Jensen Huang: “A healthy dose of ignorance & irreverence is an essential quality for startup CEOs”

“When we were going into Deep Learning and AI, my first thought was, ‘How hard can this be?’” Jensen recalls. “It turned out to be insanely hard, and that’s the reason it hasn’t been solved yet. But I always go into [a new field] with the attitude, ‘How hard can this be?’”

When Jensen founded Nvidia with Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky they didn’t think that building a new chip company was going to be that hard. However, that ignorance and irreverence, Jensen argues, is why Nvidia exists today.

“The pain and suffering, the setbacks, the disappointments, the surprises, and building exactly the wrong technology and having to learn something brand new — if you knew all of that on Day 1, I think it would too scary to start,” he confesses. “I think one of the best things for an entrepreneur is the idea that it can’t be that hard.”

Jensen continues:

“You have to have a superhuman mindset even though you don’t have superhuman capabilities. And for entrepreneurs, I do think their superpower is a fair dose of ignorance, irreverence, and this oversized belief in themselves. They ought to keep that for as long as they can. Over time reality will hit you, but hopefully you have the character to survive it, the cleverness to maneuver through it, the friendships/team to support you along the way, and the sheer will to work through those challenges. You’re going to have plenty of them.”

Full video: Computer History Museum “Oral History of Jensen Huang“ (Aug 2024)