Seth Godin: The Dip - When to Quit (and When to Stick)

EPISODE 256

Join hosts Mike and Mark for a riveting new episode of the Moonshots Podcast, where they delve into the extraordinary leadership journey of Jensen Huang, the visionary co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA. Discover how Huang's innovative thinking and resilience have propelled NVIDIA to the forefront of the technology industry, shaping the future of AI, high-performance computing, and autonomous driving.
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Episode Highlights:
INTRO: The episode starts with a segment from 60 Minutes, showcasing the incredible power of NVIDIA and its influence on the future of AI.
- Clip: The future of AI (2m41)
FOUNDING NVIDIA: Travel back to 2009, when Jensen recalls NVIDIA's early days. Learn how the three founding members gave the company its legs and gain valuable insights into securing venture capital funding.
- Clip: The first six months (2m31)
LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS: Jensen Huang shares a profound perspective on the importance of suffering and resilience, hitting us with some hard truths about leadership and perseverance.
- Clip: Expectations versus resilience (1m40)
OUTRO: The episode concludes with Jensen offering his wisdom on our perception of time and how we can always make room for what truly matters.
- Clip: There’s always time (2m48)
About Jensen Huang:
Jensen Huang, born on February 17, 1963, in Taiwan, moved to the U.S. at age ten and pursued engineering, earning degrees from Oregon State University and Stanford University. Huang co-founded NVIDIA in 1993, and under his leadership, the first GPU was introduced in 1999, transforming NVIDIA into a leader in AI and high-performance computing. His philanthropic efforts and recognition, including a $50 million donation to Oregon State University and being named to the TIME 100 list, reflect his profound impact on technology and society.
About Moonshots Podcast:
Moonshots Podcast helps entrepreneurs become the best versions of themselves by overcoming self-doubt and shooting for the moon. We learn out loud, deconstructing the success of the world's greatest thinkers and entrepreneurs to apply their insights to our lives.
Transcript

00:00:04:25 - 00:00:32:09
Unknown
Hello and welcome to The Moonshots podcast. It's episode 256. I'm your co-host, Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by the man himself, Mr. Matt Pearson. Freeland. Good morning. Mark. Hey good morning Mike. Good morning listeners. Good morning members. Good morning viewers. I'd say, Mike, you and I have a drool dropping episode coming at all of our fans and moonshots family today, don't we?

00:00:32:11 - 00:01:00:16
Unknown
I would say we, wired for speed. We are ready to rock and roll. Don't you think? You know what? This is a super powered, supercomputer level episode today, Mike, we're diving into Jensen Huang, who founded Nvidia back in the early 90s. Mike. But we really leaning into some of those key insights that Jensen has put into his business along those 30 plus years.

00:01:00:16 - 00:01:30:17
Unknown
If you can believe it, into creating what nowadays is we all know is one of the most valuable businesses in the world, but also probably one of those businesses, Mike, that will continue growing year on year, month and month as the explosion of areas and industries like I continue to catapult themselves into public opinion. Yeah. You know, Huang's leadership we're going to lean into today, we're going to get some great business tips and insights and ideas.

00:01:30:19 - 00:02:01:20
Unknown
But just as an individual and a pioneer and an innovator, you know, we were talking about prior to the show, he's up there with Steve Jobs, isn't he? He really is. And I think we owe it to all of our listeners, viewers and members to highlight somebody who has for sure, embarked on his life's work, who has caught three distinct waves gaming Bitcoin and now generative AI.

00:02:01:22 - 00:02:34:15
Unknown
And he comes with a load of insights on how you can build for the long term. And the great news is he gives us a very explicit recipe. The bad news is there are some very moonshots, themes, Max hard work, grind, vision, things we have seen so consistently in the people and the superstars that we've studied. So if you want to know why Nvidia is one of the biggest, highest valued companies on the planet, we're about to give you the recipe to do it yourself.

00:02:34:15 - 00:02:55:20
Unknown
So plug in, get your espresso, get your notebook mark, let it is rock n roll. Let's do it. Let's shoot ourselves up to the moon, Mike, by leaning straight into a little bit of a scene setter. You know, we know that Nvidia must have been small at one point. Now obviously it's this trillion dollar business. So let's hear a great breakdown from 60 minutes.

00:02:55:22 - 00:03:41:11
Unknown
Who are going to provide us a brief introduction to Nvidia, as well as the future of AI. AI, only four companies in the world are worth more than $2 trillion Microsoft, Apple, alphabet, parent company of Google and computer chip maker Nvidia, the California based company, saw its stock market value soar from 1 trillion to $2 trillion in just eight months this past year, fueled by the insatiable demand for its cutting edge technology, the hardware and software that make today's artificial intelligence possible, we wondered how a company founded in 1993 to improve video game graphics turned into a titan of 21st century AI.

00:03:41:13 - 00:04:09:25
Unknown
So we went to Silicon Valley to meet Nvidia's 61 year old co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang, who has no doubt AI is about to change everything. Welcome to GTC. What was that like for you to walk out on that stage and see that? You know, Bill, I'm an engineer, not a performer. When I walked out there and all of the people going crazy, it took the breath out of me.

