Jensen Huang’s workaholic lifestyle helped make Nvidia a $3B giant

Being so rich brings its burdens, it seems. He told the New York Times DealBook Summit last year: “I don’t wake up proud and confident — I wake up worried and worried.”

That’s because Nvidia almost went bankrupt in the late 1990s — a memory he says is hard to shake off.

The company hit a $3 trillion valuation for the first time this week, becoming only the third to reach the milestone after Microsoft and Apple. The rise in Nvidia stock since early 2023 has been driven by demand for its chips, which are vital for AI applications.

Huang also has very high standards. In a recent interview with “60 Minutes,” Huang said the description of him as “demanding, a perfectionist, not easy to work for” fits him perfectly.

Here’s a look at how Nvidia’s CEO spends his time and his leadership style.

Huang works during the holidays, but finds it relaxing

At 61, Huang shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon, and he’s certainly no workaholic.

Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, who interviewed Huang last year, said he asked him how much he works. On the “20VC” podcast in March, Tangen said Huang told him, “‘Nicolai, it’s hard work and then there’s crazy hard work.'”

Tangen added that Huang said he works every day of the week and every holiday and relaxes all the time because he loves what he does.

In fact, he embraces a workaholic lifestyle.

“I work from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. I work seven days a week. When I’m not working, I’m thinking about working, and when I’m working, I’m working. I watch movies, but I don’t remember them because I’m thinking about work.”

Nvidia GPUs, powering the AI ​​revolution, are in high demand this year. That comes with a lot of pressure.

“The part of it that’s really intense is just the world on our shoulders,” Huang told Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon at the investment bank’s Communications and Technology Conference in September.

Huang added: “And so less sleep is good; three solid hours is all we need.”

Huang has spoken in the past about how struggle and pain build character and help achieve greatness.

At Stripe’s Sessions conference in April, Huang said that some people believe that “the best jobs are the ones that bring you happiness all the time,” but he disagrees with that interpretation.

Huang believes that it takes suffering and struggle to “really appreciate what you’ve done.”

Eat in the company cafeteria to connect with employees

Huang also takes time to chat with the staff: “People are surprised by how much time they spend eating in the cafeteria, whether it’s lunch or dinner, people are surprised by how much time they spend in all kinds of meetings with everyone the employees”.

His emphasis on communication allows him to return to what he sees as his primary role – to be “custodians of culture”.

Unlike many Big Tech CEOs, Huang believes you can’t do that by constantly doing press interviews.

“If you want to be a custodian of culture, you can’t do it through CNN or articles in Forbes magazine. You have to do it 1% of the time, unfortunately, or large crowds at a time, so that’s how I spend my time.”

He has 60 direct reports

Huang is known for his hands-on leadership style and has about 60 direct reports, he said at the Stripe Sessions conference. He also encourages people in the company to send him the top five things on their minds.

“I don’t do one-on-ones, my staff is quite large and almost everything I say, I say to everyone at the same time.”

In his view, this helps solve problems and enables others to learn by giving them “equal access to information” and hearing “solution reasoning”, which in turn “empowers people”.

Huang told Stanford Business School that CEOs should have the most people reporting directly to them in an organization because they can help “lead other people to achieve greatness, inspire, empower other people.”

Sometimes he clears his calendar to make up time

Speaking to students at Stanford University in 2003, the Nvidia boss said he tried to spend his time in areas he believed would have a long-lasting influence on the company.

“As a CEO, your time is not always your own, and so you have to have the discipline to make it your own,” he told them.

“I’ll often come into the office and tell my manager to clear my calendar so I can have that time back, and often you also come to the conclusion that as a CEO, not sleeping is a good choice. This is always a good option. , creates more time when you’re not sleeping.”

Huang said that one area where he spends his time is product planning and strategy planning, which he enjoys “very much.”

Nvidia declined to comment.

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