NVIDIA
Jen-Hsun Huang co-founded NVIDIA Corporation in April 1993 and has served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board of Directors since its inception. Under his leadership, NVIDIA has become one of the largest fabless semiconductor companies in the world. NVIDIA has received numerous business and technology awards during Mr. Huang's tenure, including Fortune's Fastest Growing Companies, Wired Magazine's Top 40, and Stanford Business School's Entrepreneurial Company of the Year. Mr. Huang has served as on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation since 1999 and is often invited to speak on technology and business trends at industry events. Prior to founding NVIDIA, Mr. Huang was Director of Coreware at LSI Logic and a microprocessor designer at Advanced Micro Devices. Mr. Huang holds a B.S.E.E. degree from Oregon State University and an M.S.E.E. degree from Stanford University.
Related Links: www.nvidia.com
Last Updated: Wed, Apr 19, 2006
Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of NVidia, discusses the importance of having a big vision when starting a new venture. He says that you should not be daunted when others, including early customers, don't share your vision because they don't share your world view. Huang's vision for NVidia involves building a culture of innovation, with the conviction that if you aren't reinventing yourself then you are slowly dying. This culture cultivates risk-taking and, therefore, fosters a tolerance for failure.
Everyone has a perspective, says Jensen Huang, but to call it a "vision" implies elitism and exclusion. This NVIDIA Co-founder insists that those with a new idea for business approach the world with gravitas, and he cites his own organization as a case study. In 1993, his company's perspective was the first of its kind, and the results have proved a new sense of common sense and disruptive to the status quo. This perspective - not vision - allowed them to create new technology, new markets, new customers, and widespread success.
NVIDIA started as the first consumer 3D graphics company in 1993 and met over 200 competitors in a few years, reports its co-founder Jensen Huang. Yet today the company is the only remaining player in that sector, despite the deep pockets and global spread of others who possessed quality talent and technology. Huang attributes a pursuit of insatiable technology, despite the price, that delivered even more than the customer requested or needed, for their decades-long market endurance.
Pioneering a company is more than just building products. It's also about establishing a company culture, says NVIDIA Co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang. How do you organize hierarchies and structures? There's lots of trial and error, but it's also an organic process. Huang asks students of entrepreneurship to realize that skills, intellect, and training all matter for successful evolution - but they're not enough. Builders need passion and purpose above all.
"When you're in the technology industry,... if you're not reinventing yourself, you're just slowly dying," says NVIDIA Co-Founder Jensen Huang. In this clip, Huang talks about market leaders' need to constantly cannibalize their own products, and how new ideas will force companies to abandon their own technology and processes on the path of progress. If you don't do it for yourself, Huang says, your competitors will surely do it for you.
The market doesn't set the price, says Jensen Huang, Co-founder of NVIDIA. The competition does. And the function of an effective manager is to decide how to allocate resources for the best return, and if its pursuit is worthwhile for the enterprise. Be mindful of your best resources - engineering talent, the limited hours in a day - and evaluate accordingly.
The CEO's main talent is to see around the corners and fuzzy edges, says NVIDIA's Co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang. An effective company leader needn't necessarily be outgoing, but they must be exceedingly comfortable with ambiguity - taking risks and not always plotting the exact outcome. If this is your comfort zone, says Huang, then enterprise leadership is the right path to pursue.
Jensen Huang, Co-founder of NVIDIA, recalls in vivid detail how the three founding members of the company gave the company legs - from learning the basics of incorporation, to hiring their first lawyer, to keeping a supply of breakfast donuts on hand. They acquired books on how to start a business, but never finished reading them - or writing the business plan. Their lawyer introduced the trio to VC's, who were impressed by their work history and market opportunity. This, recalls Huang, was the push to move the company to action.
Every successful thing about a technology company has to eventually be torn down and rebuilt, says Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, and this is one of the most gut-wrenching challenges behind effective leadership. This task is both gratifying and destructive, but an axiomatic demand of the marketplace in this sector.
NVIDIA Co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang reports that most of his time on the job is spent brainstorming with managers and leaders and helping them brainstorm through tasks and opportunities. He believes it is essential to train talent to effectively control a different product line, a new geography, or even to take his place. Succession planning of a closed set of hand-picked individuals is a toxic process, says Huang. It's best to treat all employees as a next generation of leaders to build a better environment and long term stability. 
With every product development, NVIDIA asks What is the purpose of this product and the soul of its existence? NVIDIA has been very successful developing distinctive brand names for their products that describe the soul of the product. These names have become widely recognized and have given the product a personality.
NVIDIA's goal is to light up every pixel in the world. LCD technology has make displays more prevalent. NVIDIA hopes to take advantage of this trend, and future trends, in display technology to drive as many pixels as they can.
If you have a great idea, many other people probably have that idea too. When you start a company, you must assume that similar companies will form to compete with you. Be prepared to fend them off.
Every company looks for a fundamental advantage, but in reality there are none. Most large markets are designed to foster competition. The question that must be addressed is not how to create one single fundamental advantage for the company but rather ongoing advantages.
There is no such thing as a sustainable great idea. Ideas have to be continuously reinvented. Jensen likes to tease that his company is always thirty days away from going out of business. The world is changing so rapidly that techniques and strategies will be obsolete thirty days from now, and therefore must be continuously changed.
Corporate culture is the single most important thing for a CEO or entrepreneur to focus on in a company today. The culture at NVIDIA is about innovation and intellectual honesty, and the ability to be self-critical and recognize mistakes. Recognizing the power of this culture is very important for a leader.
There road is long between the foundation of a company and the IPO. If the IPO is the founder's purpose for starting a company, there is a great probability that the founder will be disappointed. Contrarily, NVIDIA's purpose has been and is to build a sustainable company that can make a difference in the world.
It is important to foster a culture that embraces mistakes and an environment where anyone can have a great idea. The majority of great ideas come out of mistakes and adversity. Adversity should be seen as an opportunity rather than a life-threatening event.
Execution is critically important; it is better to have a simple idea that can be easily implemented rather than a complicated idea that has implementation challenges. Drastic changes do not have to be made overnight; it is a long road to success and each change need only take the company to the next step.
Jensen aims to spend his time on what he believes will have a long lasting effect on the company. Numerous meetings and events often take up a CEO's time and it is important to regularly take that time back for product and strategy planning. Communication time with employees is also important -- the most important responsibility of the CEO is being a custodian of the company culture.