What NVIDIA’s CEO Taught Me About Diligence

And how I’ve decided to apply his insights to my own work.

Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s Co-founder and CEO. Photo by Press Information Bureau, Government of India. Via Wikimedia Commons. All rights belong to their respective owners.

To think back now, how I even came across this news was wasteful and stupid. I could have been thinking instead of just acting. You see, my Google feed greeted me with a very interesting headline, a headline that instantly made me tap on the article from Fortune. Thank the gods I didn’t waste time dawdling.

In it, the words of Jensen Huang, the celebrated CEO of the celebrated SoC manufacturer NVIDIA, immediately put me to shame. Here, let me quote them for you:

“I work from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. I work seven days a week.”

Yes, it sounds like what every CEO says. But there’s more…

When I’m not working, I’m thinking about working… I sit through movies, but I don’t remember them because I’m thinking about work.”

These lines just clenched my butthole, caused my heart to skip a few beats, and made my stomach rumble from embarrassment. You and I—the overpaid, apparently smart working, self-proclaimed skilled workers constantly vying for work-life balance—can never comprehend the tenacity, the diligence, and the willpower of someone like Huang. When Narayana Murthy was clamouring for a 70-hour work week in India, I never realized that this is what he meant.

I mean, look at me. In writing this piece so far, I haven’t even given a single thought to my work. My incompetent brain failed to think about anything other than the words I’m penning down. Tch! Waste of time and of life.

It was this moment, therefore, that I decided to walk a new path. The reformations I’m bringing to myself are definitely going to help you. Heed these three tenets of hard work, dear reader, and don’t squander any second of your life.

Tenet #1 – Think About Work, Always

This is a no-brainer. Actually, no, scratch that. It is an all-brainer. You need to always be thinking about work. From the moment you wake up to the moment you dream, it should only be about work. Only then will you ever be able to build an empire that stands at $4.2 trillion.

You see, most of the time, I used to think of work, but I never reported it. However, it changes now:

• Waking up, the first thought has to be on how I can make my marketing copy wake the readers up to my client’s offering.

• While peeing, my copy has to align with the release of all negative doubts any customers might have.

• When brushing, my copy similarly has to clean away the competitor voices and leave the client’s product sparkling even in low light.

And all this is not limited to bodily functions.

Watching a movie? I noticed how Lex Luthor was persistent in his hate towards Superman. I now have the inspiration to keep hammering the same tone until the ad ignites in the customer’s mind.

Watching a series? I was blown away by Eleven’s telekinesis powers used to spy on Russians. If I am to rigorously channel my thoughts, I too might be able to get an upper hand over competitors and their copywriters.

Every time I think about creating an ad copy for my client, I’ll definitely chalk it up to thinking costs and add it to my bill. After all, the pros like Huang in the business label their thoughts about work as actual work. So why shouldn’t I?

Tenet #2 – No Time to Live

Life is such a wasteful pursuit. Even more so if you have a family. If you find yourself constantly worrying about your parents, spouse, kids, or pets, you’ll never make it big enough to be reported on by Fortune magazine.

So starting now, let’s make work the only life you want to balance in your everyday pursuits. For everything else, delegate!

• Your parents have a scheduled hospital visit? Hire a chauffeur.

• Your wife needs to shop in M&S? Hire a chauffeur and a female assistant.

• Your husband needs to go play golf? Hire a chauffeur and a female assistant.

• Your kids need to be dropped off at school? Hire a chauffeur and a female assistant.

• Your spouse wants to have an office fling? No need to hire anyone. Their workplace HR will take care of it.

Once you have the right chauffeurs and female assistants in place (or males, or non-binary—whatever their orientation, it doesn’t matter), you’ll find yourself with copious time to think about work during movies, game shows, business lunches, and even when you’re making love. Just make sure the latter is with someone who works in your organization. Then you can two-time at it!

Tenet #3 – Dream and Do, Don’t Just Fantasize

Let me lend some credence to this section by once again quoting Huang from that Fortune article.

“Sometimes you’re imagining the future. And, boy, if we did this and that. It’s working, you’re fantasizing, you’re dreaming.”

Do you daydream, too? Do you aimlessly wander in maladaptive thoughts of what could have been? Stop right now. If even a pint of your dreams is about success, just do it.

You want to make your company an AI powerhouse?

• Tell your investors to put their money where your dream is and go big.

• Make everyone, even the janitor of your organization, dream of and physically grind hardcore.

• Forget 9-to-5. It’s 0-to-0, seven days a week. And this applies to everyone under you.

• Force the burnt-out weaklings out. Bring the AI in. After all, a machine doesn’t need breaks for bodily functions. And AI models can surely hallucinate.

• Make sure the HR head doesn’t waste time going to Coldplay concerts. Unless, of course, they go with you. Even then, dreams should be turned into actions.

Dream. Grind. Rinse. Repeat. There is no alternative to this strategy.

But What About the Money?

Are you thinking so, too? Honestly? There’s no media literacy these days. Did you not read the first section?

If you always think of work, and if you make sure to report all your thoughts and claim proper compensation for them, then you’ll have plenty of wealth to bootstrap points 2 and 3.

And once all this is in place, all you have to do is sit back on an island for your vacation, watch your company’s stocks climb billions in profit, and… think! Think about work again so that you can make your company a trillion-dollar enterprise.

No rest for the wicked.