My Infinite Learnings from NVIDIA

The last 5+ years watching NVIDIA undergo an exponential transformation has been the ride of a lifetime. There's a lot of interest in what makes NVIDIA tick and so unique. I figured I'd jot down 26 of the key lessons I've learned here and share them with the world. Some of these are well known and others less so. I'm beyond thankful to have been in a place that helped me reach my limits and then go beyond them. Please share the knowledge with anyone you'd like! Enjoy!

1. Do extremely hard things. And do them over very long periods of time. By the time people realize what you've been doing, they will realize the value, but they won't be able to catch up to you. You will be in a league of your own.
2. Play the long game. Great things take time. If something can be done quickly, it can be done quickly by someone else. Only the truly brave can dedicate themselves towards a singular objective over a prolonged and irrational amount of time.
3. Expand the Pie. Partner and work with everyone. You don't need to take from someone else to improve your own position. Real success happens when you build a foundation that other companies can build their business on. Make this happen and everyone wins!
4. Treat employees with kindness and decency. Lift up your employees. Don't push them down. Trust your people. Don't fire them. Employees are grown ups. Treat them like it. Empower people instead of telling them what to do. Don't tell people to come to the office. Let them make up their own minds. They'll figure it out.
5. Let information flow freely internally. Remove all closed doors. Very little information is truly secret. Stop acting like it is and spread the information so everyone can operate with the same facts.
6. "Competition is for Losers." Peter Thiel coined this phrase, but I didn't get it until working here for a while. Be unique. Differentiate yourself. Don't waste time thinking about or comparing yourself to "perceived competition". Always do the absolute best work independent of what anyone else is doing.
7. Flatten the hierarchy. It only gets in the way of doing actual work. Less hierarchy increases speed and visibility. This leads to good outcomes.
8. The Mission is the boss. Politics and org chart don't matter if you are focused on your work and the end result.
9. Nobody fails alone. Play as a team. We are only as strong as our weakest member. It's our job to help everyone on the team get to the same level. We are defined by the strength of our teams and not by the exceptionalism of any one individual.
10. Be the best at your craft. It doesn't matter what that craft is. Do it better than anyone else ever could. This mindset ALWAYS leads to winning.
11. Follow the ground truth. Talk to customers. Don't rely on market reports or other highly digested forms of information. They always miss some truth that is obvious to those who do the hard work of going a level deeper. This is how one can build true conviction in what they do. And conviction is what powers you to do the hard things nobody else can.
12. Focus on what you can control relentlessly. Don't waste time on things that are out of your hands. You'll realize you have more control than you think and the things you don't control matter less than you thought.
13. Never stop learning. Everything starts with understanding. Teach others what you know and learn from them too. Knowledge is valuable. The ability to comprehend and disseminate it is what gives it value.
14. Build markets that don't exist yet. Go after $0B markets. Jensen has said that "If we don't build it, they can't come". It's hard work to build a market from scratch. But if there are no customers yet, it also means there aren't any competitors. This is where you can do something truly innovative.
15. Speak the truth and be authentic. People are drawn to others who speak the truth even when the truth isn't what they want to hear. And when they disagree with that truth, they can't fight it if they know the person saying it is authentic.
16. Embrace conflict. I used to hate this mentality, but now I love it. Differences between individuals or teams are opportunities. The faster you embrace and discuss those differences, the sooner a large group of people can get moving in the same direction. Resolving differences leads to great alignment.
17. Say no. Once you've decided to focus on something, give it your all. Rejecting low value work is critical to finding and doing the high quality work that can move the needle. Do this relentlessly so you get the most value from your time.
18. Be humble. Don't ask someone to do something if you wouldn't do it yourself. No task is beneath anyone. Leaders who ask their team to do things they would never do are hypocrites. And once someone at the top is doing this, it gives everyone in the company permission to also be a hypocrite. This is inefficient, inconsistent and breeds resentment from the team. Don't do this. Always put your money where your mouth is.
19. Take Accountability. If you're wrong, say it. It only gets people to trust you more.
20. Do a lot with little. Figure out how to give your work leverage. Constrained resources breeds efficiency and innovation. If you can operate with few resources, you can achieve outsized outcomes. This is why NVIDIA has so few employees for how much value we've created.
21. Believe in your work. If you don't believe in your job, your company's vision, your team or your leaders, go find a different job. Because you'll never be able to give a job your all if there are several aspects of it you don't believe in. This isn't good for anyone in the short or long run.
22. Live in the moment. If your mind is somewhere else, you aren't fully engaged on what's happening right now. The current moment is the only thing you can control. Give it the attention it deserves to make the most of your time.
23. Never rest on your laurels. It is always Day 1. Failure is closer than you think no matter how on top of the world it might seem. When you are on top, the only way to go is down. It takes a lot to prevent this from happening because it is inevitable.
24. Play the game, not the score. You can't always control the score and the score might not map to how well you are playing the game. Play at the highest level ALWAYS because that's all you can control. The score will reflect your excellence sooner or later.
25. Think from first principles. Just because something has been done a certain way before doesn't mean you should accept it as is. Think for yourself. Question everything. Find the best way.
26. People don't need perks. They need a purpose. If you aren't engaged in meaningful work, there is no amount of free food or massages that will ever make up for it. Make sure you're working on something that matters. Everything else will fall into place.

Thanks for getting all the way to the end. Please share which of these lessons is your favorite and which you'd like to learn more about! I'll do my best to keep on spreading the NVIDIA goodness :-)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NVIDIA or its affiliates.