[HN Gopher] The way that Jensen Huang runs Nvidia: 40 direct rep...
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The way that Jensen Huang runs Nvidia: 40 direct reports, no 1:1s
Author : vinnyglennon
Score : 119 points
Date : 2023-09-12 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| matt3210 wrote:
| This is a psy-op to get AMD to have this horrible management
| structure.
| aborsy wrote:
| - Does not conduct 1:1s - everything happens in a group setting.
|
| Wouldn't in large meetings mostly the loudest and most political
| be heard? How do you hear everyone in a large meeting? Who takes
| credit, assumes responsibility, be more or less paid, etc?
|
| 1:1 are important, at least to connect to people.
|
| Nvidia bet on a good fast growing market early on (AI). Maybe
| that explains their success. Also, take these stories with a
| grain of salt, til the sources are clear.
| fortran77 wrote:
| > Nvidia bet on a good fast growing market early on (AI)
|
| No. Early on they realized that supporting developers for GPGPU
| is important, and many industries have been well served by it,
| starting with computer graphics and gaming.
| itiro wrote:
| Connection to people is important and grown ups can sort out
| how and when.
| mcoliver wrote:
| You know where people play politics? 1:1's. Stories get told,
| facts left out, no dissent, people take credit for things they
| shouldn't be taking credit for. Group accountability and
| transparency squashes all that.
| aborsy wrote:
| People play politics everywhere possible. 1:1 at least
| guarantees that you have a chance to present your work.
|
| Problems with meetings: people don't express themselves
| because they might offend others or create enemies, people
| follow each other, no defined rules on how the meeting
| operates, problems with credit, diluted responsibilities,
| opportunities for shifting the work and credit, as someone
| said in comments formation of cliques competing, etc.
|
| Both are probably needed. You need to mix.
| heisenbit wrote:
| Group settings favor bolder, louder folks. But then he has
| email sampling. Besides a top manager directly cutting
| through layers changes communication culture. When facts
| and not presentation becomes focus of the group other sets
| of skills than political are becoming valued more.
| caminante wrote:
| For me, shadow governance is intrinsic to large
| organizations.
|
| It's going to happen.
|
| At these "open" nVidia meetings, I'm sure cliques are texting
| on MSFT Teams or SMS.
|
| I'm skeptical that 1:1 here means no 1:1 contact and rather
| no recurring meetings with reports.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I often wonder what's the right balance between group and
| personal, as you say, 1:1 has issues, but groups have some
| too (extrovert can use more space).
| koromak wrote:
| The meetings he's are are already filled with people
| comfortable being loud and political. I'm sure the actual
| technical doers are having plenty of 1:1s
| Havoc wrote:
| If you're sitting of a money printer then damn near any org
| structure will work.
|
| The only interesting part is Nvidia getting their bets right
| repeatedly & the why behind that is likely interesting. Is lack
| of 1:1s the secret recipe...doubtful
| tpmx wrote:
| No status reports, instead he "stochastically samples the system"
| - Doesn't use status updates because he believes they are too
| refined by the time they get to him. They are not ground
| truth anymore. - Instead, anyone in the company can email
| him their "top five things" with whatever is top of
| mind, and he will read it - Estimates he reads 100 of
| these everyone morning
|
| I like this idea.
| basiccalendar74 wrote:
| In practice, each org has a top5 mailing list to which
| employees send weekly updates. Jensen samples from these
| mailing lists.
| tpmx wrote:
| Who can read the mails sent to each org's top5 mailing list?
| Can ICs subscribe?
| basiccalendar74 wrote:
| everyone in the org can read them. One can also subscribe
| to other org's mailing lists.
| tpmx wrote:
| Awesome.
|
| I'm a software guy who for 1.5 years worked for a
| hardware company with a relatively strict upwards-only
| information reporting structure. It wasn't even for
| secrecy, it's just that the people running it didn't
| understand the concept of collaboration at all. They were
| a mix of physicists and economists. Really smart but
| also, as it turned out, very 'square' people. It was a
| relatively small company, around 100 people.
|
| It felt quite soul-crushing after a busy week to have to
| spend mental efforts writing up a report to someone 1-3
| levels up... especially if you had no idea if it was ever
| read. And then do this every single week. If colleagues
| could consume and learn from this effort it would make a
| lot more sense.
|
| Never again. Went back to the relatively speaking much
| saner software world after that experience.
