Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shares when he was admitted in reform school for troubled boys
Nvidia is one the most-valued company of the world. The Chipset major values more than $4.3 trillion and it also delivered record-breaking quarterly revenues. The success of Nvidia also made its co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang a billionaire. But before becoming a billionaire, Huang endured a childhood detour which unexpectedly shaped his work ethic and resilience. At the age of nine, Huang and his brother were mistakenly enrolled in a Kentucky reform school their family believed was a prestigious boarding academy.Huang and his brother were sent to live with their uncle, who enrolled them at the Oneida Baptist Institute in rural Kentucky. Instead of a traditional boarding school, it turned out to be a reform institution for troubled boys. In the reform school Huang was assigned some mandatory daily chores which included scrubbing bathrooms, while his brother had to work for long hours on a tobacco farm.Huang later said the experience instilled discipline rather than discouragement. “We learned hard work, but it never occurred to us that it was hard work, we just thought that’s what kids do,” he recalled in a 2022 interview with Stratechery.
Nvidia CEO on finding joy amid hardship
Huang recalled that the school was filled with troubled students and noted that almost all of them smoked, but he found small joys. He revealed that he played soccer, table tennis and also joined the swim team. He also cherished nightly rounds with a Vietnam veteran handyman, who rewarded him with a soda. “I thought that was fantastic,” Huang said of those simple moments.Two years later, his parents joined the brothers in the U.S., settling near Portland, Oregon. Huang thrived academically, graduating high school at 16, working briefly at Denny’s, and later earning engineering degrees from Oregon State University and Stanford.
From Denny’s table to tech empire
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 at a a Denny’s restaurant in San Jose with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. Ever since the launch, Huang has led the company to becoming a global leader in the graphics and AI chips sector. For the uninitiated, Nvidia went public in 1999 and today its stands at the valuation of$4.36 trillion. As per Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Huang’s has the net worth of$158 billion.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unapologetic about being labelled a tough boss
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has no problem being labelled as a demanding, perfectionist leader who is “not easy to work with” by his employees. In fact, he says that’s precisely how it should be when striving to accomplish “extraordinary things.”In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, correspondent Bill Whitaker relayed that Nvidia employees described Huang using those very terms – “demanding, perfectionist, not easy to work with.” Huang agreed with the assessment, stating, “It should be like that. If you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn’t be easy.”Huang’s hard-driving leadership style appears to be paying off. Under his 31-year tenure as CEO, Nvidia has transformed from a little-known graphics chip company into a $2 trillion artificial intelligence powerhouse.
