Transcription
I read that you attribute a lot of your success to your ability to work harder than anyone and withstand more suffering than anyone. So we can list many of the things that entails. I mean dealing with failure, the constant engineering problems we've talked about, the the human problems, uncertainty, responsibility, exhaustion, embarrassment, the near death company moments that you've mentioned. Um but also the pressure now as the CEO of this company that economies and nations strategize around uh plan their um financial allocations around plan their in AI infrastructure around. How do you deal with this much pressure? What gives you strength given how many nations and peoples depend on you?
I'm conscious about the fact that um Nvidia success is very important to United States. We generate enormous amounts of tax tax revenues. Uh we establish technology leadership for our nation. Technology leadership is important for national security. National security not just in one aspect of national security. All aspects of national security. When our country is more prosperous, we could do a better job with domestic policies and helping social social benefits because we're generating so much re-industrialization in the United States. We're creating mountains of jobs. We're helping shift um how we how we how we build things uh back to United States in so many different plants, chips, computers, and of course these AI factories.
I'm completely aware that that um and I have I have the benefit and this is a real real um a real gift uh with with uh mainstream investors, teachers, policemen who have somehow for whatever reason invested in Nvidia or because they watch Jim Kramer u bought some stock and now are millionaires. >> Mhm. And um I I am completely aware of that circumstance. I'm aware of the circumstance that that Nvidia uh is central to a very large network of ecosystem partners behind us and downstream from us. And so the way the way I deal with that is exactly what I just did. I reason about what is it what is it that we're doing? um what is it causing? What's the impact that has on other people benefit you know positively or even even um uh through great burden for example the supply chain and and the question is uh therefore what are you going to do about it and almost everything that I feel I break it down I reason about okay what's the circumstance what is what has changed what's hard um and what am I going to do about it and I I break it down, decompose the problem and the de the decomposition of these circumstances turns it into manageable things that I can do. And the only thing that I after that I could do is did you do it? Did you either do it or did you get somebody else to do it? And if you didn't do it, you you reason that you need to do it and you didn't do it and you get didn't get anybody else to do it, then stop crying about it, you know. And so and [snorts] so so I I'm I'm fairly I'm fairly uh >> uh tough on myself and but I also break things down so that so that um uh I don't panic. Uh, I can go to sleep because I've made the list of things that needed to be done. And I've made sure that everything that could put our company in harm's way, could put my partners in harm's way, put our industry in harm's way, I've told somebody. Everything that I feel could put anybody in harm's way, I've told someone. And I've told that someone who could do something about it. And so, I've gotten it off my chest or I'm doing something about it. And so after that flex what else can you do?
>> So given all the in insane intense amount of suffering on the journey of building up Nvidia you have you hit low points psychologically.
>> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Sure. All the time. All the time.
>> And there you just break down the problem
>> into pieces.
>> Yeah.
>> See what you could do about it. [laughter] And and part of and you know Lex part of it part of it is forgetting. One of the most important attributes of AI learning as you know is right systematic forgetting. You you need to know when to forget some things. You can't memorize everything. You can't keep everything and and you know you want to you don't want to carry everything. One of the things that I do very quickly is I decompose the problem. I reason about the problem and I I share the load with it. When I say I tell everybody, I'm essentially sharing that burden.
>> Yeah.
>> As quickly as possible.
>> Whatever worries me, tell somebody else. Don't just keep it. You know, decompose. Don't don't freak them out. Decompose the problem into smaller parts and get people to so and and inspire them to be able to go do something about it. But part of it is just just forgetting. You know, I a lot of it is you got to be tough on yourself. You know, just come on, stop crying about it. let's get going, you know, and and then you get out of bed. And then the other part is is um you you you you're attracted to the next shiny light, the next future, you know, the next opportunity, the next okay, that's behind us. Let what's next? It's a lot. I think, you know, you watch this with great athletes, they they um just worry about the next point. Mhm.
>> The last point is behind them, the embarrassment, the, you know, the setback, [laughter] you know, and and then and because I do so much of my job publicly,
>> you know, Lex, you do a fair amount of your job publicly, too. And so, so I do a lot of my job publicly
>> and so um you know, I I say a lot of things that that seem sensible at the time or funny at the time. Mostly it's just because it's funny to me at the time. And then, you know, you reflect on it's less funny. But but
>> yeah, trust me, I know. But you basically allow yourself to be pulled by the light of the future. Forget the past and just keep
>> That's right.
>> Keep keep working towards that. I mean, you did say there's this kind of famous thing you said that um if you knew how hard it would be to build Nvidia, uh it turned out to be what is it a million times more hard than you anticipated that you wouldn't do it?
>> Yeah. Um, but is isn't
>> you know when I hear that that's probably true about everything worth doing, right?
>> Exactly. That is by the way what I was trying to explain is that there's a there's a incredible superpower of being um being being uh have the mind of a child.
