As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Forbes has released a list of 250 of the nation's most successful living immigrants. Ranking fourth is Jensen Huang, a Taiwanese-born business magnate and CEO of Nvidia. At 63, Huang's story epitomizes immigrant success, inspiring countless individuals worldwide. He began his career clearing tables and scrubbing floors at Denny's, and today he leads one of the world's most valuable tech empires, whose workforce includes many millionaires.
The Best Career Advice: No Watch Needed
When asked about the best career advice he ever received, Huang made a peculiar point: he does not wear a watch. "Very few people know this, but I don't wear a watch," said the Nvidia founder, who had promised his wife he would become a CEO by age 30 and succeeded. "And the reason I don't wear a watch is that now is the most important time. Just dedicate yourself to now."
He elaborated by sharing a story from a family trip to Kyoto, where he visited a temple with the world's largest moss collection. "All of the moss is perfect, and every species of the world's moss is there. It was a hot summer day—anybody who's been to Kyoto knows how incredibly hot it is during the summer—and my family walked by this old man who was squatted down working on the moss with a bamboo tweezer. His bamboo basket was nearly empty with only two or three small pieces of dead moss," Huang recounted.
When Huang asked the old man what he was doing, he replied that he was tending to his garden, which he had been working on for nearly 30 years. "But this garden is so big and your tweezers and basket are so small. How can you take care of the whole garden?" Jensen asked. The old man responded, "I have plenty of time."
According to Huang, that exchange encapsulates the best career advice he can offer. "Most of the time I wait for things to come to me. I'm rarely chasing things. I don't have a watch. I'm focused on now. I'm enjoying my job. I'm the longest-running tech CEO in the world..." he said.
Dedication and Patience
He advised dedicating oneself to continuous learning, doing the best possible work, and leaving everything on the field. "By the time I go to bed I'm exhausted, and I'm happy about my day because I did everything I could... You'll be surprised. I'm not at all ambitious. I don't aspire to do more. I aspire to do better at what I'm currently doing. I'm not reaching for more. I wait for the world to come to me," he added.
Huang even surprised the audience by stating that Nvidia, the company he famously co-founded, does not have a long-term strategy. "Our definition of a long-term plan is, 'What are we doing today?'... You have plenty of time. Enjoy your work. Do the best you possibly can. Just keep learning every day, and good things will come to you."
From Denny's to Tech Titan
Huang was a 30-year-old engineer at Sun Microsystems in 1993 when he gathered his friends and future co-founders Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem in a booth at a Denny's diner to plot what would become Nvidia. At the time, he believed they could develop a graphics processing unit (GPU) that would revolutionize computer graphics for video games. However, the company got off to a rough start when, in 1996, their experimental chips turned out to be "technically poor." The failure forced Huang to lay off nearly half of his staff. He prevented the company from going under by convincing Sega to buy out their contract, using that money to fund the development of a completely new series of chips from scratch. Those new chips became the company's first hit product in 1997, selling 1 million units in just four months.
Today, Huang is President and CEO of Nvidia, the world's most valuable technology company encompassing artificial intelligence, computing, robotics, and data center infrastructure. His company's chips power complex AI models owned by Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and more.