00:04:10:00 - 00:04:35:16
Unknown
And so I was the scariest I've ever been. I'm still scared. You'd never know it. Clad in his signature cool black outfit, Jensen shared the stage with Nvidia powered robots. Let me finish up real quick and shared his vision of an AI future, a new industrial revolution. It reminded us of the transformational moment when Apple's Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.

00:04:35:18 - 00:05:10:16
Unknown
Jensen Huang unveiled Nvidia's latest graphics processing unit, or GPU. This is Blackwell designed in America but made in Taiwan like most advanced semiconductors. Blackwell, he says, is the fastest chip ever. Google is gearing up for Blackwell. The whole industry is gearing up for Blackwell. Nvidia ushered in the AI revolution with its game changing GPU, a single chip able to process a myriad of calculations all at once, not sequentially, like more standard chips.

00:05:10:18 - 00:05:43:08
Unknown
The GPU is the engine of Nvidia's AI computer, enabling it to rapidly absorb a firehose of information. It does quadrillions of calculations a second. It's just insane numbers. Is it doing things now that surprise you? We're hoping that it does things that surprise us. That's the whole point. In some areas, like drug discovery or designing better materials that are lighter, stronger, we need artificial intelligence to help us explore the universe and places that we could have never done ourselves.

00:05:43:08 - 00:05:58:23
Unknown
Well, Mark, I think what he's clearly doing, the Jensen is saying. Be ready to be surprised. I think what's really opening up is if owning gaming was not enough.

00:05:58:25 - 00:06:47:12
Unknown
Crypto and bitcoin mining was not enough. He's like, oh, I got my next. I got my next act. It's generative AI and it makes you it makes you really put Jensen in a league, really up there with the likes of Steve Jobs, which they drew the analogy with, because, you know, Steve obviously revolutionized the design and interface of computers, but then went on to do iPod, iPhone, tablet, etc. so I think we're seeing something very similar in a, in a different category, these different chips with different jobs to be done, revolutionizing industries that really only 30, 40 years ago were very small gaming.

00:06:47:14 - 00:07:08:12
Unknown
Bitcoin didn't even exist, generative AI didn't exist, and now they're trillion dollar industries. That gives you a scale and it almost sets the scene, I think, for what we can learn from him as we go through the show, we're going to reveal how he did it. And how we can like, learn and understand that thinking and apply some of those, things.

00:07:08:12 - 00:07:37:10
Unknown
But unquestionably like, Mark, if I pose this question to you, do you think he's still got more tricks and more acts in his bag, or is he done with AI? What do you think? I think he's always going to have something. He's one eye on the future. Yeah. You know, we can see that this ability to pivot, the ability to adapt to different areas, different verticals, maybe becoming maybe more popular, like, say, with crypto, maybe with AI.

00:07:37:12 - 00:08:01:23
Unknown
I think regardless of his ability to almost predict what's going to happen next, what I think is really interesting and what we're going to find out in today's show, is having such a clear minded vision on the power of his business and where it can go, and the power of the products that they create enables him to be able to, almost direct the business into areas that maybe none of us saw coming.

00:08:01:25 - 00:08:27:03
Unknown
You know, we know that it's a chip manufacturer versus the businesses that we heard at the beginning of that clip. Alphabet, Facebook, you know, Apple, and then you've got a chip manufacturer, which is not necessarily traditionally publicly known. Yes. A household name. Yes. So his ability to kind of see. Right. Well, we are the power behind a lot of these businesses that you guys know.

00:08:27:05 - 00:08:47:19
Unknown
Well, good news for us. Right. And here's the other thing. Don't forget there was a little company called Intel. That was the last time you heard about them. Isn't that isn't that a strange comparison? I remember when I was growing up, you know, Intel would be on all of our TVs in the UK, big advertising campaigns and so on.

00:08:47:21 - 00:09:24:23
Unknown
But they seem to have disappeared when they're certainly not in the trillion dollar business bracket. Right? No they're not. And so that scale of disruption is even grander when you keep in mind there was Intel and he came along and he really turbo powered gaming cryptocurrency and bitcoin mining. And now he's at the heart of generative AI. Like if you think about your life's work and you can say you did one of those, you'd be happy, right?

00:09:24:25 - 00:09:43:00
Unknown
You'd be like, woo hoo! He's like, yeah, yeah, I got three and I got another three in my back pocket. If you're, if you're interested. Yeah, yeah. What? And what a fabulous opportunity for us to learn. And quite rightly, as you said, perhaps a company we're not quite as familiar with, like we are with, the metals in the apples.

00:09:43:00 - 00:10:09:08
Unknown
This is a bit more behind the scenes and deserving of lots of study and inquiry, because in the case of many of their peers, they are valued at a higher amount on the stock market. Their total market capitalization is greater than many of those companies we've mentioned. So I think it's like time to learn by now that seeing the scale of the achievement already and what is obviously to come.

00:10:09:10 - 00:10:33:22
Unknown
We've got a lot to learn. And I tell you, there are some people that are achieving every single day as members of the Moon podcast, and I think it is time for the famous tip of the hat, the blowing of the trumpets mark to embrace the members of our show. That's right. If Jensen Huang loves experimentation adaptability, we know that our members are exactly the same.

