Instead of competing for market share, Jensen Huang focuses on creating entirely new markets where there are initially "no customers." This "zero-billion-dollar market" strategy ensures there are also no competitors, allowing NVIDIA to build a dominant position from scratch.
Jensen Huang rejects "praise publicly, criticize privately." He criticizes publicly so the entire organization can learn from one person's mistake, optimizing for company-wide learning over individual comfort and avoiding political infighting.
Jensen Huang uses the whiteboard as the primary meeting tool to compel employees to demonstrate their thought process in real-time. This practice eliminates hiding behind prepared materials and fosters rigorous, transparent thinking, revealing immediately when someone hasn't thought something through.
Jensen views pain and suffering not as obstacles but as essential ingredients for building character and resilience, which he considers superpowers more valuable than intelligence. He believes greatness is formed from people who have suffered and learned to handle setbacks.
Jensen's "Speed of Light" principle sets the only benchmark for project speed as the absolute theoretical maximum, constrained only by physics. Teams are judged against this ideal, not against their own past performance or competitors, forcing them to eliminate all delays and downtime.
Jensen Huang maintains an extremely flat organization with around 60 direct reports and no one-on-one meetings. This unconventional structure is designed to accelerate information travel, empower senior leaders, and weed out those who can't operate without direct guidance.
Jensen uses a "Top 5 Things" email system where any employee can send him their priorities and market observations. He reads around 100 of these daily to get unfiltered information directly from the "edge" of the organization, allowing him to spot trends before they become obvious.