Notes from Tae Kim's "The Nvidia way" book.
Antonio Elena
Cloud Architecture | Technology Leadership | Digital | Software Engineering | Innovation --- Occasionally I write about things that pique my interest
This was a very entertaining read, which I truly recommend, not only for the interest of the stories in chip design and the competition in the industry, or for learning about the history of this company, the stages, growth pains and near-death experiences it went through - or the fascinating technological breakthroughs - but also for the culture and lessons on leadership and strategy from its world-famous CEO, Jensen Huang. Incidentally, Jensen is the longest-standing CEO in the tech industry, and Nvidia is very much him, which poses some succession planning question, but that's not the topic here.
These are some of the notes and ideas that resonated with me. I recommend, however, taking some hours to read the book to learn the lessons from the culture against complacency, the deliberate organizational design to fight atrophy, the strategic decisions, the engineering mindset technical drive of the company, Jensen's very own engineering mindset and management and leadership style, and the role of luck as well sometimes.
Personal principles
- 🗝️ "I can tolerate a lot of discomfort." - That's something many of us can't probably say, or endure without much whining. You should read Jensen's very humble start in the book. This is how you build character and greatness, from the struggle to persevere in the face of setbacks.
- 🗝️ "People with very high expectations have very low resilience. Unfortunately, resilience matters in success.” - This is probably one of the sentences that have struck me the most and I think it says a lot about our the current mindset and Zeitgeist of our society. Also a good point to remind oneself of periodically.
- "to find satisfaction in the quality of the work, no matter how minor the task"
- "Intellectual honesty": Tell the truth, acknowledge failure, be willing to move forward and learn from past mistakes.
Leadership
- "The mission is the boss", the work, not the hierarchy, the processes or the bureaucracy
- Hard work and resilience > intelligence and genius. - I'd would say, however, it is a winning combination; for this kind of long-distance success you need the foundation on the latter with the grit of the former, or you would not cut it. The intelligence without the sheer will will not take you there.
- 🗝️ The "Top-5 Email" tool, short emails with 5 bullet points where the first word of each is an action word. Jensen is looking to detect weak signals here and tap into the entire organization as if it were an protraction of his own nervous system, connecting to everyone who is in the trenches. He is said to read a hundred of these daily.
- LUA, which apparently Jensen utters when getting impatient. LUA stands for "Listen to the question. Understand the question. Answer the question", which is a simple and useful tool to get the discussion back on track. Pay attention because the matter at hand is important and precision matters.
- The ability to bluntly and candidly say "Let me tell you your failure there"
- The constant drive to not only diversify, but also the vision to create markets
- 🗝️ You don't bullshit your way. You admit you don't know, then you diligently correct that and make sure to be more prepared in the future. Again, this is an old principle that I always try to follow. Admitting you don't know is better than trying to fool others.
Organizational culture
- 🗝️ No PowerPoint but Whiteboards everywhere and for everything ("whiteboarding culture"). "A whiteboard is only as useful as the person who holds the marker. It can reflect genius, but it cannot create it." In a certain way, this also reminded me of Amazon's memo technique in that both are waaaay preferrable to PowerPoint, where any flavour of "reality" can be painted and taken at face value.
- "Speed of light" execution - improve performance to the absolute limits, do not compare with and bask in the laurels of the past. Each task of the project based on a time to completion that assumes no downtime. If you are able to reach this, it is a formidable barrier against competitors.
- Unusual independence for each employee combined with the highest possible standards (max speed, max quality). This can only be possible with the extreme commitment and intense work ethics the book details.
- The antidote to the backstabbing, to the gaming of metrics, and to political infighting is public accountability and, if needed, public embarrassment. Quoting the man himself, "I give you feedback in front of everybody, Feedback is learning. For what reason are you the only person who should learn this? You created the conditions because of some mistake you made or silliness that you brought upon yourself. We should all learn from that opportunity" 🔥
- 🗝️ Pilot-in-command accountability model - there is always a single name in charge, which in turn makes more efficient the public critique exercises (this is related to the previous point)
- 🗝️ "We don’t waste time finding excuses for why things don’t work. We move on." / "Nothing stays, nothing festers You answer and move on." - but you make sure learning happens at scale with the public feedback!
- "Hire someone smarter than yourself." - While this is hardly something new, and is "old" advice is still advice many find hard to follow, so it merits remembering as a culture principle.
- "Praise is a distraction. And the deadliest sin of all is looking back at your past accomplishments as if they will protect you from future threats. "
- "Be frugal with employee time and company resources."
- "Positioning is not about the product itself but rather about the mind of the customer"
- "No one loses alone", speak up, get help, do not hide under the carpet (and then learn)
Operational
- "Three teams, two seasons" - where multiple design teams develop new chips in parallel, ensuring fresh product releases about every six months, something which is a feat in the world of chip design and manufacturing.
- "The number one feature of any product is schedule"
- Know when it is time to "quit polishing the turd"
- "You want a company that's as large as necessary to do the job well, but to be as small as possible."
- "Strategy is not words, strategy is action. We don’t do a periodic planning system. The reason for that is because the world is a living, breathing thing. We just plan continuously. There’s no five-year plan."
Other articles commenting the book
You might find these useful to complement these quick notes, short of reading the book yourself.