicon Valley over the last 50 years on “bits” or software. As Peter Thiel has noted, it made little sense to become a mechanical engineer when Google was paying six figure salaries to young computer science grads. The United States (and by extension much of the Western world) thus experienced significant stagnation in physical technology development since the 1970s. While software has advanced rapidly, progress in areas like transportation, energy, and construction has slowed or even reversed.
The evidence of this stagnation is visible across multiple sectors. Commercial air travel speeds haven't increased since the retirement of the Concorde in 2003. Construction timelines for major projects have lengthened significantly – the Empire State Building was built in just 410 days in 1931, while modern skyscrapers often take many years to complete. In energy, despite the urgent need for clean power, many Western nations have struggled to maintain their nuclear power capacity, let alone expand it.
This is where Norway's unique advantage lies. The country has maintained and developed expertise in precisely the areas where other nations have fallen behind.
Digital Norway: A Fully Integrated Society
While excelling in physical technologies, Norway – like its Scandinavian neighbors – has simultaneously become one of the world's most digitized societies. The digitization of tax systems, healthcare records, and payment infrastructures exemplifies the country's high trust in public systems and its ability to integrate digital solutions into daily life. This comprehensive digital infrastructure creates an ideal testing ground for innovations that bridge the physical and digital worlds, such as energy management systems and robotics.
Five Emerging Opportunities for Norway
Given Norway's combination of engineering expertise, digital penetration, and natural resources, these are some of the emerging industries in which Norway is uniquely positioned to lead:
1. Energy Technology and Clean Tech
Building on its oil and gas expertise, Norway is emerging as a leader in renewable energy and clean tech. With 95% of its electricity coming from hydropower, Norway has experience in renewable energy systems and grid management. The country's offshore expertise translates seamlessly into floating wind farms, hydrogen production, and carbon capture and storage.
Alta Hydropower Dam. Image: Sweco
Norway is also well positioned to domicile an outsized portion of the world’s sustainably powered AI computing. Bulk Infrastructure is a good starting point, building data centers in the cold and sustainable north. Norway demonstrated its potential to harness hydropower for computing infrastructure when it rapidly became a leading European bitcoin mining hub, particularly in its northern regions (before of course the government banned it).
Image: Bulk Infrastructure
In the emerging sector of carbon capture and storage, the same geography that gave rise to the abundant oil and gas that contributed to the climate crisis might now play its part in mitigating some of that damage: Equinor & Yara are developing a 1,000-kilometer pipeline to transport CO₂ from industrial sites in Western Europe to storage sites beneath the Norwegian seabed. By 2035, Norway aims to store 30 million tonnes of CO₂ annually.
The CO₂ Highway Europe. Image: Equinor
2. Robotics and Industrial Automation
High labor costs and engineering talent have driven Norway's innovation in robotics and automation. Companies like AutoStore, a global leader in automated storage systems, and 1X, building humanoid robots, demonstrate the country's ability to blend engineering expertise with practical industrial applications.
NEO Beta by 1X. Image: 1X
The country’s robotics sector also supports environmental goals. Robotic systems for recycling facilities and waste management are increasingly developed in Norway, addressing sustainability while maintaining efficiency. Autonomous agricultural robots are also emerging as key solutions for reducing labor-intensive tasks and minimizing environmental impacts.
3. Space Technology and Defense
Leveraging offshore and remote operations expertise (and access to polar orbit), Norway is positioned to play a significant role in the growing commercial space industry.
Norway is a member of the European Space Agency and hosts key launch facilities, including the Andøya Space Center, which is set to become continental Europe's first spaceport. Andøya Space has entered into an agreement to be the first launch site of the German launch service company Isar Aerospace, and recently inked a technology safeguards agreement (TSA) with the U.S. to allow American companies to launch from Norway.
Additionally, Andøya is home to advanced facilities for testing rockets, drones, and space innovations, positioning Norway as a strategic player in both commercial and defense-oriented space activities including aerospace security, satellite systems, and anti-drone technologies.
