I had the privilege of attending a talk to see Jensen Huang during my time at Stanford. Much like the fans of Apple line up for days before a new product gets released or teenage girls (or frankly anyone these days) lining up to get a glimpse of Taylor Swift, I got in line earlier to get prime seats. It was worth the wait. With queues snaking around the building and beyond, I was lucky to be in the first handful of people in the audience, which gave me front row seats. It was such a fascinating discussion and I wanted to summarise some of my key takeaways from Jensen's story.
Reputation
When the NVIDIA was first started, Jensen and his cofounders needed capital to begin development. Jensen had just resigned from LSI logic and he met with his boss who told him that he should go and meet with Don Valentine (Founder and former managing partner of sequoia capital). Jensen’s boss made a call to Don and told him that he was sending "one of his best" and instructed Don to give Jensen money. According to Jensen, the pitch to Don was a total disaster, but it was the recommendation from his boss that led to the initial investment from Sequoia. To me, this really highlights the importance of building a strong reputation, as it may give you the edge that you need. Jensen summarised it perfectly:
You can make up a great interview or even have a bad interview, but you can't run away from your past, so have a good past.
Create Markets
At NVIDIA's inception, its goal was to produce graphics for gaming. A $0B market at the time. NVIDIA was relying on the success of another startup, Electronic Arts (EA). The CTO of EA was 14 years old and had to be driven to work by his mum. To most people, this seems like a plan doomed for failure. NVIDIA went on to create the PC gaming market.
Create technology, create markets
Solving interesting problems is great, but it is not sustainable unless they are also interesting markets. This can be an incredibly challenging pursuit. Trying to invest in technology for markets before they even exist. I really liked how Jensen framed his solution to this. Rather than focusing on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which are based on results, NVIDIA uses Early Indicators Of Future Success (EIOFS). These are small nuggets of evidence that the technology they are developing has demand or application. A great example is when researchers and doctors started using NVIDIA products for CT reconstruction and early drug discovery. Although these researchers had no money, the importance of the work was so clear, and these are the early indicators of a future market.
Continuous Learning
Jensen is an avid learner. He dedicates a large amount of his time to learning and making sure he understands all the latest trends. When he first started NVIDIA, he had no business experience and so he bought a 450 page 'how to write a business plan' book. I love his philosophy that anything can be learnt if you put your mind to it.
The most complex things are only one textbook or archive paper away
When NVIDIA needed to pivot to accomodate the OpenGL pipeline, Jensen found a OpenGL manual in a local electronics shop, bought multiple copies and then gave them to his cofounders. By digesting this knowledge and implementing it in a unique way, NVIDIA managed to make their breakthrough and differentiate themselves from all their competitors. Even though they had no prior experience in Microsoft's Direct3D, they got the book and got to work.
You can succeed in doing something, inventing the future, even if you are not informed about it at all
This is such a powerful tool. The ability to go and learn from a wide array of sources and then come back and instead of imitating the knowledge, asking “What does this mean to us?”
First Principles Thinking
With all of this knowledge, Jensen urges us to go back to first principles and rethink how things were done, using todays context. This provides a fantastic reset in our constantly evolving world and allows for a fresh perspective.
Mindset
When asked about how he handles the ups and downs of business, Jensen took it back to basics. His whole philosophy is that you need to go back to your core beliefs and sometimes just check off the little things, like remembering that your family still loves you. By going back to your core and checking to make sure if your assumptions are still true, you center yourself back on your vision.
When you take a big hit or it seems like everything is failing, go back and review your assumptions, and If nothing has changed, then get back to work.
Jensen's attitude is relentless. Hearing him talk about the founding story of NVIDIA and how they have been working for over 31 years and only recently found large scale success. When asked about his feelings towards their latest earnings call, which sent the stock above $2 trillion market cap, he humbly said "it is just another day".
NVIDIA was also first to many markets and this is largely because of Jensen's mindset, which can be likened to "do things that don't scale". He urges us to be willing to do something even if the financials don't make sense. You should rely on two guiding questions to aid your decision.
Is the work important?
Are their indicators of future success?
Jensen is very mission oriented. He has a strong belief that truly innovative companies are lazy at the things that other companies will do, and are instead truly focussed on the things that won't happen if they don't do it. I love this sentiment. Doing work that is hard, and you know won't get done without you, is truly the definition of purpose and is something I believe we can all learn from.
My final point on Jensen's incredible mindset was his incredible conviction and the ability to be willing to bet the company on it. When NVIDIA was developing the RIVA 128, they knew that given their limited runway, they would only have one shot at producing the ‘perfect’ chip. Jensen essentially betted the future of the company when he sent the chip into production on the first iteration, but it worked. It might have just seemed like pure luck, but Jensen attributes it to bringing forward all the risks and simulating everything upfront.
Planning Achievements
It can often be difficult to set goals and find ways to work towards. Jensen offered a great piece of advice:
Go forward and look backwards to see what you need to achieve
This is truly a form of visualisation. Putting yourself in the outcome you want and then looking to see what you need to happen in order for that outcome to occur. I think this is also a great exercise to identify any assumptions related to your success. For example, does a new market need to exist?
Jensen made a lot of incredible decisions which have resulted in NVIDIA's amazing success, but he also attributes some of their success to being well positioned.
Position yourself close to opportunities. Be close to the tree and even if you don’t catch the apple as it falls, you can be the first one to pick it up
By being close to the cutting edge of technology, by working with their customers and understanding new use cases, NVIDIA was able to catch opportunities before any of their competitors, ultimatley leading to their success.
Culture
To me, Jensen is a true leader. As CEO, Jensen has 50 direct reports, more than most CEOs. He has built a very flat organisation and believes that the way we build organisations today, is the same way we have for centuries, using a hierarchy. Just like in medieval times where the king was essentially the CEO and all his followers were beneath him. This creates a power imbalance and removes a the ability for everyone to reach their full potential.
Empowering people is also at the core of Jensen's organisation. In many companies, the senior management have all the information and use it as a form of leverage to create power over their staff. Jensen warns against this and instead believes that positions should be based on a persons ability to reason through complicated things and lead/inspire other people. You could hear the passion and immense belief when Jensen spoke about what he views as his role:
Create the conditions where people can come and achieve their life's work
Jensen is a very humble leader and he spoke about his early days, cleaning dishes at Denny's and how this has shaped his belief that no job should be beneath a leader. He truly believes that if there is something where he can make a positive contribution and support someone in his team, he will roll up his sleeves and do it.
There is no task beneath me
He also encourages his staff to email him the top five things on their mind and spends time helping them reason through solutions. I don't know many CEOs who are this engaged with their team, especially in an organisation of 30,000 people.
Wrap-up
I left Jensen's talk inspired to build my leadership style around some of these principles. It is clear that Jensen is not just an incredibly intelligent engineer, but a true entrepreneur who uses his mission as his north star to guide him through challenging circumstances. I would like to leave you with a quote from Jensen that really stuck with me.
Make a unique contribution, do something that someone else can't do
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The whole conversation was also recorded if you would like to watch it!
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