It's a summer day in Santa Clara, California, and an assortment of luxury cars - Porsches, Corvettes, Lamborghinis - take up parking spots previously occupied by humbler models. Some have new paint jobs in the lime green from Nvidia Corp.'s logo. And they are stuck where their owners want to be: at the office.
Nvidia stock has gained 3,776% since the start of 2019 as the company benefits from selling the main chip necessary for artificial intelligence work, minting many new multimillionaires in the process. But the work hours are just as gruelling and high-stress, current and former employees said, leaving little time for the jet-setting, homebuying and leisure many can now afford. A culture problem is brewing, said the 10 people, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
The 31-year-old chipmaker has piled on market cap faster than any other company in history. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has established expectations of scrappiness and overworking, with a chaotic structure where one manager can have dozens of direct reports, the current and former employees said. Rather than firing employees like his competitors, Huang has said he prefers to "torture them into greatness."
One former employee, who worked in technical support for enterprise clients, said he was expected to work 7 days a week, often until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. He said many of his former colleagues, especially those on engineering teams, worked longer hours. He described the environment as a pressure cooker, noting several company meetings he characterized as yelling fights - but said the pay package made it hard to leave. He left in May and requested anonymity to speak frankly about the company.
Another, who worked in marketing until 2022 and requested anonymity to protect her career, said she often attended 7 to 10 meetings per day, each with more than 30 people involved, often punctuated by bouts of fighting and shouting. But she said she put up with it for two years, because of the "golden handcuffs" - the opportunity for even more wealth.
Nvidia declined to comment.
Nvidia hasn't had any trouble keeping its employees in recent years, in part because its stock grants typically vest - or become available - over a four-year period, giving workers incentive to stay to earn their whole pay package. In 2023, 5.3% of employees left the company, but after its valuation topped $1 trillion, that same turnover rate dropped by nearly half, to 2.7%, according to its 2024 sustainability report. The overall semiconductor industry's turnover rate is much higher, at 17.7%, according to Nvidia.
The tech industry trope of "resting and vesting" is so common it was ridiculed by Hollywood in HBO's "Silicon Valley" show with a character who squanders away his time playing video games and drinking big sodas waiting for his stock to vest. But it doesn't work at Nvidia. One current employee said it would be embarrassing and even socially difficult to coast.
Those who tried have become the subject of internal critique. During a staff meeting late last year employees complained to Huang that some of their colleagues were in "semiretirement" mode, according to a former employee who attended the meeting.
Those who have been at the company for close to a decade would have more than enough money to retire, according to a former engineering employee who left the company in June. Many don't, though, because there are millions more waiting when the next stock grant vests, the person added.
The explosive stock rally also means that many Nvidia employees are sitting on bigger nest eggs than peers at other chipmakers. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress, who joined the company 11 years ago, owns stock worth about $758.7 million. Her Intel Corp. counterpart Dave Zinsner, who has a larger pay package but has a shorter tenure, owns stock worth just $3.13 million. At Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Nvidia's nearest rival, which has also seen rapid share growth, CFO Jean Hu, who joined in 2023, owns stock worth $6.43 million.
The former engineering employee who asked not to be named said that, throughout 2023 and 2024, working at Nvidia meant encountering frequent expressions of wealth among employees of virtually all seniority levels. He said he regularly saw coworkers surfing Zillow and alluding to new vacation homes in casual conversation. He added that it's become common for employees to attend big-ticket sporting events like the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals.
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"It's just always very surprising how much money they have in one stock," said Spencer Hsu, a real estate agent based in Palo Alto, California, who has worked with multiple Nvidia employees this year - on nights and weekends, of course. The clients are making 40% to 60% down payments on multimillion-dollar homes.
Conversations about Nvidia's daily market gain or loss (but usually gain) can be heard in hushed tones at lunchtime, according to several of the recently departed employees. A current Nvidia product manager said that thousands of employees are on a company Slack channel dedicated to exchanging personal finance advice. The group is catered toward employees who have held onto their vested shares - not the many others who sold off much of their stock long before its peak.
It's not just about the money. Airan Junior, who was at the chipmaker from 2020 to 2023, said that "working at Nvidia is like Disneyland" because of the many teams solving interesting technical problems. He worked on a sales team based out of Brazil, and said the company's culture, however unconventional, contributed to its massive success. Nvidia now accounts for more than 90 percent of sales in the AI chip market.
Huang, who has 60 direct reports, has no time for bureaucracy, detailed PowerPoint presentations or one-on-one meetings. He'll involve himself in seemingly minor decisions, such as the choice of a photo for a marketing campaign. Huang is well known for making Nvidia employees send a regular email to a centralized email address with a bulleted list of five things they're working on. Huang sometimes responds to these emails directly to ask for more details or dole out directives.
Huang has said his approach to leadership has been shaped by facing "real adversity" running Nvidia for more than three decades. He tells employees that he's pushing them to do their life's work. "It should be like that," Huang said of his demanding management style in a recent 60 Minutes interview. "If you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn't be easy."
Most employees appear to approve of Huang's unusual leadership style. His approval rating on Glassdoor is 97%, higher than his peers at Alphabet Inc. (94%), Apple Inc. (87%), Meta Platforms Inc. (66%) and Amazon.com Inc. (54%).
But the ex-marketing employee warned that Huang's flat corporate structure sometimes works differently than intended. She said that in her experience, because of the company's structure, people are incentivized to fight for Huang's attention rather than work together toward Nvidia's long-term success. The same structure applies to those far below Huang - the former technical support employee said his supervisor had more than 100 people directly reporting to him. At a certain point, with a certain amount of money, the stress starts to lose its appeal.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
