NVIDIA's Approach to Leadership

NVIDIA plans differently than most companies, and it boils down to one simple shift. Many Silicon Valley companies constantly use KPIs and OKRs. Often, "Objectives," "Key Results," and "Performance Indicators" are used interchangeably, turning strategic planning into just a list of wishes. If your KPIs look like this, you're doing it wrong: - "Improve Sales" - "Increase Employee Satisfaction" - "Decrease Churn" These are poor KPIs for two reasons: You won’t have direct control over them. They are lagging indicators, not leading indicators. Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA who built his $90B fortune from scratch, uses a different approach. He looks for "Early Indicators of Future Success" (EIOFS). When NVIDIA was developing the market for GPUs in AI applications, they didn't just track revenue; they monitored when scientists achieved new breakthroughs using their GPUs—these were EIOFS. By tracking these closely, and aligning their strategy around future-looking targets, NVIDIA was able to dominate emerging markets before anyone else. This same approach can work for nearly any high-risk work. For example, our customers at Pact can't directly control if customers renew, but they can use our platform to ensure that EIOFS are tracked and achieved at the highest rate possible. While you might not control sales or renewals directly, focusing on running a clean process every time can be a crucial early indicator of success. Curious about how Pact has helped businesses master accountability with EIOFS? Let's chat.

Jensen Huang: The Key Ingredients of an AI Titan I had the incredible privilege of meeting Jensen Huang, the legendary co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA. Despite his meteoric success building Nvidia into an AI superpower, Jensen came across as remarkably humble, down-to-earth, and authentic in person. For those unaware, Jensen built Nvidia from scratch back in 1993 out of a roadside Denny's into a world-leading AI computing giant today with a market cap of around $2 Trillion. He avoids the trappings of most high-powered tech execs. No designer suits. Jensen has a flat organizational structure. He passionately geeks out on the nitty gritty details of chip architecture like when he was a rising 30-year-old founder, not one of the most influential business leaders on Earth. As we spoke, I was struck by how thoughtful and visionary, yet amusingly humble this man is. The same ingenious mind that foresaw AI's insatiable computing demands back in the 90s trying to map out technology for decades to come. Yet he has a youthful casualness in style and temperament that bucks the stereotype of the buttoned-up, isolated CEO. We talked about his visit to India and how he carried his trademark leather jacket (he even allowed me to touch it) in the tropical heat, while meeting major figures like Prime Minister Modi and Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani. But he took it all in stride, just as he has with Nvidia's meteoric rise from humble origins to dominating a key pillar of the global AI revolution. It fills me with optimism to see that at Nvidia's helm sits someone as caring, candid and eager to learn as the brightest intern. That rare blend explains how his revolutionary company keeps evolving lightyears ahead of the pack. May Jensen's recipe for sustainable success inspire the next generation of leaders pursuing purposeful change!

A PATTERN OF POSITIONING -- Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang has made a pattern of positioning Nvidia in front of every big tech trend. • In 2012 a small group of researchers released a groundbreaking image recognition system, called AlexNet, that used GPUs, instead of CPUs, to crunch its code and launched a new era of deep learning. Huang promptly directed the company to chase AI full-steam. • When, in 2017, Google released the novel neural network architecture known as a transformer—the T in ChatGPT—and ignited the current AI gold rush, Nvidia was in a perfect position to start selling its AI-focused GPUs to hungry tech companies. • Nvidia now accounts for more than 70 percent of sales in the AI chip market. Its revenue for the last quarter of 2023 was $22 billion—up 265% from the year prior. And its stock price has risen 231% in the last year. Huang is either uncannily good at what he does or ridiculously lucky—or both!—and everyone wants to know how he does it. Tech companies can’t get enough of this tech company. Earnings are off the charts. WIRED probes the mind of its CEO, Jensen Huang. 👁️ Nvidia is building a new type of data centre called AI factory. Every company—biotech, self-driving, manufacturing, etc will need an AI factory. 👁️ Jensen is looking forward to foundational robotics and state space models. According to him, foundational robotics could have a breakthrough next year. 👁️ The crunch for Nvidia GPUs is here to stay. It won’t be able to catch up on supply this year. Probably not next year either. 👁️ A new generation of GPUs called Blackwell is coming out, and the performance of Blackwell is off the charts. 👁️ Nvidia’s business is now roughly 70% inference and 30% training, meaning AI is getting into users’ hands. 👁️ Nvidia's also announced new AI chips in a laptop-friendly package. The new RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation laptop GPUs are perfect if you want to run crazy generative AI models. 👁️ And, Nvidia crossed $2T in market cap.