00:10:33:22 - 00:11:02:22
Unknown
So please, without further ado, all welcome in. Bob. Can Dietmar, Marge, Ancona, Rodrigo, Lisa and Sid. Mr.. Bonjour. Pool. Berg. Kalman. Joe. Christian. Samuel and Barbara. Chris, Deborah. Larsen, Steve. Craig, Ravi. Evert and Nicholas. Ingram, Dirk. Van. Carter. Marco. Jet. Roger, Steph. Rau, Netherland, Diana, Christophe, Denise, Laura and Smitty, all of whom all of you legends have been with us for over a year.

00:11:02:23 - 00:11:30:04
Unknown
Thank you so much for your continued support. We're so lucky and pleased and thankful to have you along with us on the moonshots journey. Close on the heels of annual members are Cori, Daniela, Mike and Dan, Antonio, Zachary, Austin and Fred, Jez and Ola. Andy and Diana. Margie, Chris and Ron. Thank you guys so much for your continued support and your continue curiosity in what makes a lot of these individuals and these businesses really tick, right, Mike?

00:11:30:06 - 00:11:52:21
Unknown
Totally. And we love your support. We love your curiosity. And we have a lot of hot topics coming. And if you want to dive in to some of those hot topics that are going to help you be the best version of yourself, head over to Moonshot Studio. Become a member and you'll get access to the Moon Master Series, a whole separate podcast just for you.

00:11:52:23 - 00:12:27:13
Unknown
So now let's turn ourselves to the beginning of the journey for Jensen, and some pivotal moments that reveal a lot about his story. Where shall we start, Mike. I think, Mike, we're going to go all the way back. We're going to get in our time machine. We're going to travel back to 2009, when Jensen is recalling a little bit about how the three founding members, of which he was obviously one of them back in 1993, founded Nvidia and how they, provided an experience getting a little bit of advice from VCs and what those first six months were that we never finished.

00:12:28:13 - 00:12:48:08
Unknown
a business plan, never could figure out how to finish a business plan. To tell you the truth. and, and if I, if I were to finish that book and I went to, went to borders and got, Gordon Bill's book, How to Start a High Tech Company, it's like this thick. If I would have read the whole thing, I would have been dead.

00:12:48:08 - 00:13:06:14
Unknown
Now we would have run out of money, ran out of time. And so I read. I read the first 3 or 4 chapters and I, you know, I got to go to work. And so, so I, incorporated the company they introduced us to, to venture capitalists. and I just went to their office and told them what I'd like to do.

00:13:06:25 - 00:13:32:18
Unknown
the thing that that gets the company funded. And when you're, when you get to that point, you just have to remember a few things. VCs don't invest in, in business plans because business plans are easy to write. I couldn't write it, but other people could write. And so. So, they invest in us. They invest in great people.

00:13:32:20 - 00:14:01:10
Unknown
And so that so the question is, is do they trust you? your reputation matters. Your history matters. because, because I had done so much work with them and Director Shane, which was another graduate of Stanford, of Stanford and the founder of sun, and, and worked with, the founders of synopses and also logic and, and, you know, we we were all very successful and we did good work.

00:14:02:25 - 00:14:28:24
Unknown
your reputation will proceed. You even if your business plan writing skills are, you know, inadequate. And the second thing is, you need to have a vision that's sufficiently large to invest in, because then there's statistics. The probability of success is rather low. And if they need to put in $10 million, if the market's only $20 million large, they'll never get that $10 million back with with reasonable return.

00:14:29:00 - 00:14:52:21
Unknown
But if it's a $200 billion market, then of course, it's a rather different thing. Okay. So the size of the market and they want to know that that, at least there is a clever idea that the market has never, never done before. So the that last part is probably second. You know, last I said, I said in the last because also I think it's less important you have to you might have to reinvent yourself over time.

00:14:52:23 - 00:15:19:12
Unknown
And if you want to reinvent yourself, you need to have great people. There's one great people so important. So what's so great about this market is you've got the high tech guy. Jensen Huang CEO, founder of Nvidia, playing in all this high science, high tech saying, you know what? It starts with great people. And this might be a little bit self-evident.

00:15:19:18 - 00:15:43:00
Unknown
Yeah, I've heard that before. But in the end, Mark, I think it forces us to reevaluate and re study this thought that even in the most high tech industry, where you think there's this enormous barrier to entry and you have to know, like the science of chips and molecular this in that in order to get a chip to like processors in spades.

00:15:43:03 - 00:16:10:13
Unknown
He's saying, look, great people, reputation, trust, being yourself and who you truly are. This is the this was the first thing that came to his mind when he talked about this topic, not science, technology, math. None of those things. So I think it's a reminder to us that, you know, much like Jim Collins said in good too great.

00:16:10:13 - 00:16:29:02
Unknown
You got to get the right people on the bus first before you go anywhere. It doesn't really matter where you're going to drive, because if you just don't have the right people, the bus ain't getting there. So you gotta get the right people. Oh yeah, by the way. He then follows it up. Mike with another big one. You got to go and solve big problems because it's not worth solving little problems.

00:16:29:04 - 00:17:08:12
Unknown
And this reminds me so much of all the people that freaked out yesterday when ChatGPT launched their new version. and basically half of the generative AI startups went, oh my God, ChatGPT now does what our startup does. We're toast. Right? Yeah. And the reality is that they were going after a small problem. And it's reminiscent of what happened ten years ago when Facebook started replacing all of these startups that were trying to do Facebook like little things, photo sharing, community membership, all this kind of stuff.

