https://youtu.be/lXLBTBBil2U

“Don’t worry about how other companies or org charts look. Start from first principles. Remember what an organization is designed to do - an organization of the past where there’s a king (CEO), then you have the royal subjects/court, then you keep working your way down - eventually you have employees. Well the reason why it was designed that way is because they wanted their soldiers to have as little information as possible because their fundamental purpose of the soldiers is to die in the field of battle. To die without asking questions. I only have 30,000 employees. I would like none of them to die. I would like them to question everything. So the way you organize in the past and the way you organize today is very different.”

“You want the company to be lazy about doing things that other people always/can do. If somebody else can do it, let them do it. We should go select the things that: if we didn’t do it, the world would fall apart. If I don’t do this, it won’t get done.”

“Your job is to make a unique contribution. Live a life of purpose. Do something that nobody else in the world would do or can do. Make a unique contribution so that in the event that after you’ve done, everybody says the world was better because you were here.”

“Have a core-belief, gut-check it every day. Pursue it with all of your mind. Pursue it with for a very long time.”

https://youtu.be/Xn1EsFe7snQ

Perspective Over “Vision”: Having a “perspective” is an accessible way for anyone to build a business. It simply means seeing the world differently based on your unique experiences and finding a common sense that others might overlook [06:24].

The Power of Self-Cannibalization: To remain a market leader, a company must have the courage to cannibalize its own successful products before a competitor does [29:12].

The biggest challenge with building a company is the reinvention of the company. Everything successful things needs to be torn down at some point and be rebuilt. This is unfortunately true.

Cultivating a Tolerance for Failure: True innovation requires constant experimentation, which inevitably results in failure. Leaders must foster a culture that tolerates risk-taking but encourages pivoting quickly and cheaply when an idea hits a dead end [37:36].

Innovation needs a lot of experimentation, experimentation requires exploration, explorations will result in failures. If you do not have a tolerance for failures, you won’t succeed.

Comfort with Ambiguity: A critical trait for a CEO is the ability to navigate ambiguity—being comfortable moving forward into the future when the next steps or final outcomes cannot be precisely calculated [46:18].

The Danger of Purely Monetary Motivation: Building a company is an incredibly painful and challenging process. If money is the sole motivator, entrepreneurs will likely regret the experience; real longevity requires passion for the cause and the process of building [01:01:42].

Money is the only singular reason not to start a company.

The two most important things for building a company:

1. Great people.

   As a CEO, selecting people is 99% of the job.

2. Deep focus.

   Focus. Laser beam focus. Don’t do too much. Do a few things well. Do them with extraordinary intensity.

As a CEO, you’re either making money, saving money, or raising money.

https://youtu.be/cEg8cOx7UZk

One of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations, and I mean that. Most Stanford graduates have very high expectations, and you deserve high expectations because you come from a great school, you were very successful, you are on top of you class. Obviously, you were able to pay for tuition, and you’re graduating from one of the finest institutions on the planet. You are surrounded by other kids that are just incredible. You naturally have very high expectations. [However,] people with very high expectations have very low resilience. And unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don’t know how to teach it to you, except [to say], “I hope suffering happens to you.” I was fortunate that I grew up with parents who provided conditions for us to be successful on the one hand, but there were [also] plenty of opportunities for setbacks and suffering. To this day, I use the phrase “pain and suffering” inside our company with great glee, and I mean that [in a happy way], because you want to train and refine the character of your company. You want greatness out of them, and greatness is not intelligence as you know; greatness comes from character, and character isn’t formed out of smart people, it’s formed out of people who suffered. So, if I could wish upon you—I don’t know how to do it—but for all of you Stanford students, I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.

https://youtu.be/8Pfa8kPjUio

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Zero-Billion-Dollar Markets

A zero-billion-dollar market is one that doesn’t exist yet. Put another way, there are neither competitors nor customers because no one has considered it or dared to invest in it. This approach is risky because the results aren’t guaranteed, but they may be very lucrative if they succeed. ¹

“I’d rather be a market maker, market creator than a market taker. [It] is a good way to cause the company to think about how to go create something for the first time.”

