'It's very emotional, it's really tense': Heavy lies the crown of AI dominance as Nvidia's Jensen Huang admits to getting just three hours sleep a night
All of us have pressures to endure in our working lives, and some of us have more than others. However, despite the perks, being the CEO of Nvidia seems like it'd come with a hefty dose of responsibility right now, as the company rides the crest of the AI hardware wave.
Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference this week, Jensen Huang admitted that working with just about every major tech company you can think of isn't the easiest of rides:
"Our company works with every AI company in the world today...I don't know one data center, one cloud service provider, one computer maker we're not working with. And so what comes with that is enormous responsibility.
"...delivery of our components, and our technology, and our infrastructure, and our software is really emotional for people, because it directly affects their revenues, it directly effects their competitiveness. And so we probably have more emotional customers today...and deservedly so.
"It's very emotional, it's really tense. We've got a lot of responsibility on our shoulder[s], and we're trying to do the best we can."
It's no surprise that the Nvidia head honcho is feeling the pressure. Demand for Blackwell AI GPUs has been unprecedented, with tens of thousands of orders placed before it was even announced. That being the case, meeting the demands of some of the biggest companies on the planet for merely that segment of its business seems like an overwhelming task.
"Everybody wants to be first, everybody wants to be most...and so the intensity is really, really quite extraordinary"
Still, Huang seems to be enjoying himself amidst the turmoil that must come with being the darling of the tech industry:
"I think it's fun to be inventing the next computer era. It's fun to see all these amazing applications being created. It's incredible to see robots walking around," he continued. "All of that stuff is just incredible to see."
No doubt. If there's one way to stop me from having fun, however, it's to deny me my precious sleep. Jensen, however, seems to have no such issue:
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"The part of it that is just really intense is just the world on our shoulders. And so less sleep is fine and three solid hours, that's all we need."
Well, it can't be easy being at the top. While the financial benefits may be just as overwhelming as the work, given just how many pies Nvidia finds itself with its fingers in these days, managing it all seems like a gigantic strategic headache. The double-edged sword of success, I suppose—but if you gave me just three hours sleep a night, I'd ruin this article, never mind a major company.
Perhaps owning a magnificent leather jacket is key. Regardless, Nvidia's relentless march towards the future seems to come with caveats, but for now, it shows no signs of slowing. Huang says that Blackwell AI GPUs will ship in Q4 of this year, before scaling into next year—and by the sounds of it, Nvidia's customers can hardly wait.