Author | Tao Weibin

Managing the world's most valuable company, 61-year-old Jen-Hsun Huang seems to have it all figured out.

Theoretically, NVIDIA is still a young company. Apple was founded in 1976, Microsoft in 1975, Intel in 1968, and IBM's founding dates back to 1911.

In 1993, when Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States, the Democratic leader promoted the "Information Superhighway" during his administration, propelling the world into the dot-com bubble. It was in this year that three ambitious semiconductor chip geniuses founded a chip design company called "NVIDIA" in Fremont, California.

In fact, until 2017, NVIDIA was just a leading company in a specific segment of the hardware industry, with a market capitalization of less than one-tenth of Intel's.

But now, it's different.

As computing power becomes the "nuclear weapon" of global tech giants, the "arms race" brought about by the AI wave has propelled NVIDIA to the top. Today, NVIDIA's market capitalization exceeds $3.6 trillion, surpassing Apple and Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company.

As one of the company's three co-founders and its irreplaceable CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang has been in the role for 31 years, leading the company from day one. This Asian-American digital hero has reached the pinnacle of his career.

But in reality, whether it was 31 years ago in the suburban townhouse of Priem, one of NVIDIA's co-founders, or now in NVIDIA's headquarters building, which features hundreds of conference rooms named after Star Trek inspirations, Huang's "Huang-style management philosophy" has not changed much.

The only change may be the increasing number of people reporting to him and the ever-growing financial figures he signs off on.

"The Way of NVIDIA: Jen-Hsun Huang and His Tech Empire" Unveils the Technology Research and Development and Market Layout Behind the Trillion-Dollar Tech Empire

1. Direct Interaction with as Many Executives as Possible

As a Chinese American, Jen-Hsun Huang is most opposed to office politics.

He admits that in the early days, NVIDIA also had "severe bureaucracy, with office politics everywhere." But he gradually realized that NVIDIA needed a flatter structure to allow employees to act more independently.

The biggest advantage of this structure is that it eliminates low-performing employees who are not accustomed to independent thinking and rely solely on instructions to act.

However, since the establishment of the world's first company, most companies worldwide have adopted a pyramid-like corporate structure.

Similarly, among global tech giants, Amazon's corporate structure is just like this: the top layer is the executive team, the middle layer is middle management, and the bottom layer is frontline staff.

The corporate structure designed by Jen-Hsun Huang for NVIDIA is more like a computer stack or short cylinder, which is a flat management model.

Unlike most CEOs who have only a few subordinates, over a decade ago, there were already 40 executives reporting directly to Jen-Hsun Huang. Now, that number has exceeded 60. The board of directors has also suggested that Jen-Hsun Huang hire a chief operating officer to lighten his administrative workload, but he directly refused and even hopes to communicate directly with most employees in the company.

Huang's goal in doing so is to ensure transparency of internal information and knowledge sharing within the company - himself, the executive team, and the most grassroots employees can maintain coordination and consistency in a short period, and everyone in the organization can assist in problem-solving and prepare for potential issues in advance.

This is the biggest cultural difference between NVIDIA and other Silicon Valley companies.

"The facts prove that through a large number of direct reports, rather than one-on-one meetings, 'we' have flattened the company, enabling rapid information transmission and empowering employees," Jen-Hsun Huang is very satisfied with his design.

2. The Mission is the Boss

Such a system design requires a CEO with a perpetual motion machine - Jen-Hsun Huang is that person.

Fortunately, Jen-Hsun Huang does not need to make decisions on specific businesses. He believes that NVIDIA's executives are all industry leaders who can make independent and correct judgments. His role is to tell them that "the mission is the boss."

Jen-Hsun Huang hates micromanagement and complex processes, and he needs enough time to communicate with employees. The concept of "the mission is the boss" allows him to step away from specific business matters.

The so-called "mission is the boss" means that all decisions should be made with the customer's interests in mind, not for Jen-Hsun Huang or one's own career advancement."Before each project begins, Jen-Hsun Huang appoints a "captain" who enjoys the same authority as Huang and can allocate resources within the company. NVIDIA employees are grouped by function into "sales," "operations," "engineering," etc. The captain can form their project team from these talent pools and ultimately deliver results to Jen-Hsun Huang.

From a management perspective, "the mission is the boss" is a way to externalize the evaluation system. Huawei's "customer-centric" approach is similar, as they both use external customer satisfaction as the core indicator to measure the excellence of internal work.

Now, Jen-Hsun Huang's only remaining task is to check emails.

After all, it is impossible to discuss everything in meetings. For NVIDIA's vast and globally distributed organizations, Jen-Hsun Huang needs his own way to quickly grasp various internal situations.

He requires employees at every level of the organization to send emails to their immediate supervisors and executives, detailing the top five items they are working on and observations they have made in the market recently, including customer pain points, competitor activities, technological developments, and the potential for project delays.

According to Jen-Hsun Huang's standards, the "top five items" email has five requirements, and the first word of each point must be a verb, such as "finally decide," "build," or "ensure."

