Hardcore Culture of Nvidia: How CEO Jensen Huang stimulates responsibility

Nvidia does not need a great cultural change to bring workers to be hardcore. They have been there for years.

Companies like Shopify, Microsoft and Meta increase the intensity of workers, pushing the need to get ahead of AI and efficiency. Change in technological companies has led to eliminations of “low performers”, inflexible office return mandates and a reduction in advantages.

Nvidia staff have developed considerably in recent years, and market capitalization has been walking on the wild roller coaster, but the business culture tents go back much more than the AI ​​boom. The company, and Huang itself, are also the subject of two new books, published in the past four months, which corroborate what the former Nvidians have told Business Insider.

Nvidia has a demanding work culture that takes place from its famous CEO, Jensen Huang, providing a sheet for technological companies that aspire to be hardcore, but do it by Fiat.

“Basically, each person from Nvidia is directly responsible before Jensen,” said Stephen Witt, author of “The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the most coveted microchip in the world”.

Nvidia refused to comment on this report.

“The mission is the boss.

Nvidia has an extremely horizontal structure, with dozens of people – about 60 years – reports directly to CEO Jensen Huang.

Huang establishes management and objective, but the company based in Santa Clara, California, also has a decisive mantra: “The mission is the boss,” wrote the author Tae Kim in his book “The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the creation of a technology giant”.

Nvidia takes away from short -term goals, said Kim. There is an objective or a central mission, but planning and strategy are constant processes that do not focus on management incentives or did not satisfy a hierarchy.

Project managers can suddenly be found directly in Huang. These newly anointed direct reports are nicknamed “the pilots in charge” and are subject to his anger and carry his weight, said Kim.

According to a former NVIDIA employee who asked to remain anonymous to discuss internal questions, everyone in the company must be ready to answer in detail in Huang.

“His ability to follow small details in countless projects is incredible,” said a former director at BI.

This method of extreme responsibility means that Nvidia did not have to curb employees because many other companies have post-pandemic. Nvidia is always remotely, for example. But meetings are far from relaxing.

Huang is known to publicly discuss failures and disagreements for the benefit of the group rather than feelings of spare. If he suspects that someone is not above his work, an audience, a cross-examination can follow. The advantages are few, but it has always been the case, two former Nvidians in BI said.

The philosophy of “mission is boss” helps Nvidia to avoid the traps of large companies, which often find it difficult to make rapid decisions, not to mention pivoting if necessary, wrote Kim.

“Jensen really does not tolerate bullshit,” said BI a former engineer of the first days of Nvidia. This intolerance makes politics of politics almost impossible, they said.

“It’s not only,” you did something wrong. “It is:” You did something wrong that was selfish ” – it is the typical problem of large companies,” they said.

The philosophy is that the mission can change, but as long as everyone serves it rather than its manager, the company should prosper. Nvidia’s pivot to focus on automatic learning was even communicated in an email on Friday evening on the scale of the company in 2014. On Monday, Nvidia was an AI company, wrote Witt.

Messaging accounting

Huang is known to send more than 100 emails per day, which puts another Jensen-Ims at stake. (Kim’s book has an entire annex of “Jensen-Isms”))

The 62 -year -old CEO often refers to the Modus Operandi in Nvidia as a “speed of light”. This is how Huang wants everything in Nvidia to progress. He publicly used the expression to refer to everything, hiring processes to solving technical problems.

Witt thinks that Nvidia’s cultivation of emails was perhaps an inspiration for a memorable moment from the first days of Doge. One Saturday, Elon Musk asked that each employee of the federal government sends an email of five points telling what they had done this week. Jensen Huang has asked his staff for these staff since 2020.

According to Kim, at least 100 of the daily diet of Huang emails are “Top Five” emails.

‘Nowhere to hide’

The irony of Nvidia’s position among the elite of Silicon Valley is that the mentality of “mission is boss” and that the constant updates of messaging status mean that many Nvidians have flexibility that most large technologies, including the biggest customers of Nvidia, abandoned in 2025.

The hours can be long in Nvidia, which also stems from Huang. Sixty hours, weeks are the norm, and the 80 -hour weeks are probably at crucial moments, offering a contrast to companies that feel the need to delimit the exact office hours.

“I don’t even know when Jensen sleeps,” said another former director of Nvidia.

Many Nvidians are always able to work wherever they want. The reason is the double, said Witt.

“One of the reasons why he is so great about work at home is that it gives women, and in particular young mothers, the opportunity to continue their work without their career being interrupted,” said Witt.

Inspired by his wife, Lori Huang, a brilliant electrician engineer who abandoned the labor market after having become the mother of two children, Huang is aware that certain precious engineering brains find balancing work and the difficult family.

“It works very well in Nvidia,” said Witt. “You know that if you drop the ball to Nvidia, the spotlights turn directly to you, more or less instantly.

Nvidia for life

If there is a characteristic of the new era of Hardcore technological culture, it is layoffs. Rolling layoffs are constantly running in the background of technological workplaces in 2025.

This is where Nvidia diverge completely from the pack.

The company has not had dismissals since 2008, and despite the hard liability atmosphere, the company’s turnover is tiny – less than 5% per year in the past two years.

Witt said that is partly due to a self-selection dynamic. Engineers who like an atmosphere without frills where technological supremacy is the naturally serious objective towards the company.

“He can lead these guys to work for Nvidia on a little more than a dream, but these guys will do it because they know the circuits, they know the technology. And they know that Jensen is still at the forefront, even if that does not make money. They will do anything to be at the forefront,” said Witt to bi.

But another reason why many Nvidians spend decades with the company could come from the competitive anxiety of Huang.

“When Nvidia assesses an engineer, they will not only think of what they are worth. They will think of what it is worth keeping this person far from the competition,” said Witt.

Huang, however, offered a different explanation.

“I don’t like to abandon people because I think they could improve,” said Huang at a Stripe event last year. “It’s a bit of a tongue in the cheek, but people know that I prefer to torture them in size.”

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