00:17:08:14 - 00:17:31:10
Unknown
And then all of a sudden Facebook would roll out the feature because they weren't solving a big enough problem. If you're solving a really big problem with the right team around you, this is so much of where your success starts, regardless of raising capital and all of that. But Marc, what power of thoughts to begin to adopt an invidious mindset?

00:17:31:20 - 00:18:14:04
Unknown
Jensen Huang mindset. They build a great team and solve big problems. Yeah. I mean, what's interesting in that clip from 2009 is his well, first of all, his character, you know, he's he's very charismatic. You know, the honesty is is so refreshing to hear, you know, from an individual who's managing and co-founding a $2 trillion business. You know, he doesn't have a business plan and so on, regardless of of those character traits of his very, unique and fun to listen to, the ability for his business to have the flexibility to go in with VCs and say, well, this is, value.

00:18:14:06 - 00:18:34:14
Unknown
This is what we do. This is why you should trust us. These are the right people who are on our bus. This is the potential of what we can do. You know, he demonstrates, I think, in that clip for all of us who are trying to create businesses that want to make a difference in the world, you just need you have to be open minded.

00:18:34:17 - 00:18:57:22
Unknown
You can't be maybe set on your ways like you just referenced, you know, a lot of businesses, maybe something like, Foursquare might not be the perfect example, but the ability to check in to locations was certainly absorbed and, you know, repeated with Facebook. Yes. Suddenly. What's the relevance of something like force? Exactly. It wasn't that much of a game changer, was it?

00:18:58:00 - 00:19:22:25
Unknown
They weren't flexible and adaptable enough. Whereas a chip manufacturer in video games, suddenly now $2 trillion it that flexibility, I think, is what really stands out to me. And that, I think comes ironically from having that single minded vision of ones which is not necessarily, hey, we're going to be, you know, going out and taking part in generative AI.

00:19:23:02 - 00:19:41:15
Unknown
You probably didn't consider that back in the 90s when they were setting it up. But knowing, hey, we could have an impact on the world as long as we get the right engineers, the right mindsets all together, we want to change it positively. This is the success and the result that he's starting to see. So let's do this quick little exercise.

00:19:41:15 - 00:20:16:19
Unknown
If we were starting, if you were starting a company right now, Mark, you had to build a small team. He says, like, get great people and build a team of great people. Okay, but how how do we do that? Where would you start? How do you go about building a great team for a new endeavor? Well, I think prior to getting into the action orientated piece of actually, you know, interviewing people, what to look for and so on, you've got to have and I think we said this already, that single minded vision, you've got to know, what does our business stand for?

00:20:16:21 - 00:20:41:03
Unknown
Why do we exist? What is it that we're trying to do differently, and how are we doing that to then go in and speak to individuals, to speak to engineers, to find those with enough heart, with enough confidence, with enough knowledge, but also enough character to really align with those core values. And those pillars of the business is so essential, isn't it?

00:20:41:05 - 00:21:01:02
Unknown
So I think for me, before I would consider who do I need and the quantity and so on, it would be, well, what do I stand for? What would be my true authenticity of the business? Let's then find people that might start aligning to that. Yes, and let's pick up on that. find people that align with that.

00:21:01:02 - 00:21:32:16
Unknown
I absolutely think one of the most practical things we can do, particularly when we do not know these people, like we don't have history with them, is to create a small little project that you work on together before you become co-founders or before they join the team. So, for example, I might say to you, hey, Mark, sounds like we've got a similar vision.

00:21:32:18 - 00:21:52:07
Unknown
Why don't we, like, make a presentation, do a video together? Something like not too heavy, but let's work on something where we can actually kick the tires and see what it's like to collaborate, to work together. For example, do you turn up on time? Do you send things when you say you would? Do you add value? Do you help?

00:21:52:07 - 00:22:15:25
Unknown
Do you listen like those would be the things I'd be looking for? If I'm saying join my, thing as a co-founder, I believe that what is kind of paralyzing for many early stage teams is you meet a group of people who are excited by your idea, but you don't know them. Right? And so you're like, what do I do?

00:22:16:02 - 00:22:50:25
Unknown
I think one of the most effective things you can do is start a little project, a little side project together. Like I said, making a video presentation, writing a blog together, something. And so it's a little trial. It's a little test hat. Do you like me? Do I like you? Is there a vibe here? And, you know, I reckon that within 1 to 2 months you've got a very strong sense of even if you're making just a presentation or a video together, whether you're a good team.

00:22:51:01 - 00:23:23:10
Unknown
Right. big time. What else do you think of when you, like, want to, like, recruit the right people and be confident in that choice? What else could we do to build a good team? Well, I think there's got to be a call out for the chemistry of the team. Yeah. You know, I think getting the right people on the bus is not only down to skills, capability set and results and proven results, but it's how do you work together.

00:23:23:12 - 00:23:48:14
Unknown
You know, there's there's that great, adage of English football, you know, we've got a lot of great football or soccer players in England. But actually when you bring them together it's a it's a little bit more difficult to make a mess. You reminded me before I do remind you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a difference between, individual skill and ability to provide results.