Image: Andøya Spaceport
Norway is planning to meet the NATO target of spending 2% of its GDP by 2026 and to double its defence budget in the coming decade to continue acting as the Alliance’s eyes and ears in the Arctic. One of Norway’s key defense companies, Kongsberg, is building deep sea, maritime and missile technologies such as the NASAMS Air Defence System used in Ukraine. Together with German partners Diehl Defence and MBDA the company is now developing supersonic anti-ship missiles.
4. Ocean Technologies
Norway's maritime heritage and subsea expertise developed through its oil and gas industry, are being applied to develop autonomous underwater vehicles and ocean monitoring systems. These technologies support industries from aquaculture to seabed mining.
Norwegian innovation is leading to the development of sustainable aquaculture solutions, utilizing AI-driven sensors and robotics to monitor and maintain optimal fish farming environments such as Optoscale or Alginor. Subsea robotics is also aiding in ecological studies, offering tools to protect biodiversity and clean marine pollution.
Salmon aquaculture. Image: Johan Wildhagen
Illustration of an underwater power park. Image: Seabased
5. Leveraging the “Oil Fund”
As we discussed in Part 1, Norway's $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund offers a unique opportunity to fuel innovation. Like every previous management of the fund, CEO Nicolai Tangen has requested government permission to invest in private markets. So far, the government has declined but is at least taking it into further consideration.
Should the government permit the Oil Fund to invest in private markets, Norway has the potential to establish itself as a haven and driver for innovators and innovation. It doesn’t take much to imagine Norway’s potential as a leading global technology and innovation hub when we see how certain Middle East countries have leveraged enormous wealth to rapidly emerge as key players in the global startup ecosystem.
Will Norwegians Realise This Potential?
Despite incredible technical skills in the population and growing demand for the physical engineering expertise Norway has carefully maintained for decades, there remain cultural and regulatory headwinds that have thus far hindered Norway from realising the full potential of a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem:
Janteloven
Norway's cultural "Janteloven" ethos, which emphasizes collective achievement over individual success, stands in contrast to the individualistic exceptionalism that often drives high growth technology companies. There are certainly positive aspects to cultural collectivism, and as a recent transplant from Los Angeles, one of the most individualistic societies in the world, I appreciate these benefits on a daily basis. However, Norway needs to modernize and tailor its traditions of social democracy in order to embrace its unique opportunities within an unwaveringly capitalist, globally competitive world.
Janteloven is, in one form, codified via the current Labour Party regime’s onerous wealth and exit tax regulations. These are driven by a stated effort to "let those with the broadest shoulders carry the most weight" but in practice have the effect of stifling entrepreneurship, innovation and investment. The wealth tax, which includes a tax on unrealized gains, is practically impossible for most startup founders to comply with and fundamentally incompatible with encouraging a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. As a result, many of Norway’s most successful business leaders and entrepreneurs have left the country already, and these policies create incentives for young entrepreneurs to begin their own journeys outside the country.
In particular for a country that already has incredibly lucrative sources of income – the highly taxed oil and gas industry and the compounding investment returns from its massive pension fund – deliberately stifling its most ambitious and capable individuals to develop new industries is puzzling.
Some politicians, however, are answering the call of the startup ecosystem, and promising a brighter future. Former Prime Minister Erna Solberg of the Conservative Party (and whom many project to return to office in Norway’s election in September 2025), has recently stated:
“When taxes have been increased so much, it is also no wonder that the investment figures are no better than they are, and that hardly any jobs are created in the private sector. It matters who is in charge. The Conservative Party wants to let people keep more of their own money, and give companies room to invest and create more jobs.”
If the country can find new interpretations of Janteloven that align the value of collectivism with removing barriers to ambition and progress, Norway is in a unique position to be a leader in reinventing some of our most valuable physical industries for the 21st century.
