Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says he’s created more billionaires than any CEO in the world: ‘Don’t feel sad for anybody at my layer’

“I’ve created more billionaires on my management team than any CEO in the world,” Huang said recently during a panel hosted by venture capitalists running the All-In podcast. “They’re doing just fine.”

Tech leaders at Meta, OpenAI, and Google are now also shelling out to attract top AI experts—with Meta even attempting to poach OpenAI employees with $100 million signing bonuses, according to leader Sam Altman. With the AI race being so hot, chief executives are reaping billion-dollar net worth gains from their company’s rising stock valuation, begging the question of whether their staffers are getting in on the pot of gold too. But Huang asserts that his employees are well-rewarded for Nvidia’s success.

“Don’t feel sad for anybody at my layer,” Huang said. “My layer is doing just fine.”

In fact, Huang noted that he personally reviews all employee compensation to ensure staffers’ wallets are stuffed. While he said the rumor that he has a stash of stock options on deck “is nuts,” he does confirm that he bumps wages every year to keep Nvidia workers happy. 

“I review everybody’s compensation up to this day,” Huang said. “I sort through all 42,000 employees, and 100% of the time I increase the company’s spend on [operating expenses]. And the reason for that is because you take care of people, everything else takes care of itself.”

Fortune reached out to Huang for comment. 

Huang’s loves a small, well-paid team of AI geniuses—and ‘tortures’ them into greatness

Nvidia employs tens of thousands of people—but having a small, nimble, well-funded AI team may be the ticket to the top. Huang emphasized that DeepSeek and Moonshot AI both have relatively slim AI crews, yet have capitulated to great business success. 

“150 or so AI researchers can probably, with enough funding behind them, create an OpenAI,” Huang said during the panel. “OpenAI was about 150 people, [as well as] Deepmind. They’re all about that size. There’s something about the elegance of small teams.”

Once talent manages to get onto the lean-and-mean AI team at Nvidia, they have to reckon with Huang’s cutthroat culture. Current and former staffers have described an “always-on” expectation, with one ex-employee saying she attended seven to 10 meetings every day, where fighting and shouting was common. The CEO’s grindset has clearly bled into the way staffers approach their work, and Huang’s leadership strategy entails pushing workers to the brink. But he isn’t willing to give up and fire people if they can’t do the job at hand, because he always thinks “they could improve.” 

“I’d rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you,” Huang said during a fireside chat with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison last year. While the CEO said he was being “tongue-in-cheek,” he doubled down: “I think coaches that really believe in their team torture them into greatness.”

And there’s an upside for working long hours and sitting through tense meetings—Nvidia employees get special compensation perks. The tech company allows employees to contribute up to 15% of their salaries to buy up company shares at a 15% discount. One mid-level employee even reportedly bought in for 18 years, and retired with shares worth $62 million. It’s a deal that’s so lucrative that it’s become “golden handcuffs” for many staffers who can’t bear the thought of losing the perk. In 2023, Nvidia had a 2.7% turnover rate, compared to 17.7% in the semiconductor industry at large. 

As Huang said in an interview with 60 Minutes last year: “If you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn’t be easy.”