CEO Jensen Huang: NVIDIA's Secret to Building Exceptional Teams

Ajouté : 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]But in a lot of ways, Nvidia has 61 CEOs. And and so and they care deeply about this company. You know, many of them have been here for a long time, 33 years in some cases. And so so I I I think Nvidia has just been built like no other company ever has been built. And it also speaks to our resilience like no other company will have.

[00:00:21]>> So obviously that kind of um structure that you have is very legendary in the industry now. Everybody talks about it, these nearly 60 reports. So in order for that to work, those people have to be exceptional. Yeah. Okay, not just brilliant cuz there's a lot of brilliant people in Silicon Valley. They have to be exceptional specifically for Nvidia.

[00:00:37]Yeah. So tell me a little bit about how you curate those people. And then secondly, there's been many times that you didn't hire in a position until you found the right person. And I'm thinking specifically of Colette. You interviewed 22 CFOs before you hired her. And now she's, you know, she's a legend in her her own right on Wall Street. So maybe how did you choose her? And how do you how do you curate those types of people?

[00:01:03]What do you look for? An empty empty chair is better than a chair filled with the wrong person. And so I'm never in a hurry. The company will keep moving on. And and uh whether there's a missing CEO or missing, you know, VP of anything, the company will keep moving on. And and so you just have to have the the confidence of what I just said. If you if you can convince yourself of what I just said, that these two ideas, the empty chair and the company is going to keep moving on. Then it buys you enormous amounts of time until you find somebody that is a combination of a lot of things including you just like them. You know, Colette on his on on her first week, I think she asked me, you know, Jensen, how long do you want me to be your CFO? And I said, for as long as we shall live. And >> Death do us part. Yeah. Yeah. Because the alternative doesn't make sense. Any other answer is the wrong answer. For what reason is there a end date? And the end date is when when I you know, she decides Nvidia is no longer right for her.

[00:02:01]That applies to Collette, that applies to all 60 of Nvidia to work boards and and I I keep chairs open for a long time. And the company just keeps on carrying on. And and people people swarm the the mission, you know, whatever whatever the mission is, whatever the job that needs to be done, people will swarm it anyways. And worst case, I'll do my best and just carry on, you know?

[00:02:24]And so so I that that's just a philosophy.

[00:02:27]Don't don't ever fill a chair with the wrong person. Wait until the right person comes along. And that right person, you know, I I'm asked all the time what what makes a great what makes a great employee, what makes a great leader. Surprisingly, I don't have the answer. And the reason for that is this, they're all smart, they're all competent. You find me a you find me a a CFO somewhere and I promise you they're competent. They're competent enough. And so so that you you hire you find me a you find me a whole bunch of functions.

[00:02:52]You find me a CEO. And I'm I work with CEOs all over the world and they are all competent. Let's just be clear about that. And and many of them, when I'm working with them, I'm like, "Gosh, you know, you're super competent and super smart." It's all completely true. And yet, in the end, what makes the magic of Nvidia is a combination of the the the chemistry of the people that are together, but mostly I would tell you that is it's just corporate character.

[00:03:18]And that character comes from somewhere.

[00:03:20]That's what defines great companies.

[00:03:22]Somehow, there are a lot of companies building chips. We invented the GPU, but we're from a volume perspective, we're the smallest GPU company in the world. I know this sounds weird, but we are.

[00:03:32]Everybody makes more GPUs than I do.

[00:03:33]It's like, you know, some random person makes more GPUs than we do. And so so clearly clearly it's not that. And so so I think the somehow somehow there's a magic in in in the corporate culture, the corporate character, how how teams come together during adversity. I mean, people see us just kind of strolling through life, but getting Grace Blackwell into production almost broke our company's back, but it but we wouldn't let it. It is just extraordinarily complicated and incredibly large-scale and the expectations were incredible. And for us to live up to it and exceed it with with it almost breaking our back, that that's 100% character. That's not intelligence.

[00:04:15]That's not hard work. There are a lot of people that work hard. There are a lot of people that are super smart. That is 100% character and where that comes from, you you just you you can't interview that into existence, you know?

[00:04:26]And the thing that that I believe is this, I actually kind of believe that you can bring almost anybody into Nvidia and we will instill character into you.

[00:04:34]And and to that I think is the magic of our company that that somehow we could we could suffer pain and we can we can endure incredible challenges and come out of the other side. And we could do it over and over and over again. And very few companies can do that as a team. Usually somebody gets left behind. You know, usually what happens is you you go through one of these incredible challenges and then somebody leaves because of a bad feeling or because they were blamed and they were fired or they were they they somehow felt it's always By the way, it's always somebody's fault. I I don't want to you know, let's let's be clear about about building companies and and teams. At the end of the game we lost as a team, but there's no question who dropped the pass. And so we have to be clear about that. And and we are clear about that. And because because we have such a safe environment, all the people who drop passes in the in the past, including myself, and I've dropped plenty passes and and the the the passes I dropped, you know, everybody's watching, nobody's been fired for dropping passes. And so so this company has has developed a culture, a personality, a lot of it reflecting our own, that tolerance and forgiveness and and and to learning from mistakes. And so long as so long as maybe a couple of things that's really super important to me. So long as the team play the teammates gave everything of themselves. That's good enough for me. So yeah, is that I mean, you have a reputation for really not liking to fire people, and hopefully no one likes to fire people.

[00:06:03]But so that's your theory that it that you have to make these people better, or your team has to make them better. Like the company made me better, you know, I I wasn't that I I wasn't then what I am today, you know, and and what I know today, you know, no volume encyclopedia could hold it. And and so you know, if somebody were to ask me what did I learn over at Nvidia and write a book, I wouldn't know where to start, you know, and just and so so this company gave me the chance to become what I am. And this company also gave the entire management team the opportunity to become what they are. And I got to tell you 100% of those 60 people are different today than they were when they started. I can tell you they're great today. We were fine in the beginning.

[00:06:46]We're good in the beginning, like anybody else. And so so the the company tortured greatness out of us, and the the company forged incredible character into us. That's the magic of this company, that you could do that, not lose the person, and the company not giving up on you Right. simultaneously.

[00:07:03]That's our greatness, I think. And And can you can you can you hire people into that? Yes, I believe so. And I've proven repeatedly that we've done that. And and and the people that come in, they're good. And I see them, and and I'm good, and they're good. So long as I enjoy working with them, you know, they have to they they can't be a jerk. And so long as they can't be self-serving, they can't be, you know, I can't I can't work with people that that can't answer simple questions. They That's my trigger.