Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Personally Reviews Staff Bonuses
Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang is busy running the world's most valuable company. But he still has time to review payroll.
On a recent panel episode of "The All-In Podcast," Huang was asked about the rumors of a secret pool of options that he doles out to employees. "If somebody does a great job, you drop a bunch of RSUs on top of them, and you have this little bag of options you carry around. Is that true?" one of the hosts asked. (RSUs, or restricted stock units, are a form of employee compensation, usually performance-based, and issued through a vesting plan and distribution schedule.)
"That's nuts," Huang responded. "Yeah, I'm carrying in my pocket right now."
Related: Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang Says He's 'Created More Billionaires' Than Anyone Else — Adding Two More This Week
Although Huang denied that's how it goes down at Nvidia HQ, he did offer more insight into his day-to-day.
"So listen, so this is what happens," Huang explained. "I review everybody's compensation up to this day. At the end of every cycle, when they present it, and they send me everybody's recommended comp. I go through the whole company."
Jensen Huang, Co-Founder and CEO of Nvidia, speaks onstage at the All-In and Hill & Valley Forum "Winning The AI Race" at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on July 23, 2025, in Washington, DC.for Hill & Valley Forum
Of course, he uses machine learning to make it faster.
"I've got my methods of doing that, and I use machine learning," Huang said. "I do all kinds of technology, and I sort through all 42,000 employees, and 100% of the time I increase the company's spend on [operational expenditures]."
Related: AI Will Create More Millionaires in the Next 5 Years Than the Internet Did in 2 Decades, According to Nvidia's CEO
Nvidia has at least six billionaires working there, including longtime directors and executives, per Bloomberg. It's also full of "semi-retired" millionaires who still clock into the office daily.
In the interview, Huang also said that AI will mint more millionaires in the next five years than the Internet did in two decades.
In July, the chip giant became the first ever company to cross a market value of $4 trillion. It currently sits at $4.477 trillion.
"If you take care of people," Huang said, "everything else takes care of itself."
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00:00 We're getting red lines crossing right now across the Bloomberg. This is a Bloomberg scoop that at the same time, or at least shortly after what we heard from President Trump, China has, in fact, been urging its own companies not to use Nvidia's H20 chips in new guidance. This, again, is according to bloomberg reporting. I've got more details on this. So China has put out notices to a number of state owned and private companies urging them to avoid using these h t H20 processors These were the ones, of course, initially banned by the president, President Trump and his administration before, again, we got the news yesterday that Nvidia could start selling them into the Chinese market if they get 15% of those revenues to the US Treasury. Over the past few weeks, according to Bloomberg reporting, Chinese authorities have sent notices to a range of firms discouraging the use of less advanced semiconductors. This, again, according to people familiar with the matter Minmin. This is a response from China. It firms up what we expected would have been signals from state media and state media affiliated blogs yesterday suggesting that China has concerns about national security risks that they claim are associated with some of these chips. They have suggested there are backdoors, for example, in some of these Nvidia chips. Certainly that has been a concern that's been flagged. And now we have confirmation that China has been sending out official notices. How significant is this? Yeah, definitely very significant timing as well. Very significant coming on the day when President Trump had announced the extension of the trade truce. And we know China had been pushing so hard for the rolling back of these tight curbs. And clearly China doesn't see the reversal of the decision to sell h-20 chips to China as a win or a concession at all. And this comes as US officials have been publicly calling for the installation of these location tracking capabilities in the chips that are being sold to China. You add to that H20 isn't even the most advanced chips that the US has. And so China had repeatedly through its state media, signaled that it's opposed to these sort of backdoor to the US government and also saying that the 820 chips are not the most efficient chips out there. It remains to be seen whether or not this the sale of the black well line of products because it's more at bonds. Whether that is enough to appease Beijing to put aside some of these security concerns because of course the US side and President Trump has shown a willingness to put aside national security concerns for a price if NVIDIA pays them. You know, 15% of the China sales revenue they had been open to sell those two to issue those export licenses for the H20 chips. Now, of course, the big question is, you know, is Chip still at the center of this trade tussle between the two sides? Will China still want any of the chips that US can offer? If this security concerns are not addressed? That's a big question. And, of course, China will likely continue to pour in more resources to double down on its self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Push.