There’s a phrase that said, “You should choose your career based on your passion.” And usually, people connect passion with happiness. I think there is something missing in that. Nothing there is wrong, but there’s something missing. […] When you’re doing something that’s not easy to do, you’re not always enjoying it. I don’t love every day of my job. I don’t think every day brings me joy nor does joy have to be the definition of a good day. And every day, I’m not happy. Every year I’m not happy about the company, but I love the company every single second. So I think that what people misunderstand is somehow the best jobs are the ones that bring you happiness all the time. I don’t think that that’s right. You have to suffer. You have to struggle. You have to endeavor. You have to do those hard things and work through it in order to really appreciate what you’ve done. There are no such things that are great that were easy to do. So by definition, I would say therefore I wish upon you greatness, which by my way of saying it, I wish upon you plenty of pain and suffering.

https://youtu.be/-qXDdToZHzE?t=3197s

Qualities for Success

The ability to make sacrifices, endure pain and suffering, you will need these qualities in life.

The Story from the Kyoto Moss Gardener

I used to work from one of our international sites for one month each summer. When our kids were in their teens, we spent a summer in Japan. For a weekend, we visited Kyoto and the Silver Temple. If you haven’t had a chance to go, you must. It’s renowned for its exquisite moss garden.

The day we visited was quintessential Kyoto summer day, suffocatingly hot and humid, sticky. Heat is radiating from the ground. The air was thick, still. Along with the other tourists, we wandered through the meticulously groomed moss garden. And I noticed the lone gardener.

Now, remember, the moss garden, this is the Silver Temple, the moss garden is gigantic. It’s about the size of this courtyard. And it has the collection, the largest collection of just about apparently every species of moss in the world. And it’s just exquisitely maintained. I noticed the lone gardener squatting, carefully picking at the moss with a bamboo tweezer and putting it in the bamboo basket.

And you have to, it’s a bamboo tweezer, you know, and it’s just this one gardener. And the basket looked empty. Well, for a moment there, I thought he was picking imaginary moss into a pile of imaginary dead moss. And so I walked up to him and I said, what are you doing? And in his English, he said, “I’m picking dead moss. I’m taking care of my garden.”

And I said, “But your garden is so big.” And he responded, “I have cared for my garden for 25 years. I have plenty of time.” Well, that was one of the most profound learnings in my life. And it really taught me something. This gardener has dedicated himself to his craft and doing his life’s work. And when you do that, you have plenty of time.

Plenty of Time

I begin each morning, I do every single morning exactly the same way, I begin each morning by doing my highest priority work first. I have a very clear priority list and I start from the highest priority work first. Before I even get to work, my day is already a success. I’ve already completed my most important work and can dedicate my day to helping others. And when people apologize for interrupting me, I always say, ‘I have plenty of time,’ and I do.

Setbacks & Superpowers

I hope you will see setbacks as new opportunities. Your pain and suffering will strengthen your character, your resilience and agility, and they are the ultimate superpowers. Of all of the things that I value most about my abilities, intelligence is not top of that list. My ability to endure pain and suffering, my ability to work on something for a very, very long period of time, my ability to handle setbacks and see the opportunity just around the corner I consider to be my superpowers, and I hope they’re yours.

Find Your Craft

And I hope you find a craft. I hope you find a craft. It’s not important to decide on day one, it’s not even important to decide any time soon, but I hope you do find a craft, that you want to dedicate your lifetime to perfecting, to hone the skills of, and let it be your life’s work.

Prioritize Your Life

Prioritize your life. There’re so many things going on, there’re so many things to do, but prioritize your life and you will have plenty of time to do the important things.

