Impact Chiefs

Jensen Huang

Co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, the company behind the GPU and much of the hardware that runs modern AI.

38 quotes38 with cited sources

Speeches2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University2024 Commencement Address at Caltech2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University

Why Jensen Huang matters

Co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, which he has led since 1993 through the invention of the GPU and the rise of AI computing. He is one of the longest-serving CEOs in technology.

The journey

Huang was born in Taipei in 1963. At nine he and his older brother were sent to the United States and ended up at a Baptist boarding school in Oneida, Kentucky; their parents, who came with little, joined them two years later. He worked at Denny's from the age of 15, studied electrical engineering at Oregon State, earned a master's at Stanford, and designed chips at LSI Logic and AMD.

In 1993, at 30, he co-founded NVIDIA with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. Their first technology did not work, and the company nearly ran out of money. He asked Sega, which had contracted NVIDIA to build a console chip, to release the company from the contract and still pay, and Sega's CEO agreed. That money gave NVIDIA the time to build the RIVA 128, which put it on the map in 1997 when it had about a month of payroll left.

NVIDIA invented the GPU in 1999, then spent years building CUDA so that GPUs could do general computing. When researchers used it to train AlexNet in 2012, the company bet everything on deep learning and became the main supplier of the hardware that runs modern AI.

  1. 1963Born in Taipei, Taiwan.
  2. 1984Graduates in electrical engineering from Oregon State University.
  3. 1993Co-founds NVIDIA at age 30.
  4. 1997RIVA 128 saves the company when it is weeks from running out of money.
  5. 1999NVIDIA invents the GPU and goes public.
  6. 2012AlexNet is trained on NVIDIA GPUs, starting the deep learning era; NVIDIA commits to it.
Sources for this profile

Written in our own words from the sources above. This profile is a draft and has not yet been reviewed by a person. How we source

Quotes

  1. The ability to make sacrifices, endure pain and suffering, you will need these qualities in life.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 54:50 · Caltech on YouTube

  2. I have to admit that I don't love giving advice, especially to other people's children.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 56:33 · Caltech on YouTube

  3. I managed not to go out of business, not get bored, and not get fired.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 57:12 · Caltech on YouTube

  4. Where there are no customers, there are also no competitors.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:15:59 · Caltech on YouTube

  5. No setback that comes our way doesn't look like an opportunity.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:16:59 · Caltech on YouTube

  6. Before I even get to work, my day is already a success. I have already completed my most important work and can dedicate my day to helping others.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:21:07 · Caltech on YouTube

  7. Your pain and suffering will strengthen your character, your resilience and agility, and they are the ultimate superpowers.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:22:31 · Caltech on YouTube

  8. My ability to handle setbacks and see the opportunities just around the corner, I consider to be my superpowers.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:22:52 · Caltech on YouTube

  9. I hope you do find a craft that you want to dedicate your lifetime to perfecting, to hone the skills of, and let it be your life's work.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:23:19 · Caltech on YouTube

  10. Prioritize your life and you will have plenty of time to do the important things.

    Verified source2024 Commencement Address at Caltech · Watch at 1:23:44 · Caltech on YouTube

  11. So my first wish is for you to find joy in work, find work that gives you great joy, or just follow love with whatever work you do. That's the only way you're going to do your best work.

    Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 0:14 · Oregon State University on YouTube

  12. Instead of working for a living, think of it as your life's work.

    Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 0:30 · Oregon State University on YouTube

  13. Avoiding failure is not the same as achieving success.

    Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 1:26 · Oregon State University on YouTube

  14. Failure is often on the path to success.

    Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 1:40 · Oregon State University on YouTube

  15. We learned that we were not just a chip or a technology company. Nvidia was really a company at the intersection of technology and art.

    Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 3:22 · Oregon State University on YouTube

  16. My last wish to you is to see the world like a child.

    Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 4:32 · Oregon State University on YouTube

  17. We were young, naive, idealistic, we didn't know what we didn't know about building the industry and about building our company. We didn't know that it was impossible. We just imagined how great it would be if computers would do what we imagined.

    Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 6:13 · Oregon State University on YouTube

  18. Our fresh and innocent perspective, unencumbered by conventional wisdom allowed us to see what thirty, forty, fifty other companies could not and did not.

    Verified source2009 Commencement Address at Oregon State University · Watch at 6:30 · Oregon State University on YouTube

  19. To help the Einstein and da Vinci of our time do their life's work.

    Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 3:18 · Alive Industries on YouTube

  20. Today is the most successful day of your life so far.

    Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 8:34 · Alive Industries on YouTube

  21. Creating a new computing model is incredibly hard and rarely done in history.

    Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 12:56 · Alive Industries on YouTube

  22. We risked everything to pursue deep learning.

    Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 15:46 · Alive Industries on YouTube

  23. Strategic retreat, sacrifice, deciding what to give up is at the core, the very core of success.

    Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 19:00 · Alive Industries on YouTube

  24. Every industry will be revolutionized, reborn, ready for new ideas, your ideas.

    Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 19:39 · Alive Industries on YouTube

  25. Remember, either you're running for food or you are running from being food.

    Source2023 Commencement Address at National Taiwan University · Watch at 20:19 · Alive Industries on YouTube

  26. Not easy, but full of opportunities. Not a guarantee, but a chance.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 3:22 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  27. We had absolutely no idea how to build a company, raise money, or run NVIDIA. I just thought, how hard could it be? It turns out it is super hard.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 4:43 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  28. I learned early that being CEO is not about power, but the responsibility that comes with keeping the company alive, and that honesty and humility can be met with generosity and kindness, even in business.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 5:45 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  29. We learn never to see failure as the opposite of success. Each failure is just another learning moment, a humility moment, a character strengthening moment.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 6:26 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  30. The resilience forged through setbacks is what gives you the strength to go again.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 6:40 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  31. My career started at the beginning of the PC revolution. Your career starts at the beginning of the AI revolution.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 7:22 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  32. History shows that societies that retreat from technology do not stop progress. They only surrender the opportunity to shape it and to benefit from it.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 11:43 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  33. We should not teach fear of the future. We should engage it with optimism, responsibility and ambition.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 12:08 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  34. AI does not replace human purpose. It amplifies human capability.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 15:00 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  35. AI is not likely to replace you, but someone using AI better than you might.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 15:18 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  36. Opportunity should not belong only to the people who can code.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 16:27 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  37. No generation has entered the world with more powerful tools or greater opportunities than you. We are all standing at the same starting line.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 17:13 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

  38. Build something worthy of your education, your potential, and the people who believed in you long before the world did.

    Source2026 Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University · Watch at 17:51 · Carnegie Mellon University on YouTube

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