Great Things Are Not Normal – But Hope Should Be

About the lecture

Most of the world is normally distributed. IQ, apple sizes, exam results. The things we actually care about are not: forest fires, hit songs, careers, companies. A handful of extreme outcomes account for almost everything.

That has an uncomfortable consequence. You cannot plan your way to an outlier - you can only take enough shots to be exposed to one. This lecture is about what that means in practice: how you handle failure, how long you should be willing to wait, how much attention you owe to skeptics and forecasters, and why hope turns out to be the most underrated of them all.

I will draw on ten years of building companies at Askeladden & Co — including the ones that did not work.

Martin Schütt,
Guest speaker 2026,
Managing partner of Askeladden & Co
NHH alumni of the Year in 2019

Registration for alumni

The Lehmkuhl Lecture is open to the public, but we kindly ask alumni and invited guests to registrer.

Go to registration 

Kristofer Lehmkuhl - 'Father of the school'

Statsråd (Cabinet Minister) Kristofer Lehmkuhl (1855-1949) was an untiring champion for NHH. Perhaps more than anyone else he had the honour of ensuring that NHH became established, and right up to his death he followed the activity of the school with a never weakening interest. He is therefore rightfully called the 'Father of the school'.

NHH has honoured Kristofer Lehmkuhl's memory by holding an annual lecture in his name for students, academic staff and invited guests. The lecture is held as close as possible to Kristofer Lehmkuhl's birthday, 26 September.

A statue stands to the memory of Statsråd Lehmkuhl in front of the main building of the school, looking over the sea towards the harbour of Bergen where the sailing training vessel bearing his name is based.

Lehmkuhl Lectures from 2019 and onward on NHH's Youtube channel