00:23:48:14 - 00:24:06:14
Unknown
Absolutely. So how do you work together. And hey, you should never waste. You should never waste a good crisis. Like, you actually want things to go wrong. How do they respond when there's a problem? Hey, the video is not working or the script is not right. You know? What's their working style? Are they listening or are they like, really stubborn?

00:24:06:16 - 00:24:32:07
Unknown
These are things you can be wired for. And if you do it in a like a safe construct like let's make a video or a blog post together, it's just examples. Then if it goes easy and I think like if you if you find yourself drawn to them, if it's easy to work together, these are great signals. If there's a lot of tension or you're chasing them or misunderstandings, it's not a judgment.

00:24:32:07 - 00:24:53:16
Unknown
But you can you can then start to say there's not a fit here. It you know, Patty and Patty B neither of them are in the wrong. It's just the combination. The recipe doesn't taste good. Yes, exactly. The chemistry's not quite there. So one party or maybe even both gonna get to a point where maybe they're frustrated and they're not necessarily delivering on the capability that the business is looking for.

00:24:53:16 - 00:25:20:19
Unknown
And, you know, Jensen is very outright with saying people are key. We only hire, 10% of the individuals. We only offer jobs to 10% of the individuals we interview. That demonstrates that they're really looking for a specific part of the the engineer market. And that just comes down to again this idea of work hard, create products and create work that changes the world positively.

00:25:20:19 - 00:25:42:24
Unknown
Yes. And work together correctly. And I think to kind of bring this, put a little bow on it when it's good, talk about why it's good. Like, why are we a good team? Right. You and I have worked together for many, many years, and we've just got this great clarity on who's doing what. And we pull it all together.

00:25:43:03 - 00:26:08:15
Unknown
And outside of our day jobs, we've been doing a podcast together for many, many, many years. Right. I think when you're starting, though, some of the easy things can be to how do you like to work? If someone asked me, how do I like to work, I would be very clear. Like I love to do my deep work in the morning, so at all cost, I want to avoid calls before 11 because I want to get great work done.

00:26:08:15 - 00:26:36:24
Unknown
It's just when I do my best work and what I found really interesting. This is it really thing. And one of the companies that I'm advising, we started with a new vendor and they never checked with me on working style. And they are like a blitz of emails, right? Like every thought that they have is an email. And I'm like, they have no, they think they're being highly engaged and I'm thinking, you're being highly annoying.

00:26:37:00 - 00:26:52:03
Unknown
But but the point here is like talk about working styles when you know, when is a good time to do calls, when would that fit with your working style? How do you like to, where do you like to go when you think about it? Or do you like to make decisions on the spot? Simple questions to build good teams.

00:26:52:05 - 00:27:16:19
Unknown
Yeah, simple questions that really make that difference maybe even contribute to becoming a $2 trillion business. Right. Because, you know, the thing is, it's easy to be obsessed about the engineering of a chip. And I think this is where we all have a bias. We talk a lot about the content. We talk about what that content is. Yeah, but we, underserved.

00:27:16:22 - 00:27:38:10
Unknown
How are we going to work on that together? Yeah, it's it's it's a journey, isn't it, Mike? You know, we can talk about that destination, but how you're going to get there room is the most important piece. Right. And so we've done a lot of, work on teamwork. So if you're interested in going deeper into team work, we did a master series.

00:27:38:12 - 00:28:06:08
Unknown
We've done. absolutely. A killer book on, I'm going to test your knowledge here, even if I think about there is one book that I loved that we studied through my top ten business books on teamwork. Do you think you can guess which one it is? Oh, if I do, I have done a few like this. If I gesticulate, the four Agreements.

00:28:06:11 - 00:28:30:12
Unknown
No, the five Dysfunctions of a team by. Oh, it's the only. Let's see. Oh, yes. Of course. One of my favorite Len Connie's work. You know, it's so impactful, isn't it, with regards to teams. And there's no denying if you follow some of that advice, there's five dysfunctions. There's so true no matter what industry you're in. Oh my gosh, you are bang on.

00:28:30:15 - 00:28:56:02
Unknown
So if you want to find out about what good teamwork looks like, how to build a great team, hit moonshot. Start a look up. Patrick mentioned the Five Dysfunctions of a team. Yes, it's great pyramid. He talks about trust and how to get to great objectives at the top. Study it because I see it everywhere. And I literally whenever there's a teamwork problem I just use that pyramid and I map and I find, okay, you trust each other, but you don't have tough conversation.

00:28:56:04 - 00:29:15:03
Unknown
You have trust and tough conversations, but you haven't all signed up for the go. Okay. Yeah, that's the problem. Oh, you signed up for the go, but you're not holding each other accountable. Oh, there's a problem. Oh, oh I see you're struggling. You're not quite getting the results. Well, there's something between the accountability the mutual accountability and achieving the results.

00:29:15:03 - 00:29:51:09
Unknown
Let's zoom in there. And then there's all these items laid up in there about high performance Patrick Quincy only five. Name them. So Mark, you might think we're getting a bit wound up, but wait till you play these next clip because we are going to go to the heart of the mindset of Jensen Huang. Look, if we are passionate supporters and lovers of Patrick Lincoln in The Five Dysfunctions of a team and we're really starting to sink our teeth into some of the work from Jensen Huang and why we should listen to him.

