1963
Jensen Huang was born in southern Taiwan in February 1963 as Jen Sun Huang.
“In the southern part of the island of Taiwan with the birth of Jen Sun Huang, later Americanized to Jensen.”
Topic
Jensen Huang
76 facts from 23 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1984
Jensen Huang graduated from Oregon State University in 1984, his future wife Lori graduated in 1985, and he then joined AMD in Silicon Valley.
“So he graduates in 1984. She graduates in 1985. They move down to Silicon Valley and Jensen joins AMD”
1990s
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang laid off 70% of the company during its early struggle for survival.
“Jensen laid off 70% of the company and they did two completely crazy things.”
1992
Jensen Huang finished his Stanford master's degree around Thanksgiving 1992, after eight years of part-time study.
“So one day, right around Thanksgiving 1992, Jensen has finally, after eight years, finished his master's degree at Stanford.”
1993
Nicolai Tangen states that Jensen Huang started Nvidia in 1993 at age 30.
“You started Nvidia in 93, you were 30 years old.”
1993
Huang says he did not know how to be a CEO and nobody at Nvidia knew how to build a company when it began.
“I didn't know how to be a CEO, and n no, nobody in the company knew how to build a company.”
1993
Huang says NVIDIA was founded in 1993 as the only consumer 3D graphics company at that time.
“at the time that we started the company in 1993, we were the only consumer 3D graphics company ever created.”
1997
Huang says NVIDIA bought emulation hardware from a company called Ikos that was shutting down because it had no customers.
“There was a company called Icos. And on the day that I called them, they were just shutting the company down because they had no customers.”
1997
Morris Chang says his relationship with NVIDIA's Jensen Huang began with a letter Huang sent him around 1997 asking TSMC to take NVIDIA as a foundry customer.
“It started, my relationship with Jensen, started with a letter that he sent to me. I think it was 1997.”
2003
Tangen attributes to Huang a 2003 Stanford remark that his will to survive exceeds almost everybody else's will to kill him.
“In 2003 at Stanford, you said, Um, my will to survive exceeds almost everybody else's will to kill me.”
2013
In 2013, Huang overruled executives who thought deep learning was a passing fad and committed Nvidia to going all in on it.
“Deep learning is going to be really big, he said. He said this in 2013. We are going all in on it.”
2013
Lex Fridman asked about a story that Morris Chang offered Jensen Huang the chief executive role at TSMC in 2013; Huang confirmed the story and said he declined.
“in 2013, the founders of TSMC Morris Chang offered you the chance to become TSMC's chief executive”
2016
Huang says he personally delivered the first DGX system to OpenAI.
“And I delivered the first one to OpenAI. And that was a fun day.”
2017
Lee says he met Nvidia's Jensen Huang in 2017 while at Lone Pine.
“I remember meeting Jensen Huang in 2017. It's kind of crazy to think at the time, like today, that, like, it wasn't what it is today.”
2022
After Acquired's NVIDIA episodes, the company reportedly told the hosts that Jensen Huang had listened and asked who their inside sources were.
“Jensen has listened and wants to know who your inside sources are because it's the most correct telling of NVIDIA's story ever.”
2023
Jensen Huang, as relayed by the host, framed NVIDIA's opportunity as $1 trillion of installed data center assets growing by $250 billion a year.
“There is $1 trillion worth of hard assets sitting in data centers around the world right now. Growing at $250 billion a year.”
2023
The hosts of Acquired say they spent about 500 hours researching NVIDIA over two years before interviewing Jensen Huang.
“After researching NVIDIA for something like 500 hours over the last two years, we flew down to NVIDIA headquarters to sit down with Jensen himself.”
2023
Jensen Huang says Nvidia uses AI to design its chips, including finding optimal placements and connecting transistors into circuits.
“we're using AI to design our chips, to find optimal placements to, uh, help us, um, connect transistors”
2023
Jensen Huang says Nvidia is starting to use AI to trace a failure back to the line of code that likely caused a bug.
“we're starting to use AI to help us determine from a failure where the bug likely, uh, started from”
2023
Jensen Huang says US restrictions on chip sales to China limit the performance level of Nvidia's GPUs rather than banning sales outright.
“The limitations are related to the performance levels of our GPUs. This is like restrictions of of, uh, CPUs and and computers”
2023
Acquired first asked NVIDIA about interviewing Jensen Huang almost two years before the 2023 interview, before it began its NVIDIA research.