| cloudripper wrote:
| Thank you for the articulation of the issue and your
| experience dealing with it. Were you aware of the
| articulated issue (the absence of collaboration) while
| you were there? Or did it only become clear in
| retrospect? I imagine in an environment like this it
| would be easy to get lost in the feeling of being
| undervalued and disrespected, without being clear of the
| source/cause of that feeling (unhealthy organizational
| culture).
| epolanski wrote:
| Yeah, but it works if someone reads and cares.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| I love this. When I was CEO of a roughly 60-person startup, one
| of the things I told my (then-new) executive team was, I don't do
| 1:1s and I'm not here to develop you professionally. If you
| require professional development, I made a mistake placing you on
| my executive team. It helped establish a culture of execution and
| high standards.
|
| It also fostered a lot of trust and cohesion. Everyone knew they
| were there because they deserved to be there, and so it made it
| very easy to make fast, correct decisions without a lot of
| bullshit. They were a great group and I felt lucky to have them
| on the journey.
| bloqs wrote:
| Everyone regardless of status, position and experience requires
| professional development. Otherwise you claim omnicience.
| Finding willing participants to seed a narcissistic pyramid of
| self congratulation who are willing to forego this, to furnish
| either their ego or yours (or both) is commendable, however.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| This seems like an abuse of the word need. Most of
| "professional development" is self-actualized, and a product
| of experience, ability, and achievement on the job.
|
| I think explicit PD makes sense at a big corporation or even
| a medium sized firm, but not in a startup environment where
| every second counts.
| protastus wrote:
| I believe the idea is that these individuals are expected to
| develop themselves through a combination of self-awareness,
| autonomy, ambition and an environment that promotes growth.
|
| Executives are expected to be mature enough to not need hand
| holding.
| rmk wrote:
| The idea is that Professional Development should be sought
| elsewhere, not from the CEO. That's not the same as 'no one
| needs professional development'.
|
| If you do not do Professional Development, and make this
| clear to your hires whom you expect to be pretty good at
| their job functions already, I do not see how it should be
| treated as cultivating yes-men. 'I don't do Professional
| Development' is also not the same as 'I can't take feedback
| or let someone call a spade a spade'.
| waffleiron wrote:
| How did that work out? I am wondering how much to take out of
| that anecdote without more info on how that company did with
| you as CEO.
|
| You are talking in a past tense, and I can't help but wonder
| about the reason for that.
| bjt12345 wrote:
| I suppose the first question is.
|
| What's in it for me?
|
| What's on the table here?
|
| This to me sounds like a culture of no support for technical
| staff, no listening, and helicopter management when things go
| wrong.
|
| And no training budget.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Just because something sounds bad to you doesn't make your
| speculation accurate.
|
| > and no training budget
|
| You're just speculating. And this GP was referring to his
| executive reports, not the ICs.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| Presumably a lot of money and mental health issues.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| [flagged]
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I wish I was as unsuccessful as Nvidia.
| epolanski wrote:
| Imagine being seriously convinced Nvidia is falling apart.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Imagine being seriously convinced Nvidia is a good example of
| a successful tech company, and that Jensen is just a quirky
| startup CEO and should be worshipped like how people worship
| Steve Jobs (which is also wrong to do, fwiw).
|
| Again and again, Nvidia does everything possible to make
| shareholder value look good, while robbing both shareholders
| and customers of value.
| epolanski wrote:
| Those are opinions not facts.
|
| Anyway, I was writing a longer post but I'll summarize it
| very simply: lack of competition in the GPU market (which
| is the cause of your overblown points) isn't Nvidia's
| fault.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| How isn't it Nvidia's fault? Nvidia refuses to compete.
|
| They refused to compete for the Sony contract, they
| refused to compete for the Microsoft contract, they've
| refused to compete for countless Top500 supercomputer
| contracts. They didn't just not win the bid, they didn't
| even bother bidding in some cases.
|
| They "competed" for the Switch contract because they had
| a warehouse of SoCs that were made for an era of gaming
| phablet that never happened and selling them at cost to
| Nintendo was the best they could do.
|
| You know how they chose to compete? They bought Mellanox,
| a smaller but _extremely_ competitive company in the high
| bandwidth interconnect market.... which after the Nvidia
| acquisition, Nvidia dropped the Mellanox name (maybe the
| _most valuable_ thing in the entire acquisition!)