00:29:51:09 - 00:30:11:22
Unknown
With regards to the success of Nvidia. This next clip, Mike, I know for a fact is going to get you and me and probably a most of our listeners pretty excited and jumping out of their seats. So we're going to hear now the importance of a little word about suffering as well as the hard truth of what we should do and view expectations.

00:30:12:00 - 00:30:38:19
Unknown
One one of my one of I think one of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations. And and I mean that most of the Stanford graduates have very high expectations. Are you and you deserve to have expectations because you came from a great school. You were very successful. You're top of your class. Obviously, you were able to pay for tuition and and then you're graduating from one of the finest institutions on the planet.

00:30:38:21 - 00:30:53:14
Unknown
You're surrounded by other kids that are just incredible. You should have very you naturally have very high expectations. People with very high expectations have very low resilience.

00:30:53:17 - 00:31:20:19
Unknown
And unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don't know how to teach it to you, except for I hope suffering happens to you. And I was fortunate that I grew up with a with with my parents providing a condition for us to be successful on the one hand. But there were plenty of opportunities for setbacks and suffering. And and to this day, I use the word to phrase pain and suffering inside our company with great glee.

00:31:20:21 - 00:31:41:02
Unknown
And the reason and I mean, boy, this is going to cause a lot of pain and suffering, and I mean that in a happy way, because you want to train, you want to refine the character of your company. You want that. You want greatness out of them. And greatness is not intelligence. It's greatness comes from character, and character is informed out of smart people, is formed out of people who suffered and so that's good.

00:31:41:04 - 00:32:11:04
Unknown
And so if I could wish upon you, I don't know how to do it. For all of you Stanford students, I. I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering that I mean, check out the uncomfortable silence. Yeah, I know. You guys are soft and entitled and you have not suffered, what a character. like I said, and this is a warning to all of you, is listening to members.

00:32:11:06 - 00:32:38:09
Unknown
My person's here is a little bit excited because I was so suffering averse in my younger years. Right. If I couldn't kind of bend my way around the situation fast toolkit. I was never prepared to go and suffer. I would always hit the ejector seat and get out because it was I didn't want to fail. Right.

00:32:38:11 - 00:33:12:13
Unknown
But what we are hearing is that if you expect everyone and everything to be great, you are fundamentally creating a mindset of tension. And the tension is that everywhere you go nothing is as good as you expected it to be. The people the office, the client, everything but the truth Mark is in both business and work.

00:33:12:15 - 00:33:38:25
Unknown
Life is hard and it is the greatest competitor we're ever going to face. And so much of our disappointments, stress and fear come from the fact that we wanted it to be easy. And it's not. Big time. And actually, you know when something happens and we expected a different outcome and our response is all doom and gloom.

00:33:39:01 - 00:34:18:02
Unknown
The interesting thing right there is that's a choice. It is a choice to say this is a terrible the world sucks. Abandon ship. Get out on top. However what happens is if you are prepared to do hard work and go David Gergen style into suffering, go into suffering. If you dare to lead like Brené Brown, encourage us to do, they are effectively two wildly different people encouraging us to do exactly what Jensen Huang is asking us to do go in, suffer, get tough, change your expectation.

00:34:18:02 - 00:35:00:11
Unknown
Do I want everything to be perfect to? I know challenges coming my way and I embrace it. You get out your book. It's called mindset by Carol Dweck, who is sort of the queen of this idea, and you say, okay, every problem and challenge that comes my way is opportunity. And until you re-engineer yourself to that, until you're prepared to say, I'm going to grind every day until I can run five, ten, 15km until I can swim, until I can build revenue of 5000, 10,000, 50,000, 5 million, until you're prepared to go to the Valley of Darkness.

00:35:00:13 - 00:35:27:18
Unknown
It doesn't matter how smart you are, it doesn't matter how talented you are. Because what we learned from Carol Dweck, the book Greats by Angela Duckworth. Yes, there is scientific evidence that the greatest military graduates in the US Army have those that had grit, determination and were prepared to suffer was never the smartest. It was never the richest.

00:35:27:20 - 00:35:53:15
Unknown
It was those that were prepared to go through the suffering. And the magic moment, Mark, is when it's hurting. We are. We even allow ourselves this temptation when we entertain the idea of this is too hot, I'm getting out. And the difference between those that succeed and those that don't is that people who succeed never hit the evacuation lever.

00:35:53:15 - 00:36:15:25
Unknown
They're never pulling that button. Right? They're like, no problem, I'm going to ride this out. Because the truth is, Mark, things are never as bad as you think they are. If you're breathing, it's never as bad as you think it is. If you stop breathing a bit of a problem. You know what I mean? So, yeah, to me, Mark, this is one of the greatest life lessons for me personally.

00:36:16:01 - 00:36:34:20
Unknown
And I believe that this is one of the strongest patterns we're seeing in Jensen that we saw in Steve Jobs. I mean, Steve Jobs got fired from his own company and still came back and made it great. Yeah. Who like, think about it. You get fired from your own company and you're a millionaire 100 times over. Here's like stuff.

00:36:34:20 - 00:36:55:02
Unknown
This our tie? he came back and did the iPod. Man. He came back. Came back, you know. And do you think he's like, yeah. Okay. Hey, I kind of landed this gaming thing. That's pretty good. retired? Yeah. Oh, no. He's got plenty of acts. Be ready to expect less of the world and less of the people around you.

