The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant

by Tae Kim

Over time, Jensen thought about how he would create an ideal organization from scratch. He realized he would choose a much flatter structure, so that employees could act with more independence. He also saw that a flat structure would weed out lower performers who were unaccustomed to thinking for themselves and to acting without being told what to do. “I wanted to create a company that naturally attracts amazing people,” he said.5 Jensen believed that the traditional corporate pyramid, with an executive suite at the top, multiple layers of middle management in the middle, and a foundation of line workers at the bottom, was antithetical to fostering excellence. Instead of a pyramid, he would remake Nvidia into something that looked more like a computer stack, or a short cylinder. “The first layer is the senior people. You would think that they need the least amount of management,” Jensen said. “They know what they’re doing. They’re experts in their field.” He did not want to spend time on career coaching—because the majority of them had already reached the pinnacle of their careers. As a result, he rarely held one-on-one meetings with his direct reports, at least when it came to such open-ended topics. Instead, he focused on providing them collectively with information from across the organization, as well as with his own strategic guidance. This would ensure that every part of the business was aligned and allow Jensen to manage more executives in a manner that actually add...