Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of NVIDIA | Stanford Graduate School of Business

“Don’t worry about how other companies or org charts look. Start from first principles. Remember what an organization is designed to do - an organization of the past where there’s a king (CEO), then you have the royal subjects/court, then you keep working your way down - eventually you have employees. Well the reason why it was designed that way is because they wanted their soldiers to have as little information as possible because their fundamental purpose of the soldiers is to die in the field of battle. To die without asking questions. I only have 30,000 employees. I would like none of them to die. I would like them to question everything. So the way you organize in the past and the way you organize today is very different.”

“You want the company to be lazy about doing things that other people always/can do. If somebody else can do it, let them do it. We should go select the things that: if we didn’t do it, the world would fall apart. If I don’t do this, it won’t get done.”

“Your job is to make a unique contribution. Live a life of purpose. Do something that nobody else in the world would do or can do. Make a unique contribution so that in the event that after you’ve done, everybody says the world was better because you were here.”

“Have a core-belief, gut-check it every day. Pursue it with all of your mind. Pursue it with for a very long time.”

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at 2024 SIEPR Economic Summit

One of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations, and I mean that. Most Stanford graduates have very high expectations, and you deserve high expectations because you come from a great school, you were very successful, you are on top of you class. Obviously, you were able to pay for tuition, and you’re graduating from one of the finest institutions on the planet. You are surrounded by other kids that are just incredible. You naturally have very high expectations. [However,] people with very high expectations have very low resilience. And unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don’t know how to teach it to you, except [to say], “I hope suffering happens to you.” I was fortunate that I grew up with parents who provided conditions for us to be successful on the one hand, but there were [also] plenty of opportunities for setbacks and suffering. To this day, I use the phrase “pain and suffering” inside our company with great glee, and I mean that [in a happy way], because you want to train and refine the character of your company. You want greatness out of them, and greatness is not intelligence as you know; greatness comes from character, and character isn’t formed out of smart people, it’s formed out of people who suffered. So, if I could wish upon you—I don’t know how to do it—but for all of you Stanford students, I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.

A conversation with NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang

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Zero-Billion-Dollar Markets

A zero-billion-dollar market is one that doesn’t exist yet. Put another way, there are neither competitors nor customers because no one has considered it or dared to invest in it. This approach is risky because the results aren’t guaranteed, but they may be very lucrative if they succeed. ¹

“I’d rather be a market maker, market creator than a market taker. [It] is a good way to cause the company to think about how to go create something for the first time.”

There’s a phrase that said, “You should choose your career based on your passion.” And usually, people connect passion with happiness. I think there is something missing in that. Nothing there is wrong, but there’s something missing. […] When you’re doing something that’s not easy to do, you’re not always enjoying it. I don’t love every day of my job. I don’t think every day brings me joy nor does joy have to be the definition of a good day. And every day, I’m not happy. Every year I’m not happy about the company, but I love the company every single second. So I think that what people misunderstand is somehow the best jobs are the ones that bring you happiness all the time. I don’t think that that’s right. You have to suffer. You have to struggle. You have to endeavor. You have to do those hard things and work through it in order to really appreciate what you’ve done. There are no such things that are great that were easy to do. So by definition, I would say therefore I wish upon you greatness, which by my way of saying it, I wish upon you plenty of pain and suffering.

Jensen Huang’s Speech At CalTech｜黃仁勳加州理工演講

The ability to make sacrifices, endure pain and suffering, you will need these qualities in life.

NVIDIA 執行長黃仁勳 2023 年臺灣大學畢業典禮致詞

坦誠面對錯誤，謙卑尋求幫助，是聰明與成功人士最難學會的。

叢林生存法則：Ask for help. Retreat. Run.

Strategic retreat, sacrifice, deciding what to give up is at the core, the very core of success.

Run, don’t walk! Remember: Either you’re running for food, or running from becoming food. And oftentimes, you can’t tell which. Either way, run.

TVBS 方念華獨家專訪 | Exclusive Interview with NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang

EIOFS = Early Indicator of Future Success

“I want our company not to worry about the results, but to worry about doing the right things that lead to results. Play the game, not the scores. 2 I would prefer that our company challenges itself more. Discover unknown things. Do things that no one else has ever done before. And be willing to fail. Be willing to learn along the way. […] So I created a system called Early Indicator of Future Success. Don’t worry about future success. Worry about the early indicators of future success. So what are some of the things of early indicators? You decide for yourself. What are the early indicators that you believe will lead to future success? And that’s why our company focuses on that. We don’t let somebody else decide for us what’s the definition of success. We create ourselves.”

主持人：NVIDIA’s stock hits new high recently. So does your value (身價). What does that mean to you?

“Absolutely nothing. I was trying to think about a good answer. But I still wake up at the same time. I still work the same way. Eat the same thing. I love all the same things. I love all the same people. Nobody treats me any different. And I still have a mountain of work in front of me. So nothing has changed. I think that’s probably one of the great things about our company, and one of the good habits that I have—irrespective of adversity or failure. I pick up and go back to work the next day just the same way.”

黃仁勳面對面 TVBS 劉亭廷獨家專訪

On “Core Leadership Values”

At the core, NVIDIA’s mission and my vision is one and the same. It’s to make a contribution to build things that are incredibly hard to do, that no one else in the world is doing or can do. And if unlikely chances that we succeed, that we make a real contribution, we change the world in some better way. That is at the core of everything that we do. Everything that we do is hard. That’s why it took 30 years. Robotics, 10. Self-driving cars, 10. Quantum computing, 5. Digital biology, 10. The list goes on.

I think the way to think through that is what is possible. It’s important that the CEO chooses endeavors that are nearly possible. And for me, nearly possible is about 10 years. If I can achieve something and make it mainstream within 10 years, it’s time for us to really go and pursue it. I like the 10-year horizon for success. And it gives me many chances to go and learn and iterate. In order to do that, 10 years out, you need to be able to see around corners, connect dots, and have an imagination about what the 10 years from now looks like.

And after that, you just have to re-evaluate your reasons. You know, I double-check my assumptions all the time, continuously. Because my assumptions and the principles by which I arrive at certain strategies or conclusions or directions, those things are really fundamental. So I have to go back and re-evaluate continuously. And if it’s true, and I believe what I believe, then there’s no reason to change, just keep pursuing it.