Being a CEO of a company means taking on a multifaceted and demanding role that requires a blend of leadership, strategic vision, and practical skills. It's a tough job, highly demanding, and difficult.
This is because a CEO needs to balance visionary leadership with practical management, all while navigating the complex landscape of modern business. It’s a role that demands dedication, resilience, and a constant drive for excellence.
Jensen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, has achieved a rock star status.
Not because of his leather jacket choice, but because of how he managed to propel a company consisting of just a very small, tight-knit group focused on developing its first graphics processing unit (GPU), into a a publicly-traded company worth trillions of dollars.
Sitting at the helm, it's easy for him to displace and replace his employees if he wants to. But for the Taiwanese-born entrepreneur, he would rather see his employees shine.
And he has his own methods.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that he doesn't really believe firing his employees as the way to go, even if he must.
"And there are a lot of things in life that I believe you can learn, and you just have to be given the opportunity to learn it."
What he's saying here is that, he would rather choose to focus on the employee, and help them improve, by teaching them how to do their jobs efficiently.
In other words, the billionaire boss said that he would rather improve them than giving up on them.
He explained his philosophy and how he learnt the same:
"And so it's tongue in cheek, but people know that I rather torture them into greatness. So, I would rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you. And I think coaches that that really believe in their team, torture them into greatness. And oftentimes, they're so close, don't give up. They're so close to greatness"
"It comes all of a sudden one day, 'I got it!'. Do you know what I'm saying? That feeling that you didn't get it yesterday? And all of a sudden, one day, something clicked; 'oh, I got it!' Could you imagine you gave up that just that moment right before you got it? So I don't want you to give up on that. So I'll just keep torturing you."
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993, and that the company was originally known for making the type of chips that process graphics, particularly for computer games.
But fast forward, the company's products gained more attention from the public, after many people realized that GPUs can also be a great in mining cryptocurrencies. And with the rise of AI, and how tech companies have created an arms race where they rival in making their products superior, Nvidia's popularity goes no where but up.
After all, the 2022 launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI, which started this overall global generative AI race, was made possible by Nvidia chips.
And as tech companies even publicly said that they're hoarding GPUs from Nvidia, Huang becomes the center of everything.
Following the meteoric rise of Nvidia, people began to wonder about Huang's leadership style, and what made him what he is.
Huang, known for his unconventional leadership style, defies traditional corporate hierarchy and emphasizes empowerment, transparency, and adaptability.
The CEO has said that prioritizes efficiency over pretty much anything else, and that he avoids unnecessary meetings, including "one-on-ones" meetings with one of his 55 direct reports. According to Huang, his company is designed for agility, and that information must be able to flow as quickly as possible.
His management methods also include a flat organization structure, no career advice, stochastic sampling, and radical transparency.
It's his charismatic approach and how he pushes his team to their limits, that inspires and motivates those working for him, contributing to Nvidia’s success in the tech industry