Jensen Huang has taken Nvidia to the top – but he says the 'suffering' wasn't really worth it

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the “pain and suffering” he experienced starting the chip giant would be enough to put him off ever doing it again, according to a recent interview with the Acquired podcast.

When asked by one of the hosts what sort of company Huang would be starting today if he were “magically 30 years old again”, his blunt response was that he “wouldn’t do it.”

“Building a company and building Nvidia turned out to have been a million times harder than I expected it to be, any of us expected it to be,” Huang said.

If, at that time, the firm’s founders had realized “the pain and suffering” involved when starting a company - or the extent to which the project would throw up feelings of vulnerability or embarrassment - then Nvidia might never have existed. 

“I don't think anybody would start a company, nobody in their right mind would do it. And I think that that's kind of the superpower of an entrepreneur - they don’t know how hard it is,” Huang added. 

“If I go - taking all of my knowledge now - and I go back, and I said, ‘I'm going to endure that whole journey again,’ - I think it's too much, it is just too much.” 

Huang is still enjoying himself, though, saying that he’s not planning to retire anytime soon and that he’s still excited to be involved in the company’s future. 

“I'm still enjoying myself immensely, and adding a little bit of value,” he said.

The company is certainly enjoying success of late, as is Huang. The chipmakers' valuation has skyrocketed over the last several years on the back of its GPU sales as the demand for AI compute continues to surge.

Huang has seen Nvidia change from a company worth $15 a share in January 2023 to being worth $135 a share by the summer of 2024. In June, the company briefly became the most valuable company in the world amidst the continued demand for its high-end chips. 

The firm is currently capped at over $2.5 trillion, making it the third-largest company on the planet alongside fellow industry giants Apple and Microsoft. 

At the top spot, Huang himself is worth over $100 billion. Like his company, he ranks among the most valuable people on the planet, with Forbes placing him 14th on the list of the richest people at the time of publication.