Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says starting a company is harder than it seems: ‘Nobody in their right mind would…’

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said that if given another chance, he would not start Nvidia. Huang, who recently appeared on the Acquired podcast, was asked what type of company he would start if he had the chance to do it all over again. Responding to the question, he replied “I wouldn’t”. Adding further, he stated "Building a company and building Nvidia turned out to have been a million times harder than any of us expected it to be”. He continued: “And at the time, if we realized the pain and suffering and just how vulnerable you're going to feel and the challenges that you're going to endure, the embarrassment and the shame, and the list of all the things that go wrong—I don't think anybody would start a company. Nobody in their right mind would do it”. During the podcast, Huang also highlighted that most founders succeed because they initially underestimate the difficulties they might face. He said “You have to get yourself to believe that it's not that hard because it's way harder than you think…Taking all of my knowledge now—I go back, and I said I'm going to endure that whole journey again, I think it's too much. It is just too much.”When asked about the importance of networking support to succeed in a startup, Huang said “You need the unwavering support of the people around you… I'm pretty sure that almost every successful company and entrepreneurs that have gone through some difficult challenges had that support system around them.”In related news, Nvidia announced that the company will sell over 18,000 of its latest artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Saudi Arabian firm Humain. The announcement was made during the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, which is part of a White House-led visit to the region that includes President Donald Trump and several tech leaders including Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Jensen Huang. The chips, part of Nvidia's Blackwell series, will be used in data centers with a total capacity of 500 megawatts. Nvidia said the chips to be deployed first will be the GB300 Blackwell chips, which were officially unveiled earlier this year. These chips are designed for training and deploying advanced AI systems.