Elon Musk agrees with Jensen Huang’s work ethic — Here’s what Nvidia CEO believes makes a good leader

In a post on social media platform

“This is the way,” Elon Musk wrote in a clip of Jensen Huang’s March 2024 interview at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; Here, the Nvidia chief reminisced about his time working odd jobs as a waiter and waitress.

Jensen Huang: ‘There is no task for me’

“To me, no task is for me because remember, I was once a dishwasher [and] I was cleaning the toilets. I’ve cleaned many toilets. I’ve cleaned more toilets than all of you (viewers) combined. And I can’t help but notice some of them. That’s life,” Huang said when discussing his job at Denny’s.

“You can’t show me a task that’s beneath me. I’m not doing this just to see if it’s beneath me or not. If you send me something and you want my input on it and I can be of service to you and share with you how I reasoned about it as I reviewed it, I’ve made a contribution to you. I’ve made it possible for you to see how I reasoned about something,” he said.

On how this shapes his leadership, Huang added: “And you know, with reasoning, how having someone reason through something empowers you. ‘Oh my God, you’re reasoning that way! It’s not as complicated as it looks.’ And so I always show people how to reason through things. Strategy is how to predict, how to solve a problem, and you empower people. That’s how I see it.”

Jensen Huang From Dennys bellboy to billionaire technocrat

In August 2024, Jensen Huang’s LinkedIn profile went viral, listing his jobs as a waiter, dishwasher, and busboy between 1978 and 1983.

The 61-year-old billionaire, who was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States at the age of five, has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Oregon State University and a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University.

On leadership: ‘Torment you to achieve greatness’

Huang also shared in another interview with The Transcript that he rarely fires people, instead trying to help employees learn to do their jobs and that he would “rather develop you than give up on you.”

“When you fire someone, a lot of people say, ‘it wasn’t your fault’ or ‘I made the wrong choice’ or ‘there’s too little work.’ Look, I used to clean bathrooms and now I’m the CEO of a company. I think you can learn that. I’m pretty sure you can learn that. And there’s a lot of things in life that I believe you can learn, and you should be given the opportunity to learn that,” Huang said.

“I’ve had the advantage of watching a lot of smart people do a lot of things. I’ve got 60 people around me. They’re always doing smart things and they probably don’t realize it, but I’m constantly learning from each of them. So I don’t like to give up on people because I think they can improve,” he added.

“And it’s a joke, but people know that I’d rather torture them to achieve greatness. So, I’d rather torture you to achieve greatness because I believe in you. And I think coaches that really believe in their teams, they torture them to achieve greatness. And a lot of times they’re so close that they don’t give up. They’re so close to greatness,” Huang said.