At least ten current and former Nvidia employees have described the work environment as akin to a “pressure cooker,” with meetings often devolving into shouting matches.
A former marketing employee shared that she regularly attended up to ten meetings a day, each with around 30 participants. These meetings were frequently fraught with arguments.
Nvidia boasts an extremely low employee turnover rate, as staff are typically granted stock options that vest over a four-year period. Since 2019, Nvidia’s stock has soared by 3,776%, meaning that employees who have been with the company for the past five years are likely to have become dollar millionaires.
As the world’s largest chip manufacturer by market capitalization, Nvidia has seen a surge in demand for semiconductors alongside the growth of artificial intelligence. According to one source, these stock-based rewards provide a strong incentive for employees to endure the harsh conditions and remain with the company.
In 2023, around 5.3% of employees left Nvidia, but after the company’s market cap surpassed $1 trillion, this rate dropped to just 2.7%. In contrast, the average employee turnover rate in the semiconductor industry is significantly higher, at 17.7%.
A former Nvidia engineer shared that those who have been with the company for at least a decade now have enough money to retire but instead choose to work longer due to the prospect of even larger bonuses.
The former engineer added that he often heard these “millionaire employees” brag about the vacation homes they had recently purchased. He also mentioned that many of them had become regular attendees at events like the Super Bowl and NBA Finals. The employee parking lot at Nvidia is reportedly filled with luxury vehicles such as Porsches, Corvettes, and Lamborghinis.
A real estate agent based in Palo Alto, California, shared that they had worked with multiple Nvidia employees who were willing to pay 40-60% of the price upfront for million-dollar homes.
Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he pushes his employees to give their all because “if you want to do something extraordinary, it’s never easy.”
FPT Boss: No company in history has experienced rapid and extraordinary value growth like Nvidia
At the end of 2023, Mr. Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia Corporation, made a business trip to Vietnam. During his visit, the Nvidia CEO was reported to have discussed semiconductor cooperation agreements with representatives from the government and leading technology companies in Vietnam, including FPT.