To make it easier for him to filter these emails, Jen-Hsun Huang asks each department to label them by topic.

These emails have also become an important channel for Jen-Hsun Huang to discover market changes and collect feedback.

3. Be Prepared with a Whiteboard

Just as Steve Jobs requested vegetarian meals when traveling, Jen-Hsun Huang has a unique "quirk" when traveling - subordinates need to prepare a whiteboard for him.

"If it takes five people to barely carry the whiteboard in, then the size is correct," recalls Douglas, a former NVIDIA executive. "Jen-Hsun Huang needs to use up all the space on the whiteboard."

Huang's entourage needs to ensure that there is a large whiteboard at each of his travel destinations, and sometimes they even have to rent or buy one locally.

The reason is that when presenting his thinking process to others in the company, Jen-Hsun Huang's favorite tool is the whiteboard. Whiteboard meetings have also become the most common way of working within NVIDIA.

Unlike many companies that prefer to use PPTs to present information, Jen-Hsun Huang hates the static nature of PPTs. He believes that whiteboard meetings can help executives distill the essence of things: the whiteboard forces everyone to be rigorous and transparent. Everyone needs to start from a blank whiteboard, forgetting the past and focusing on the important matters at hand. In contrast, PPT presentations can hide incomplete ideas through polished formatting and misleading text.

Jen-Hsun Huang also considers the interaction in front of the whiteboard as an important communication.

When executives use the whiteboard, he walks to another whiteboard and writes down his thoughts. The walls of dozens of conference rooms at NVIDIA's headquarters are filled with whiteboards.

After the meeting, Jen-Hsun Huang also summarizes the new ideas sparked by the team on the whiteboard to ensure there is no misunderstanding in direction or responsibility.

It is said that Jen-Hsun Huang insists on using a 12mm chisel-tip marker. He wants employees sitting in the back row to see the words and tables he writes - NVIDIA employees must always be prepared with these markers.

4. Only 30 Days Away from Bankruptcy

In 2000, as humanity entered the new millennium, celebrating the dawn of a new era, it also ushered in the first dot-com bubble.

That year, Cisco, a network switch manufacturer founded in 1984, was enjoying its heyday.

At that time, Cisco's market share for network switches was as high as 70%, and its market share for network routers exceeded 85%. On March 27, 2000, Cisco's stock price surpassed $80, with a total market capitalization of over $500 billion, surpassing Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company at the time.

No one thought that Cisco was about to fall from grace. But in fact, with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, Cisco's stock price plummeted to just 10% of its previous value, and bad news kept coming.

Could NVIDIA become another Cisco? What is NVIDIA's magical formula? How long can its competitiveness last? These are widely discussed questions.

Kim Tae, an American tech journalist, attempted to answer these questions comprehensively.

Kim Tae has been deeply tracking and reporting on this tech company since its inception, nearly 30 years ago.

To write "The Way of NVIDIA: Jen-Hsun Huang and His Tech Empire," Kim Tae interviewed over 100 stakeholders, including Jen-Hsun Huang, the other two NVIDIA co-founders, executives, employees, initial venture capital investors, and CEOs of competing companies."The Way of NVIDIA: Jen-Hsun Huang and His Tech Empire" focuses on Jen-Hsun Huang's decisive decision-making and strategic vision. It not only presents the life experiences of NVIDIA's legendary CEO through his own narrative but also provides a panoramic view of the over 30-year challenging development journey of NVIDIA, the world's most valuable company.

The book publicly reveals for the first time NVIDIA's business innovation model as it gradually transformed from a graphics processing company to a giant in the field of AI computing. It elaborates on the core product development process and corporate strategic layout of NVIDIA in various periods and provides an in-depth analysis of its unique corporate culture that distinguishes it from other tech companies.

In such a fiercely competitive business environment, many companies are exploring the secrets of success and sustainable development paths. NVIDIA's development history and management wisdom, which has built a unique business barrier and technological high ground, may provide an example for reference and a blueprint for in-depth thinking.

This book also provides valuable insights for business leaders, tech industry professionals, and readers interested in corporate management.

However, what reassures investors holding NVIDIA stock is that Jen-Hsun Huang's sense of crisis is no less than that of Wall Street commentators. "We are only 30 days away from bankruptcy" is a phrase he often repeats.

Today, Jen-Hsun Huang is like a superstar.

Externally, he appears at various important tech events, becoming a guest of honor for world leaders and discussing AI and industrial directions.

Internally, NVIDIA's flat management structure requires Jen-Hsun Huang to constantly appear in various conference rooms, some with 50 people and some with 5. His inbox is flooded with countless report emails that need his prompt attention.

So, how should the energy fields of a company with a market capitalization exceeding $3.6 trillion and a 61-year-old founder match?

The average retirement age for American men is 63, and Jen-Hsun Huang obviously won't make plans so early. But no one can imagine what will happen to NVIDIA in the "post-Jen-Hsun Huang era" if he has to leave the company at some point.

He needs to think again.