“I think we originally reached out to NVIDIA before we started our NVIDIA part one research almost two years ago”
2026
Von Tschammer says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described AI as a five-layer cake with the application layer on top, which is where Neural Concept works.
“the AI as a five layer cake from the foundations to the top, and the lay the last layer at the very top is the application layer”
Undated
Jensen Huang and his brother were sent as children to Oneida Baptist Institute in Kentucky, a cheap boarding school that was actually a reform school.
“Well, it turns out that the reason that this school, OBI, Oneida Baptist Institute, was so cheap, was it's actually not a prep school. It's a reform school.”
Undated
LSI Logic, where Huang worked after AMD, was one of the first and premier makers of ASICs, custom chips designed for a specific function.
“It was one of the first and was sort of the premier ASICs company, ASIC application specific integrated circuit companies.”
Undated
After the Riva 128 succeeded, Jensen Huang wrote a physical letter to TSMC's Morris Chang, which led to a phone call and a partnership.
“After the Riva 128 hits and has become a big success, Jensen writes a letter to Morris, a physical letter, addresses it to Morris Chang in Taiwan.”
Undated
In a Stratechery interview, Jensen Huang said Nvidia offered over 150 SDKs serving industries from gaming to robotics.
“We have over 150 SDKs that serve industries from gaming and design to life and earth sciences, quantum computing, AI, cybersecurity, 5G, and robotics.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says he delivered the first Nvidia DGX deep learning system outside Nvidia to OpenAI.
“I delivered the very 1st one outside of our own company to OpenAI.”
Undated
Asked whether guardrails for AI are in place, Huang says there are not really any.
“Uh, no, not really, not really.”
Undated
Huang says people using AI are more likely than AI itself to displace jobs in the near term.
“it's less likely that in the near term that AI is going to displace our jobs, it's more likely that someone uses AI is going to displace our jobs.”
Undated
Huang says he wakes at around five in the morning and starts working immediately, working every day.
“I wake up at five, zero, and and uh, the moment I wake up, I start working”
Undated
Huang says he is usually asleep by 9:30 p.m.
“I'm asleep probably by 09:30. And I, I like my sleep”
Undated
Huang says he had recently read the book Chip War.
“Uh, let's see, I just, I just read chip wars.”
Undated
Huang says he held jobs as a dishwasher, busboy, paper deliverer and waiter and loved each of them.
“I loved it when I was a dishwasher, I loved it when I was a busboy, I loved it when I was delivering papers, I loved it when I was waiting tables.”
Undated
Huang says NVIDIA's first two chips, NV1 and NV2, used forward texture mapping with curved surfaces rather than triangles, an approach that proved wrong.
“MV1 and MV2 were based on forward texture mapping, no triangles but curves, and it tessellated the curves.”
Undated
Huang says Sequoia's Don Valentine told him, as he decided to invest, that he would kill him if he lost the money.
“he says, if you lose my money, I'll kill you.”
Undated
Huang says LSI Logic pioneered expressing chip design in high-level languages, an idea that shaped his thinking about computing.
“What LSI Logic did was, was, uh, realized that you can express, um, transistors and logical gates and chip functionality in high-level languages.”
Undated
Jensen Huang, an electrical engineer, launched Nvidia with two co-founders at a Denny's restaurant.
“An electrical engineer by training, he launched the company with two co founders at a Denny's restaurant.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says Moore's law in its earlier days increased performance tenfold every five years and a hundredfold every ten years.
“Moore's law in in the older days would increase performance by a factor of ten every five years, and a factor of a hundred every ten years.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says accelerated computing improves performance by roughly 1,000 to 100,000 times every ten years.
“in the case of accelerated computing, we're moving somewhere between a thousand to 100,000 times, uh, every ten years.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says Nvidia's AI GPUs weigh about 70 pounds and contain about 35,000 parts.
“GPUs that we build for AI, uh, weighs 70 pounds. Uh, they have 35, zero parts.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says Nvidia's AI GPUs consume 10,000 amps and are so heavy that robots are used to manufacture them.
“They, uh, consume 10,000 amps, uh, obviously, they're so heavy.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says Nvidia's computers are so advanced that a supercomputer is needed to test another supercomputer.
“The computers are so advanced that it takes a supercomputer to test another supercomputer”
Undated
Jensen Huang describes generative AI as predicting the next word, pixel or video frame, which can produce hallucinations.
“generative AI predicts the next word, or putting the next letter, next word, next sentence, next paragraph, predicts the next pixel”
Undated
Jensen Huang describes retrieval augmentation as connecting a vectorized database to a language model so retrieved information enriches the prompt.