00:36:55:05 - 00:37:16:05
Unknown
Pre-prepared mistakes and challenges and chaos and go through it because the longer you sustain through it, the less of a challenge it is because you sort of get used to it. this went wrong. Oh, well, yeah. Going, I'm growing and I'm learning. I mean, Mark's so much in here. I mean, I'm I'm fine. Where do you riff on this one?

00:37:16:07 - 00:37:38:18
Unknown
Look, I mean, you've riffed exactly in the lines that I totally dig. You know, you're totally right. In my career, particularly early on, that expectation piece that one was talking about, that was the thorn in my side, you know, and that's what what I think kind of fuels this ego. And the problem with the ego, as we know from real holidays, it's it's the enemy.

00:37:38:20 - 00:37:57:06
Unknown
It's the thing that holds you back. So you're right, once you start to realize, hey, I kind of should enjoy the destiny. I should enjoy the journey to the destination. I should understand that obstacles are going to come up. There will be speed bumps. There will be challenges. But the good news is that is up to my perception.

00:37:57:08 - 00:38:27:16
Unknown
I can interpret those speed bumps as ways and obstacles, as ways of growth. And you're totally right. The great mindset as well is this idea of grit contribute to you being able to not only suffer easier and better, so once you get a little bit more resilient, there's obstacles next time around that can become a little bit easier, which I would say where one has been able to pivot from gaming crypto I it's because he he knows, hey going into different verticals.

00:38:27:16 - 00:38:58:15
Unknown
That's pretty hard. Yeah but I know my team have done it before. We know how to adapt. We know how to put up with those challenges. And what a fantastic way of, you know, also living a great, enriching life. Yes. The things, the challenges, the suffering that you and I and our listeners who, you know, might go into marathon training, like you said, swimming, whatever it is, take that risk, realize, hey, I'm really passionate about this and I love it suddenly becomes a lot easier second time round, doesn't it?

00:38:58:17 - 00:39:32:18
Unknown
It does. And look, I'm trying to figure out how to explain this equation. What what he's saying here is don't expect so much of the world and the people around you, right now, if you do that, it's therefore then harder to be disappointed, frustrated, or fearful because if you started a new company and you were very clear, this is going to be really tough and there's going to be moments of uncertainty.

00:39:32:20 - 00:39:53:06
Unknown
And when those things happen, you're like, well, I kind of knew this was going to happen as opposed to what happens. I see with a lot of founders, it's like, oh, end of the world, because they were like seeing or they saw too much of the side hustle crap, or they saw too much of this, like overnight success lies, damn lies.

00:39:53:06 - 00:40:27:01
Unknown
Right? And so they're not ready. Their expectations are inflated. Like, oh, they went to a good school. Then they parents paid for college. now, I mean, real life and I'm not prepared. He's saying got to work harder. Yeah. He's saying yeah. He's saying bring those expectations down and be ready to say problems, challenges and suffering guaranteed. It is so huge because once you've done that, then you just say, okay, so there's a problem.

00:40:27:01 - 00:40:44:22
Unknown
What's the worst that really can happen? What can I action can I take right now to start resolving that okay, good. I've done everything I can. It's out of my control now. I'll wake up tomorrow and have another guy. Now that that little package comes from a book by Dale Carnegie called How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.

00:40:44:22 - 00:41:07:22
Unknown
I thoroughly recommend that, it is a very, very good book. So check out Moonshot Study if you're more interested in that. But this Mark, I think it helps us in business and life like I think have different expectations. I mean, does that can you not just look in all parts of your life, think about it, what you expect of your family, of your relatives, of your neighbors?

00:41:07:22 - 00:41:38:22
Unknown
I mean, I could just it just goes on and on, right? Well, and and also of yourself, you know, once I start to appreciate and understand, okay, if I can train myself into expecting less, well, expecting maybe more suffering or pain, more obstacles in life, or if I can expect those as a guaranteed path and journey that I have to take in order to get to maybe where I'm trying to get to you, suddenly you're my outlook changes well, of the times.

00:41:39:02 - 00:41:56:19
Unknown
Yeah. You're right. Right. When when build on that is Jeff Bezos says if you're not upsetting people along the way, you're not working hard enough. Yeah. Like he's literally saying you should be upsetting people if you're being trying to solve big problems, you got, you got to, you know, shake things up a little bit, you got to shake things up.

00:41:56:19 - 00:42:20:11
Unknown
You've got to change the industry. And all of that takes a lot of time. You know, no matter what you think about, Elon Musk, you know, he is upsetting and changing a lot of different industries. He knows eggs need to be broken in order to get to space. Yeah, he knows that there needs to be changes within the, vehicle market that might challenge a lot of the ways that it was done previously.

00:42:20:13 - 00:42:44:17
Unknown
But he also knows that stuff doesn't happen overnight. He knows it takes time. And that is exactly what I think Jensen is leading us here, isn't it? We need to change our expectations in order to be able to accept the value of resilience. Yes. So, Mark, you've done a perfect Segway. Bring us home with our final clip from Jensen, which coincidentally happens to be about time.

00:42:44:19 - 00:42:56:02
Unknown
That's right. Mike, we've heard so much from Jensen already today. Let's hear a little bit more around this insight of time, as well as our perception as to what we can get done with our own.

