Jensen Huang: The tough boss of Nvidia who is 'exhausted all the time'

**Genevieve Woo** (0:04)
You're listening to a CNA Podcast.
Jensen Huang was born in Taiwan, grew up partly in Thailand, and moved to the US when he was nine. He's a poster boy of a successful American immigration story. He is the co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, the world's most valuable company worth more than 5 trillion US dollars and counting. He identifies pretty much as an American. He speaks Taiwanese Hokkien and Mandarin, wears a now famous black leather jacket like a uniform, and draws rock star crowds everywhere from Silicon Valley to Taipei night markets.
To the US., he's the face of the AI boom. To Taiwan, he's a legend and a hero.
But behind the mythology is a man who says Nvidia nearly died several times before changing the world. I'm Genevieve Woo and our Senior Correspondent, Victoria Jen, scored a rare, long and a wide-ranging interview with Mr. Huang. Vick, let's start with your opinion about this larger-than-life personality. Was there a moment off camera, a comment or an observation that impressed you or stayed with you?
Well, to the media, Jensen is almost like a Santa Claus in a black leather jacket. He has that signature look. But more importantly, 他有問必答, he answers everything, and he's incredibly media savvy. You actually see many reporters staking out his hotel just to catch a glimpse of him. And when they do, he doesn't just wave and walk off. He chats, he engages, sometimes even hands out small snacks. He's also often seen at night markets here in Taiwan, just casually talking to vendors, taking photos, signing autographs. That's why people here call it a ren laifeng phenomenon or Jensen mania. Wherever he goes, there is this buzz and this excitement. Everyone wants to see him.
Well, he's like a, sounds like he's a very grounded kind of superhero, isn't he? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, of course, we have a million questions for a superhero like Jensen. And I'm thinking one of the biggest insights we want to hear from him is what he thinks about AI and job cuts, job losses, and that's creating a lot of anxiety and insecurities for workers global. How did he address that?
He was actually quite direct on this. He pushed back strongly against the idea that AI is already causing job losses. He said that the narrative is lazy, I quote, because AI has only just become useful recently, so it doesn't make sense to blame layoffs on AI. He thinks companies are using AI as an easy excuse, but at the same time, he didn't dismiss people's fears. His advice was very clear. Learn AI. Let's listen to what he has to say.

**Jensen Huang** (3:28)
And I think the narrative that connects AI to job loss, for many of the CEOs that are doing it, it is just too lazy. It's just too lazy. AI has just arrived. How is it possible they're already losing jobs? How is it possible that AI became productive and useful only six months ago? And they were somehow laying people off two years ago because of AI. It doesn't make any sense.
It was just a way for them to sound smart, and I really hate that.
I think we're scaring people, and that's irresponsible. I think we should tell a balanced story, a balanced narrative about the potential of this technology, the importance of advancing it safely, security, guardrail, with necessary social, political, government, industrial policies to ensure that it advances safely.

**Genevieve Woo** (4:26)
What do you say to people who are afraid of losing their jobs to AI?

**Jensen Huang** (4:31)
I would say to the people who are worried about losing their jobs to AI, to learn AI.
You're not going to lose your jobs to AI. You're going to lose your job to somebody who learned AI better than you. My point is, it's more likely that AI will elevate your job, elevate the purpose of your job if you became expert at it. Try to engage it, don't be afraid of it. Of course, the industry has to be really thoughtful about building AI in a safe way and a guardrail way, and make sure that it's deployed in a proper way, and that the end applications, whether it's in healthcare or transportation or manufacturing, or air travel or whatever it is that applies AI, those industries have lots of regulations already, and they should re-evaluate the regulations to be AI ready, to be AI prepared. So everybody has to be part of this.

**Genevieve Woo** (5:26)
You had an interesting question for Jensen. You asked him if AI is making or will make humans lazy in their thinking. Did he have a good response?