>> Yeah. you know, and I say to myself often times when I look at something and and almost almost everything um my first thought is how hard can it be?
>> You know, and [gasps] so and so you get yourself into that mode. How hard could it be? And and nobody's ever done it. It looks gigantic. It's going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It's going to take, you know, all this. And you just go, "Yeah, but how hard could it be?" You know, how hard could it be? Yeah.
>> And and so so you got to get yourself into that state of mind. You don't want to you don't want to actually over simulate everything and all the setbacks and all the trials and tribulations and all the disappointments. You don't want to simulate all that in advance. You don't want to know that. You don't you don't you want to go into a new experience thinking it's going to be perfect. It's going to be great. It's going to be incredibly fun. And then while you're there, you know, you need to have you need to have endurance. You need to have grit so that when the setbacks actually happened and those setbacks are going to surprise you, the disappoints disappointments aren't going to surprise you. You know, the embarrassments are going to surprise you, the humiliations are going to surprise you. Um, you just can't let now you just got to turn on the other bit which is just forget about it. Move on, keep keep moving. And and to the extent that to the extent that my assumptions about the future and why the future is going to manifest, so long as those assumptions and that input doesn't change or didn't change materially, then I should expect that the output won't change. And so my simulated output of the future is still going to happen. And if it's still going to happen, I'm still going to go after it. I believe it's going to, you know, and so there's a combination of two or three human characteristics. The ability to go into a into an experience fresh-minded, the ability to forget the setbacks, the ability to believe in yourself, you know, to believe what you believe and stay stay true to that belief. Um, but you're constantly re-evaluating.
>> Mhm. This combination of three, four, five things I think is is really important for resilience. And and um and you know, I I'm I'm fortunate that that whatever whatever life experiences led to this, I've got kind of those four or five things. [snorts] You know, I'm always curious, always learning. I'm always learning from everybody. You know, I'm always asking my and because I'm humble about about about everything, I'm always thinking, gosh, they did that so nicely. They did that so wonderfully. You know, I wonder what they're thinking through. How do they, you know, so I'm simulating everybody in a lot of ways and I'm emulating almost everybody I watch, right? you're you're empathetic towards towards everything that they do that that you're observing and respect and and so you you're constantly learning and you know you're now one of the wealthiest people on earth, one of the most successful humans on earth. Is it harder to be humble and to be able to do you feel the effect of money and power and fame in making it harder for you to sort of be wrong in your own head enough to hear [snorts] out an opinion of somebody else when it disagrees with you and learn from them? Those kinds of things.
>> Um, surprisingly, no. And and I would I would actually go the other way because I do so much of my work publicly. When I'm wrong, pretty much everybody sees it. [laughter]
>> You get humbled.
>> Yeah. And and uh and when I'm wrong, when I'm wrong or it didn't turn out that way or um you know, I mean, most of the things that that I say outside um I'm fairly certain about. And the reason for that is because because it's going to impact somebody else and I want to be quite concerned about that and quite quite circumspect about that. Um for stuff that that I'm reasoning about inside a meeting, you know, a lot of things could turn out differently. And so, but it doesn't ever stop me from reasoning. The way that that the way that I manage and lead, I you know, I'm constantly reasoning in front of people. Even when I'm talking to you, you can kind of see me kind of reasoning through things.
>> And I want to make sure that you understand what I'm saying, not because I told you.
>> Because I'm so humble about what I'm about to tell you.
>> I kind of show you the steps that I got there.
>> And then you could decide whether you believe what I said in the end. And so I'm doing that all day long in meetings with all of my employees. I'm constantly reasoning through. Let me tell you, let me tell you what how I see it. And I reason through it. It gives everybody the opportunity to intercept and say, "I disagree with that part."
>> The nice thing about reasoning through things and letting and letting people interact with it is that they don't have to disagree with your outcome. They can disagree with your reasoning steps and they could pull me in different directions and then we can reason forward. And so we're we're kind of, you know, collective patharching method and it's really fantastic.
>> Yeah. You have this way about you of when you're explaining stuff, I can feel you actually reasoning on the spot about it with a constant open-mindedness where you could I I could feel like I could steer your thinking. Yeah. And that's a that's really beautiful that you've been able to maintain that after so many years of success and pain. I think sometimes pain makes you close you down a bit.
>> Yeah.
>> And I I think to maintain
>> tolerance for embarrassment I [laughter] think is
>> that's that's the tolerance I mean that's a real thing.
>> Yeah. There's many years of embarrassing yourself. Even those meetings knowing that there's people around you where you declared one idea and it was shown that that idea was wrong and be able to admit that and to grow from that. That's not that's very difficult on a human level.
>> Yeah. Well, you know, they knew I was they knew that recently my first job was was, you know, cleaning toilets.