https://youtu.be/z8cAXOys3bI?t=47m49s

The best career advice I got was from a gardener. I was on a family trip, we were in Kyoto, and many of you probably went to the temple that had the largest Moss collection in the world. The yard, the garden, the moss garden is incredible—all of the moss is perfect, every species of the world’s moss is there. And it was a hot summer day, and anybody who’s been to Kyoto knows how incredibly hot it is during the summer. They’re in a valley; it’s hot, it’s humid, there’s no wind, no breeze, and it is insanely hot. And all of the tourists were walking by, and my family walked by this old man that was on his, squatted down, working on the moss. And I walked by, and I noticed he was using a bamboo tweezer, and his bamboo basket was nearly empty—there were only two or three small pieces of dead moss. And I asked him what are you doing, and he says he is taking care of his garden, his English was perfect. And I asked him how long he’s been working there, he said he’s been working there for almost 30 years, and he said that this is his garden. And I asked him, “But this garden is so big, and your tweezer and your basket is so small, how can you take care of the whole garden?” And he said something that is perfect, he said, “I have plenty of time.” And in fact, that’s the best career advice I can give you. Most of the time I wait for things to come to me, I rarely chasing things, I don’t have a watch, I’m focused on now. […] And so dedicate yourself to learning all the time, doing the best possible work you can, leave everything on the field. You know, by the time I get home I am exhausted, by the time I go to bed I’m exhausted, and I’m happy about my day because I did everything I could. And you’ll be surprised, I’m not at all ambitious. I don’t aspire to do more, I aspire to do better at what I’m currently doing. I’m not reaching for more, I wait for the world to come to me. And so I know it sounds exactly the opposite of a career advice, and look, people who know me also knows Nvidia doesn’t have a long-term strategy, we have no long-term plan. Our definition of a long-term plan is, you know, what are we doing today. I know that it’s almost counter your career strategy, but the advice that he gave me was a very good one. And you know, you have plenty of time, enjoy your work, do the best you possibly can, and just keep learning every day. Good things will come to you.

https://youtu.be/oi89u6q0_AY

[13:06] 坦誠面對錯誤，謙卑尋求幫助，是聰明與成功人士最難學會的。

叢林生存法則：Ask for help. Retreat. Run.

[19:57] Strategic retreat, sacrifice, deciding what to give up is at the core, the very core of success.

[21:08] Run, don’t walk! Remember: Either you’re running for food, or running from becoming food. And oftentimes, you can’t tell which. Either way, run.

https://www.youtube.com/live/FOzcVNvitnI

EIOFS = Early Indicator of Future Success

“I want our company not to worry about the results, but to worry about doing the right things that lead to results. Play the game, not the scores. 2 I would prefer that our company challenges itself more. Discover unknown things. Do things that no one else has ever done before. And be willing to fail. Be willing to learn along the way. […] So I created a system called Early Indicator of Future Success. Don’t worry about future success. Worry about the early indicators of future success. So what are some of the things of early indicators? You decide for yourself. What are the early indicators that you believe will lead to future success? And that’s why our company focuses on that. We don’t let somebody else decide for us what’s the definition of success. We create ourselves.”

主持人：NVIDIA’s stock hits new high recently. So does your value (身價). What does that mean to you?

“Absolutely nothing. I was trying to think about a good answer. But I still wake up at the same time. I still work the same way. Eat the same thing. I love all the same things. I love all the same people. Nobody treats me any different. And I still have a mountain of work in front of me. So nothing has changed. I think that’s probably one of the great things about our company, and one of the good habits that I have—irrespective of adversity or failure. I pick up and go back to work the next day just the same way.”

https://youtu.be/emUT9pEjf3A?t=2889c

On “Core Leadership Values”

At the core, NVIDIA’s mission and my vision is one and the same. It’s to make a contribution to build things that are incredibly hard to do, that no one else in the world is doing or can do. And if unlikely chances that we succeed, that we make a real contribution, we change the world in some better way. That is at the core of everything that we do. Everything that we do is hard. That’s why it took 30 years. Robotics, 10. Self-driving cars, 10. Quantum computing, 5. Digital biology, 10. The list goes on.

I think the way to think through that is what is possible. It’s important that the CEO chooses endeavors that are nearly possible. And for me, nearly possible is about 10 years. If I can achieve something and make it mainstream within 10 years, it’s time for us to really go and pursue it. I like the 10-year horizon for success. And it gives me many chances to go and learn and iterate. In order to do that, 10 years out, you need to be able to see around corners, connect dots, and have an imagination about what the 10 years from now looks like.

And after that, you just have to re-evaluate your reasons. You know, I double-check my assumptions all the time, continuously. Because my assumptions and the principles by which I arrive at certain strategies or conclusions or directions, those things are really fundamental. So I have to go back and re-evaluate continuously. And if it’s true, and I believe what I believe, then there’s no reason to change, just keep pursuing it.