“retrieval augmentation. What that means is a database that, whether it's structured or unstructured, tabular or, you know, otherwise, that has been vectorized”
Undated
Jensen Huang says most of the data companies hold is dormant and hard to use.
“Every company has a ton of data in their company. Most of that data is now dormant.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says reinforcement learning with human feedback turned out to be useful for fine-tuning large language models.
“it turns out that reinforcement learning, human feedback, could be quite useful in fine tuning a large language model.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says reinforcement learning was originally invented for animating stick figures and articulating fingers.
“Reinforcement learning was something that was really invented for, uh, articulating and animating stick figures and articulating fingers”
Undated
Jensen Huang says a fully autonomous car should combine cameras, radar and lidar and could add redundant steering and braking.
“you might insist on making sure that you have cameras as as well as radars, as well as lidars, you might even have um redundant steering control”
Undated
Jensen Huang says humans should validate, test and red-team each new batch of AI learning before it is released.
“before you, uh, release it out into the world, uh, you have humans validate it and test it, and, uh, red team it”
Undated
Jensen Huang says Nvidia has nearly gone out of business a handful of times in its history.
“actual experiences of nearly going out of business a handful of times.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says Nvidia cut roughly three or four layers of management by flattening its organization.
“we probably reduced, you know, three, three or four layers of management, uh, out of our company just by doing so.”
Undated
Jensen Huang predicts industrial-scale quantum computers are probably another decade away, and maybe two decades.
“The quantum computer won't come along for, uh, in in a real industrial way, for probably another decade, and maybe two.”
Undated
Jensen Huang expects quantum computers to work as accelerators connected to Nvidia's accelerated computing systems.
“when it gets here, uh, it'll likely be an accelerator that's connected to the Nvidia accelerated computing systems.”
Undated
Acquired has interviewed figures such as Jensen Huang and Uber's Dara Khosrowshahi after covering their companies.
“Occasionally, we do have the opportunity to interview someone like Jensen, like Charlie, like Dara from Uber”
Undated
Jensen Huang says he answered no when asked whether he would start NVIDIA again knowing what he knows, and that the answer was taken out of context.
“I said, absolutely not. Of course, it was taken out of context”
Undated
Rana El Kaliouby cites NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's view that a person who harnesses AI, not AI itself, will take your job.
“It's not going to be an AI that takes your job, it's going to be a person who knows how to leverage and harness AI that will.”
Undated
Jensen Huang's mother had him and his brother memorize ten English words a day to prepare for moving to America.
“she would select ten random words from the dictionary every day.”
Undated
Jensen Huang and his brother were sent to live with an aunt and uncle in Tacoma, Washington, before their parents joined them in America.
“They send Jensen and his brother to Washington, to Tacoma, Washington, to live with their aunt and uncle before they can get over to America themselves.”
Undated
Huang's parents sent him to Oneida Baptist Institute in Kentucky, which they believed was a prep school but was in fact a reform school.
“this place called Oneida Baptist Institute, which is located in Kentucky”
Undated
Jensen Huang worked as a microchip designer at Advanced Micro Devices after graduating from college.
“He is working for a microchip company, it's AMD, Advanced Micro Devices.”
Undated
Huang pursued a Stanford master's degree on nights and weekends while working full time, and it took about eight years.
“going to take him eight years to finish his master's degree because he can only go on nights and weekends”
Undated
Huang met his future Nvidia co-founders, Chris Malachowski and Curtis Priem, while working at LSI Logic on the Sun Microsystems account.
“The fact that he met Chris Malachowski and Curtis Priem. These are going to be his co-founders.”
Undated
Jensen Huang has about sixty direct reports and refuses to hold one-on-one meetings with them.
“he has sixty direct reports, and he refuses to do one on one.”
Undated
Huang reads over a hundred "top five things" emails from employees each day to see what is happening inside Nvidia.
“So every day, he reads, you know, over a hundred top five emails to get a snapshot at what's happening inside of the company.”
Undated
Huang reviews a list of top contributor candidates and approves special one-off stock grants that vest over four years.
“Okay, Jensen will review the list of top contributor candidates and give out special one-off grants of stock that vest over a four-year period.”
Undated
Aaron Levie attributes to NVIDIA's Jensen Huang the idea that the IT department becomes the HR department of AI.
“Jensen at NVIDIA kind of put it the the best, which is, you know, effectively, the IT department becomes the HR department of AI.”