|
| I'm straight up glad I don't own Nvidia stock. I'd have
| an ulcer if I did.
|
| I'm not saying AMD is magically better here, AMD has all
| of their corporate and technological warts too... but at
| least they show up and do the job. Nvidia doesn't even
| show up.
| sdfghswe wrote:
| I'm not saying these are good or bad. But I note that every time
| a company becomes "hot", people start mindlessly copying its
| quirks, as if those are the things that make the company. They
| might be, or they might not.
|
| Reminds me of a friend who didn't wear socks because Einstein
| didn't wear socks. The implication being "he doesn't wear socks
| and he's smart, so if I don't wear socks I'll be closer to being
| as smart as Einstein". Ok, we were like 8 years old, but still.
| jabradoodle wrote:
| This drives me crazy. let's adopt the practices of this blog
| post from an org 100x larger than ours, building a product
| which is in no way similar to ours... why?
| rnk wrote:
| Hey, 40 direct reports is accepted best practice! Remember
| when google did that? My manager was a poser back 15 years
| ago, he had only 20 direct reports - I'm not making this up.
| bbarnett wrote:
| No one on ones is probably to protect from sexual assault
| allegations. No time alone == safe.
| 13of40 wrote:
| Well hold up, I do 1:1s with people at least every two
| weeks, but I haven't actually breathed the same air as
| one of them since the beginning of summer. (We both drove
| to that empty building downtown and had lunch, IIRC.)
| sneak wrote:
| It saves on communication time, less repeating.
|
| I get a lot of cold emails from my website, asking me
| things. I ask those corresponding with me to ask the
| questions on my BBS instead, so when I take the time to
| answer, the answer benefits more than one person, and
| there is increased ROI on the time and energy spent
| constructing a thoughtful reply.
| tstrimple wrote:
| And so, microservices and kubernetes were thrust upon the
| unsuspecting world.
| mongol wrote:
| Didn't Einstein wear socks? Seems like a misunderstanding.
| Sounds more like Steve Jobs to me
| bookofjoe wrote:
| shoes
| satvikpendem wrote:
| YC talks about exactly this idea, cargo culting startups:
| https://www.ycombinator.com/library/IR-dalton-michael-silico...
| blantonl wrote:
| The people that imitated Steve Jobs' worst traits under the
| auspices that they were "as smart and driven" as him and
| therefore should mimic some of these traits was rather
| maddening.
|
| I honestly believe there was an entire generation of young
| managers who thought that it was OK to wear turtlenecks every
| day and be an abrasive asshole.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > Does not conduct 1:1s - everything happens in a group setting
|
| I don't believe that. There's really no confidential matters he
| discusses with team members on a 1-on-1 basis?
| bbor wrote:
| "Does not schedule 1:1s" likely doesn't mean "never has 1:1
| conversations in his life". I have no idea what being a ceo of
| a infinity-dollar company is like, but I imagine he's on
| somewhat amicable terms with many of his reports, and many
| opportunities outside of scheduled meetings to talk with them.
| Slack, for example - assuming he's not pulling a Sundar ;)
| stusmall wrote:
| I think they are referring to regular, scheduled, private
| standing meetings between a manager and their subordinate. They
| are often called "1 on 1s". Of course he talks to folks in
| private when needed.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Depends what you mean by group, but ya, even 'personal'
| meetings probably have a member of HR in the room.
|
| There is no thing as so confidential that only 2 people need to
| know it.
| ghaff wrote:
| >even 'personal' meetings probably have a member of HR in the
| room
|
| That seems ludicrous at any company I've worked for absent
| some serious HR-related issue.
| sokoloff wrote:
| In my experience, if HR is in the room for a 1:1:1 personal
| meeting, things are not going well for at least one person in
| that meeting.
| paganel wrote:
| 1:1s are mostly a fad, people refusing to go with the team and
| thinking that they're special and that they need personal
| counselling and growth-ing and all that bs.
|
| It's simple, you're either part of the group or you're not,
| there's no "I" in group. I don't see past great leaders (military
| and not only) doing 1:1s with the members of their groups.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I suspect that it was routine for "past great leaders" to have
| 1:1s, which only means to have opportunities to speak face to
| face in private with direct reports.
