Nvidia: May be millionaires, but work long hours, under ‘pressure cooker’ conditions and high stress, say employees

As shares of Jensen Huang's Nvidia rallied to great heights on the artificial intelligence (AI) wave, it created many multi-millionaires among the employees. But luxury cars and padded wealth aside, there has been no rest, they told Bloomberg.

Nvidia's stock has gained 3,776 per cent since 2019 giving many of its workers huge returns, which they say they cannot enjoy — thanks to the long hours, high stress and pressure cooker conditions, the report added.

Nvidia did not respond to queries on the report, Bloomberg said.

‘Brewing Culture Problem’

Around 10 sources — past and current employees of Nvidia, told Bloomberg there is a “culture problem” at the chip making giant. They said that founder and CEO Huang has built “expectations of scrappiness and overworking” at Nvidia and that one manager is handed “dozens” of direct reports.

A former employee from the technical team said he was expected to work seven days a week till 1-2 am, adding that his engineering colleagues worked even longer hours. Describing the environment he called it a “pressure cooker” with company meetings often building into fights. While he left in May 2024, the past employee said the thick pay made it “hard to leave” for many.

Another past employee from marketing, who left in 2022, said she attended 7-10 meetings daily, each filled with fights and shouting. She said she stayed for two years because of “golden handcuffs” — the money.

Jensen Huang's Management Style

Huang has 60 direct reports, and involves himself in seemingly minor decisions. Employees routinely send a five point email listing what they are working on, with sometimes direct response from the CEO.

Overall, on Glassdoor, employees seem to approve — he scored 97 per cent on the job related social network, outperforming peers Alphabet (94 per cent), Apple (87 per cent), Meta (66 per cent) and Amazon (54 per cent), the report said.

But the former marketing employee warned that his direct involvement also caused an environment of competition rather than cooperation, with people “fighting” to catch Huang's attention.

’Not Fire, Will Torture You Into Greatness’

In an interview with The Transcript, Huang shared that he seldom fires people but instead tries to help them improve and learn to do their jobs.

“Look, I used to clean bathrooms, and now I'm the CEO of a company. I think you can learn it. I'm pretty certain you can learn this. And there are a lot of things in life that I believe you can learn, and you just have to be given the opportunity to learn it,” he said.

“And so it's tongue in cheek, but people know that I rather torture them into greatness. So, I would rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you. And I think coaches that that really believe in their team, torture them into greatness. And oftentimes, they're so close, don't give up. They're so close to greatness,” Huang said.