Jensen Huang: “Greatness comes from character”

September 01, 2025

Jensen is asked to share his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs at Stanford University. He responds:

“I think one of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations, and I mean that. Most of the Stanford graduates have very high expectations, and you deserve to have high expectations because [you’re] graduating from one of the finest institutions on the planet… But people with very high expectations have very low resilience, and unfortunately resilience matters in success.”

Jensen continues:

“I don’t know how to teach it to you except for: I hope suffering happens to you… And to this day, I use the phrase ‘pain and suffering’ inside our company with great glee. And I mean that in a happy way because you want to refine the character of your company. You want greatness out of them, and greatness is not intelligence. Greatness comes from character, and character is formed from suffering… So for all you Stanford students, I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.