Undated
David Martin said Moderna integrated its chief information officer and chief human resources officer roles, referring to a comment attributed to Nvidia's Jensen Huang.
“You heard Jensen Wang talk about, you know, the CIO is the CHRO in the future. Moderna integrated those two roles.”
Undated
Arora says he expanded his staff meeting from eight to 25 people after reading about Jensen Huang's wide management structure.
“I actually expanded my staff meeting from eight to 25.”
Undated
Elad Gil says Nvidia chief Jensen Huang has told the show he has about 40 direct reports and does not hold one-on-one meetings.
“we've talked to Jensen a few times and he's pointed out, for example, he has like 40 direct reports, he doesn't do one on ones”
Undated
Jensen Huang says he started a management method called the speed of light about 30 years ago, which tests every design against physical limits.
“a method, uh, that I started, uh, 30 years ago, and it's called the speed of light”
Undated
Jensen Huang predicts that customers will soon pay $1,000 per million tokens for the most capable AI output.
“the idea that somebody's willing to pay $1,000 per million tokens is just around the corner”
Undated
Jensen Huang says radiology software is now driven by AI, yet the number of radiologists has grown despite predictions they would disappear.
“Every radiology platform and package today is driven by AI, and yet the number of radiologists grew, and so the question is why”
Undated
Jensen Huang estimates the number of people able to direct computers to write software rose from about 30 million to about 1 billion.
“I think we just went from 30 million to probably 1 billion.”
Undated
Hinds says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang does not hold one-on-one meetings with his direct reports, a practice she says works at Nvidia because of its strong mission clarity.
“The fact that Jensen doesn't have one on one meetings with his direct reports, that does not work in most organizations.”
Undated
Arvind Krishna describes Nvidia's Jensen Huang as funding ecosystem players to keep them within Nvidia's vertically integrated stack.
“He's trying to fund everybody in the ecosystem to ensure that they don't stray from the vertically integrated stack that he's producing.”
Undated
At Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's urging, CrowdStrike built a digital twin that recreates a customer's environment virtually so red and blue models can be iterated against each other.
“So we built a digital twin where we can take all of the information that we know about a customer's environment.”
Episodes
- 15 Dec 202510 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)2h 47m
- 27 Jan 2025TSMC Founder Morris Chang2h 55m
- 30 Sep 2024Acquired LIVE from Chase Center (with Daniel Ek, Emily Chang, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg)2h 25m
- 8 Aug 2024Chase Center + Summer Update21m
- 18 Dec 2023Holiday Special 20232h 17m
- 16 Oct 2023NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang1h 31m
- 6 Sep 2023Nvidia Part III: The Dawn of the AI Era (2022-2023)2h 55m
- 20 Jun 2022The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories1h 5m
- 20 Apr 2022Nvidia Part II: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022)2h 12m
- 28 Mar 2022Nvidia Part I: The GPU Company (1993-2006)2h 0m
- 23 Mar 2026#494 – Jensen Huang: NVIDIA – The $4 Trillion Company & the AI Revolution2h 32m
- 13 Jan 2025#376 Jensen Huang: Founder of Nvidia1h 40m
- 15 Aug 2025Jobs at Risk from AI Right Now - Future of Work! | CXOTalk #88955m
- 14 Nov 2023Nvidia’s CEO On What It Takes To Run An A.I.-Led Company Now23m
- 12 Apr 2023Jensen Huang Founder and CEO of Nvidia47m
- 9 Oct 2024Debunking AI myths, with Jeremy Kahn39m
- 22 Oct 2026The New Apex Predator: CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on Adversaries Armed With AI Agents45m
- 24 Sep 2026Re-Founding Incumbents for the AI Era with Sequence Holdings Co-Founder and CEO Michael Lee42m
- 4 Oct 2025The Impact of AI, from Business Models to Cybersecurity, with Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora58m
- 21 Oct 2026Arvind Krishna & Nikesh Arora: Quantum Threat, Open vs Frontier AI, AI Cyber Warfare & SaaS Collapse40m
- 1 Jul 20261000 Designs a Day: Neural Concept's Thomas von Tschammer on AI-Native Engineering1h 28m
- 10 Jun 2026Babysitting the Machine: Glean's Rebecca Hinds on the Hidden Human Labor of AI at Work1h 45m
- 29 Jan 2025Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, on Box AI, Enterprise Enthusiasm, and the Evolution of SaaS50m