Jensen Huang Says He Works Every Day, Driven by Fear of Failure Despite Nvidia’s Massive Success

Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang revealed in a recent interview on The Joe Rogan Experience that he continues to work seven days a week, including holidays, despite steering the company to a $5 trillion market valuation and the title of the world’s most valuable publicly listed firm. The 62-year-old Taiwanese-American billionaire said he wakes up early every morning to check emails and has not taken a single day off in decades, describing himself as living in a permanent “state of anxiety.”

Huang attributed his relentless schedule to a deep-seated belief that Nvidia remains perpetually “30 days from going out of business,” a mindset he has maintained for the company’s entire 33-year history. “The sense of vulnerability, the sense of uncertainty, the sense of insecurity—it doesn’t leave you,” he explained, adding that fear of failure drives him far more powerfully than the desire for success or greed.

The Nvidia chief recalled a near-death experience in the mid-1990s when the company discovered fatal flaws in its first graphics chip being developed for Sega’s next console. With cash reserves dwindling, Huang personally flew to Japan to inform Sega’s CEO the product would not work and the contract had to be cancelled—then asked for the remaining $5 million payment anyway to keep Nvidia afloat. Sega ultimately converted the amount into equity, providing the lifeline that allowed the company to pivot and survive.

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Huang told Rogan that suffering is an essential part of the entrepreneurial journey and that he actively wishes “ample doses of pain and suffering” on young founders because it builds resilience and deeper appreciation for later success. “You will appreciate it so much more when things do go well,” he said.

Even his family has adopted the same work ethic: both of Huang’s children, Madison and Spencer (now in their thirties), interned at Nvidia after pursuing other careers and now work full-time at the company alongside their father. “Now we have three people working every day,” Huang laughed.

Despite Nvidia’s meteoric rise from a graphics-card startup to the backbone of the global AI revolution, Huang insisted the pressure has only intensified. “It’s exhausting,” he admitted, but the alternative—complacency and potential collapse—remains unthinkable for the man who still runs the world’s hottest tech company as if it could vanish tomorrow.

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