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▲ fidotron a day ago

What's so special about their work culture?

▲Conscat a day ago | parent | next [-]

Among other things, the distaste for intense scrutinization of productivity, the extremely deep involvement of the CEO in all facets of the business, and intent to distribute profit to employees as much as possible (something Jensen insisted on in company wide meetings a lot) to name a few big ones.

▲cashsterling a day ago | parent | next [-]

60 direct reports and the amount of time Jensen travels and was at conferences and on TV mean "extremely deep involvement in all facets of the business" (or in much of anything) is not possible.

I don't care if Jensen is superhuman... there are only 24 hours in a day and he has to sleep at least 4-6 of those. The remaining 18 hours is simply not enough time for anyone to get deeply involved in more than few focused areas at any one time.

On the flip-side... some CEO's with technical backgrounds like it to seem like they are intimately involved in crucial technical brainstorming, invention, and design sessions. The reality is, in almost all cases, the hard and deeply-innovative work was done by a group of subject matter experts (who had the time and expertise to get extremely deeply involved) before the CEO ever stepped foot in a meeting room on the topic. The meeting is there to make the CEO feel like they were deeply involved and win their buy-in for the decision that has already been made.

Edit: Jensen is one of the all-time great tech CEO's ... not trying to cast shade on him. I have made a lot of money off nVIDIA over the last 10+ years and think they are worse off without him.

▲fidotron a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> the distaste for intense scrutinization of productivity

Do you mean a lack of KPIs driving HR decisions?

▲Conscat 18 hours ago | parent [-]

HR essentially reviews us once at the end of every year. It is primarily our managers who oversee our productivity, and they're all too busy to micromanage anyone (and discouraged from it anyways). There are no quarterly reviews, no regularly scheduled layoffs, no extremely deep management hierarchies, etc.

Compared to Google, Amazon, or Meta, we have a huge amount of freedom as well as very open insight into most of what other teams are doing on Slack. I follow several developer Slack channels for software I was a fan of prior to onboarding.

I read online that there isn't a standard hiring procedure, but in my interviews they didn't give me esoteric coding puzzles, they mainly wanted to discuss computers and let me yap about my interests. The whiteboard problems were trivial.

▲fidotron 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

Thanks for this, very enlightening to hear how other places do things.

▲cyanydeez a day ago | parent | prev [-]

so, I assume you don't believe Huang violated export controls and didn't cause NVIDIA to have heavy liabilities both from government oversight and from the circular financing.

▲Conscat a day ago | parent [-]

I have no idea whether he violated export controls. It sounds plausible, but there's no evidence to this yet as far as I am aware. I suspect he may be stepping down out of shame for his actions, especially since his children have roles in the company, but I have no insight into his mind or personal life.

▲cyanydeez 20 hours ago | parent [-]

So, he was either complicit or ignorant.

It's amusing how people mentally backflip through the dots like they're unwilling to do any mental math that might shatter the soothing tail of people just being mere happenstance and human rather than some power above others.

I think you should read more reports on both the circular financing and the smuggling of chips into China. Or the evidence of the Chinese models being trained on blackwell chips.

All the stars are there, either he's complicit or ignorant. Choose which you're asking to lead you.

▲empath75 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The CEO is very hands-on.

▲cocacola1 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Isn’t that what led to this situation in the first place?

▲epolanski a day ago | parent | prev [-]

So it's a matter of CEO, not internal culture.

▲codemk8 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Speed of light

▲saturn8601 a day ago | parent [-]

Someone else read the NVIDIA book huh? What an eye opening book. I knew of NVIDIA for the majority of my life but I had NO idea how much they really achieved and what they persevered against. Its insane. After internalizing how they operated, they are screwed without Jensen.

▲calvinmorrison a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

they flirt with chinese models not just american ones

▲bilbo0s a day ago | parent [-]

Yeah, I feel like you have to kind of be careful about "culture".

Sure, "culture" can be good. It can also be bad sometimes. Depending on what's going on inside NVidia, you may need someone to come in and let everyone know in no uncertain terms that NVidia is neither frat/sorority house, nor a swinger's party.

Love the innovation.

But we can't really have the rest of it.

For better or worse, NVidia has become a place where the FBI is watching. Probably not fair, but that's just the way it is. In that kind of situation, some actions start to cast suspicion on people who may have nothing to do with any of these "culture" based excesses.

▲Conscat a day ago | parent [-]

There is misogyny in the Slack, sure. Let's not forget they still intend to release a product named Feynman. When this was announced, some women (including myself) complained, and this mostly fell on deaf ears except for some man who said like "I don't know anything about this but my friends used to be his neighbors and they liked him" then disappeared when a lady scrutinized him defending another man he knows nothing about.

I've also been treated like a sexual object by several colleagues outside of work settings.

But at least our CEO never said we need more masculine energy on Joe Rogan's show, and he installed a lot of powerful women in the C suite and board of directors.

▲hvs a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Everyone dates the CEO.

▲arc619 a day ago | parent [-]

Efficient package sharing.

▲egeozcan a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Nobody knows where it's appropriate to put their chip in.