Comment by MuffinFlavored | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MuffinFlavored | Hacker News Reader

> He told the interviewers that the "superpower of an entrepreneur" is facing enormous tasks and asking themselves, "How hard can it be?"

I get how it could be possible to be stuck can be on the hamster wheel asking yourself this question over and over for a lifetime chasing fulfillment.

However, the guy is worth $35b+...

> If the above sounds somewhat negative, Huang's tone in this part of the interview isn't really regretful but more like an impassive observer. He wouldn't willingly follow the whole journey again, saying, "I think it's too much. It is just too much." He references feelings like pain, suffering, shame, and embarrassment.

I don't doubt there was fear of failure along the way/close calls, lots of risk and potential/actual cases for shame, etc.

I just don't get why he isn't speaking from a position of fulfillment... it's ironic obviously. Why discuss shame when you have so much success to point to?

Then again, if he would've said "There were times I felt shame along the way but overall it's been amazing and I'd totally do it again", we wouldn't be here reading the article/headline/comments about it...

Reading between the lines, he’s saying his personality isn’t the type to work super hard to make super money. In other words, maybe he could have just been a high level engineer making $300k somewhere and been super happy minus the stress of creating Nvidia.

It’s not a general statement. He’s not giving advice.

That's a lot of words to express "cognitive dissonance." I'm pretty sure you know exactly why "he isn't speaking from a position of fulfillment" -- you know very well that he is a human being much like yourself, and despite "the guy is worth $35b+" he puts his pants on one leg at a time much like yourself.

Your problem is you cannot conceive that once upon a time he had no more than you. But now he is in a different place. Can you not conceive how and why you would get there yourself? Because if you did, I'm pretty sure you'd phrase this comment in a different manner.

> he puts his pants on one leg at a time much like yourself

Who are these people who don't know how to put on pants while sitting on a floor/bed/chair/etc.?

> Who are these people who don't know how to put on pants while sitting on a floor/bed/chair/etc.?

That is a great point about the neologism. If you're sitting down you can put your pants on two legs at a time. However, there's something quite "everyman" about putting your pants on standing up, because you can do it anywhere.

Inside a bathroom? One pants leg at a time. Getting kicked out of someone else's home barely clothed because "someone else" got home? One leg at a time, albeit at a quicker pace. True, putting on pants two legs at a time from a sitting position is ideal, but it is a luxury.

> Inside a bathroom? One pants leg at a time

I imagine one might be in a sitting position there as well.

If you're inside a private one? Absolutely. Inside a stall? Danger ahoy. Don't ask me how I know.

Presumably still with the pants on their legs in that scenario.

Your problem is you cannot conceive that once upon a time he had no more than you.

Generally speaking people who end up super rich do have more than most people when they start. It's much easier to go from rich to super rich than it is to go from poor to super rich.

> Generally speaking

Why are you saying the word "generally" when you know, or should know, that the specific person is Jensen Huang, whose biography you could easily look up [1]?

It makes no sense to say "It's much easier to go from rich to super rich than it is to go from poor to super rich" when you're talking about someone who obviously grew up poor -- except to make a pet point that is completely inapplicable to the subject at hand.

It's fine to want to make it but I think you'd get more mileage from that point if you placed it in a discussion about a more applicable subject personality.

[1] https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3442

AMD and LSI Logic probably paid OK.

MSEE from Stanford though... so he probably had student loan debt. ;-)

Generally speaking most content on the internet is spam so I am downvoting yours.

Maybe there is still more of his East Asian cultural roots in him than people think? It can basically just be part of being politely humble in those sensitivities. Glorifying oneself or one’s in-group is generally not well accepted across East Asia afaik.

> It can basically just be part of being politely humble in those sensitivities.

Saying "if I could take it all back and undo all of the success I've achieved and lives I've touched, I wouldn't do it because it wasn't worth it" seems a bit more than politely humble to me.

Have you not followed nvidia? He literally makes himself the center of attention at all times.

Any new announcement features a video of him making the announcement. They’re more CEO focused than Jobs lead Apple was.

Seems silly to pay a talking head to do the communication, when you have the author itself to communicate the message.

And if the author is particularly respected and well spoken, even more silly to not squeeze that asset for all its juice

> However, the guy is worth $35b+...

That on its own seems like a very mixed blessing.

On one hand, you never have to worry about money.

On the other hand, you will always have to worry about your money.

Either way, essentially what he seems to be saying is that it wasn't really worth it. After all, $35b isn't really what makes life worth living for most of us.

???

I have less than a billion dollars, and yet I worry about money a lot.

Curious.

So you think if you had a billion dollars you'd worry about money less?

You'd just worry about different aspects of money. How not to lose what you have, how you will be constantly approached by grifters, how to keep yourself and your family safe.

Different issues, but still worry and still about money. IMO once you're past a certain level it's a lot more about mindset than about what you actually have, right up until you truly stand out from the crowd.

Do you think you can "just" live a normal life with a billion dollars?

Being poor sucks and being rich is nice, but being ultra-rich like that is a bit like being a popstar, where things like going out to a shopping centre or having a normal social life become impossible.

Is success necessarily happy or fulfilling? There’s a lot of evidence that this isn’t the case.

Indeed, to achieve that kind of success sacrifices have to be made along the way; whether in health, friendships or your morals. Some of those choices you may not have been willing to make looking back knowing the full consequences of your actions.

Not really. Perhaps he would have sacrificed those anyway at any other job. So he became such CEO regardless.

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