00:42:56:02 - 00:42:58:09
Unknown
I loved every job that I had,

00:42:58:09 - 00:43:11:01
Unknown
including washing dishes, including cleaning the bathrooms. Nobody cleaned bathrooms better than I did, and and nobody washes dishes more effectively than I do.

00:43:11:03 - 00:43:48:11
Unknown
And and, I love my job at and LSI logic. Every single one of them. Very few people know this, but I don't wear a watch. And the reason why I don't wear watches now is the most important time. Just dedicate yourself to now. The best career advice I got was from a gardener. I was on a family trip, we were in Kyoto and many of you probably went to, the temple that had the largest mass collection in the world, the the yard, the garden, the mosque, or.

00:43:48:11 - 00:44:34:22
Unknown
It is incredible. All of the moss is perfect. Every species of the world's mosses there and it was a hot summer day. And anybody who's been to Kyoto knows how incredibly hot it is during the summer there in the valley, it's hot, it's humid, there's no wind, no breeze, and it is insanely hot. And, all of the tourists were walking by and my family walked by this, this old man that was on his on his, squatted down, working on the moss and I, I walked by and I noticed he was using a bamboo tweezer, and his bamboo basket was nearly empty.

00:44:34:22 - 00:44:59:08
Unknown
There were only 2 or 3 small pieces of dead moss. And I asked him, what are you doing? And he says he is taking care of his garden. His English was perfect. And, and, and I asked him how long he's been working there. He said he's been working there for almost 30 years. And and he said, oh, this is his garden.

00:44:59:10 - 00:45:29:16
Unknown
And I asked him, but this garden is so big. And your tweezer and your basket is so small. How can you take care of the whole garden? And he said something that is perfect. He said, I have plenty of time. And in fact, that's the best career advice I can give you. Most of the time I wait for things to come to me.

00:45:29:18 - 00:45:44:01
Unknown
I'm rarely chasing things. I don't have a watch I'm focused on now. I'm enjoying my job. I'm the longest running tech CEO in the world. As you know.

00:45:45:20 - 00:46:16:13
Unknown
I mean, I'm sold by shares now. I don't care what the price is. I don't I don't know what we can say. This guy is like, he's a Jedi knight. Is he? yeah. What what a fun, but also original insight there, Mike, which is obviously totally in line with The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. This idea of being, really present in the here in the now, reacting to obstacles, challenges, whatever it is that's around you right now.

00:46:16:15 - 00:46:46:20
Unknown
But he doesn't wear a watch. The longest running tech CEO I know doesn't even wear a watch. Mike. And, and taking one straight from Mike. Ancient Buddhist thinking again, this juxtaposition of Stoic and Buddhist thinking. So mindful. yeah. Blazing the future and the latest technology. I honestly Mark, this has just been an absolute delight to do this show together.

00:46:46:22 - 00:47:18:19
Unknown
Of all the topics that we've covered, I mean, I don't even know where I'm going to answer this, so I hope you got some thoughts. What's your homework assignment after this study? Well, I think it would I think the moonshots slam dunk is the idea of expectation versus resilience. Change your concept of expectation in order to succeed. However, I actually really liked where he went in that final closing clip.

00:47:18:23 - 00:47:39:15
Unknown
The outro clip we've just heard now is all you have. Be present. This is a time to be patient, to get on with it and not be distracted by maybe what's around the corner, because a lot of that stuff, as we know, Mike, it's in your mind. It's in your head. You are imagining and catastrophizing things that may not even happen.

00:47:39:17 - 00:48:08:02
Unknown
So for me, Mike, I love this callback to the power of now, the idea of being present because I think clearly he's he's done it. What about you, Mike? Which of our four quite action packed clips, took you away? I mean, they're all good, right? look, because you loved the, third and fourth clip, the importance of suffering and there's always time.

00:48:08:04 - 00:48:33:01
Unknown
I like the refreshing reminder of building great teams and solving big problems, not small ones. And, I just I could look, if I was sitting in a bunch with a bunch of brand new founders, I couldn't think of better advice. Guys. Bill, just go. Great. Change and go big. Solve big stuff. Don't. Don't mess around. Well said.

00:48:33:03 - 00:48:54:00
Unknown
Well, Mark, I want to say thank you to you for dialing in for one of our most epic shows of the year so far. So thank you to you. Thank you to you, our listeners, our viewers and our members to for this show, 256 where we study, the CEO and co-founder of Nvidia, none other than Mr. Jensen Huang.

00:48:54:02 - 00:49:22:22
Unknown
And he taught us four big lessons, starting with the surprise of the future. He's always looking forward and the way that he creates this incredible value, this trillion dollar company is he builds great teams and solves big problems. And as he goes about that journey, he is so prepared to suffer. He has lowered his expectations and he has increased his resilience.

00:49:22:24 - 00:49:48:21
Unknown
And as he reflects in the moment, there's always time. Time to consider the now and to be the best version of himself. So many lessons from Jensen, so many moonshots, mantras. It is quite incredible. I hope you've taken this on your journey to be the best version of yourself, because that's what we're all about here on the Moonshots podcast.

00:49:48:23 - 00:49:52:19
Unknown
That's a wrap.