DailyPost 2894
“PRESSURE COOKER” WORK CULTURE
Far away from the world of work life balance, my-time / family time, of work with pleasure, working for passion and working on one’s terms and conditions, is an enterprise which boasts of “pressure cooker culture”. Why do we even want to discuss such an enterprise? It is all what the management world has never professed. The enterprise in question has been the fastest growing IT behemoth in the last two years breaking all records. Not only that, it seems destined to be at the forefront of the AI revolution.
It is the brain behind our digital devices and is gaining even more prominence in the AI age. We are talking about the compute powerhouse and the company leading the world is none other than Nvidia Corp. While the world celebrates its success and rightly so, many now have started talking about its work culture, not akin to what we know, think and feel of the IT enterprises. Success does not come easy. Perseverance is the key. There is no need to work for a standard work culture acceptable to one and all. You devise the work culture of your organization and see it through. Seeing it through is the touchstone, otherwise culture or no culture, how does it matter.
As the story goes, Nvidia employees are turning into multi-millionaires, but they barely have time to enjoy the high salary the graphic chipmaker pays them. The company has a high-stress and grueling work environment. The company is led by now legendary billionaire co-founder and CEO Jenseng Huang. What is really fascinating is that a company that propagates and practices contrarian work culture, Nvidia reported a 2.7% turnover rate in fiscal 2024, which is much lower than the semiconductor industry average of 17.7%. One former employee said it was like being in a “pressure cooker.”
One more ex-employee said he was expected to work seven days a week with no offs, often as late as 1 am or 2 am. It has been said that tempers often flare up at Nvidia meetings. Some talk about the toxic work culture but with “golden handcuffs”. Meetings can even extend to 7 to 10 in a day. Huang said that he prefers to “torture” his employees “into greatness” instead of firing them. This is because he believes in them. He feels that coaches who believe in their teams, torture them to greatness. Oftentimes they are so close to greatness, they need to clinch it. Might be this is the only way or so it seems.
A CONTRARIAN WORK CULTURE IS PROPELLING THE WORLD LEADER IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMPUTING.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.