|
| The modern 'open space' office makes it impossible because it
| is effectively a panopticon where everyone is in full view and
| hearing distance of others all the time so effort has to be
| made to schedule 1:1s and that may seem forced and contrived.
|
| When one had to go to their manager's private office to report
| of discuss something it was easier to exchange in confidence
| without any specific planning.
|
| My personal experience is that 1:1s are very useful not just as
| an opportunity to raise and discuss concerns but to create
| rapport and talk shop openly and informally.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| 1:1 feel like an unhealthy commingling of management with
| mentorship. Better the two are distinct.
|
| You have a relationship with your manager.
|
| You have an optional relationship with a mentor.
|
| There's no reason for both to be the same person. In all
| probability, your manager might not even have the skills to
| be a good mentor.
|
| And they certainly don't have aligned incentives while _also_
| people-managing you.
| not2b wrote:
| You can have a regular 1:1 with your mentor, even if that
| person isn't your manager. I have a regular 1:1 with a
| developer who will eventually take over some of my
| responsibilities, but he doesn't formally report to me.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's probably truth in that. If I think back, I'd have 1:1
| talks with managers all the time in prior lives but I'm not
| sure I ever had standing 1:1s. Even at my current company, we
| often theoretically had regular 1:1s but with travel and
| other schedules they could end up being every month or two.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| The only way I've found to have effective 1:1s is to come
| armed with pointed questions about how things are going, and
| to actually be aware of what your reports are working on and
| who they're working with enough to know what questions to
| ask. They don't work if you're passive. You can surface a lot
| of vague feelings of unease or satisfaction with initial
| questions that you can turn into in-depth conversations, and
| those usually tell you what the person's preferences and
| areas of growth are.
|
| I think no matter what structure you put in place as a
| manager you still have to get to know your reports well
| enough to know what you can and can't confidently ask them to
| do.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I found 1:1s profoundly helpful as a manager. You get insight
| into the team and business that you don't get in day to day
| meetings.
|
| Notably, when you have trust, your reports will tell you what's
| actually wrong.
| dicriseg wrote:
| Completely disagree. Some folks are brilliant but aren't going
| to function well in group settings all of the time. You still
| need to find a way to listen to what they have to say, and 1x1s
| accomplish that for many people. Otherwise, group dynamics can
| just bias toward the loudest or most outgoing.
|
| Not to mention, you also get to just talk nonsense and get to
| know each other as humans a bit. Some folks enjoy that, me
| included.
| vsareto wrote:
| They also find people who don't work out, since folks might
| be hesitant calling out under performers in a group setting
| (or frankly putting those thoughts in a discoverable chat app
| even in DMs)
| hiq wrote:
| How do you deal with people who don't or barely talk in group
| settings? Is this just a no-go and they're out?
| wxnx wrote:
| Any evidence for them being a fad? I definitely remember my
| parents' generation having dedicated one-on-one meetings with
| their managers on a regular basis, regardless of what field
| they were working in (skilled labourers, but none of them in
| tech).
| [deleted]
| icedchai wrote:
| The first 15 years of my career, up until roughly 2010, I had
| no regular 1:1's in tech. Managers were generally more
| technical also (they would do non-critical path dev work.)
| Today there is more separation between "people management"
| and "technical management." Usually one or the other suffers.
| rcme wrote:
| I agree in principal, but in practice stroking people's egos
| with personal attention works wonders!
| the-smug-one wrote:
| >I don't see past great leaders (military and not only) doing
| 1:1s with the members of their groups.
|
| You don't think Titus Labienus discussed anything one on one
| with Julius Caesar? That just sounds like insanity.
|
| I want 1:1s, it's the best way that I can make my boss work for
| me. That stuff gets me raises and promotions.
| epolanski wrote:
| Any team and organization does 1:1s in some ways regardless of
| how formal they are and regardless of those being scheduled on
| your outlook calendar.
|
| Even a chat exchange of ideas or mails qualify as a 1:1.
| ghaff wrote:
| I probably never had scheduled 1:1s with my manager prior to
| my current job (and it's been hit or miss when I was
| traveling a lot) aside from specific events like maybe
| performance reviews. But had lots of in-person conversations,
| many with open doors, some not.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| 1:1s are a peculiarly American thing (in my experience) - perhaps
| something to do with the individualistic yet somewhat still old
| fashioned and hierarchical business culture?
|
| 1:1s are problematic because they discourage/displace lateral
| communication between team members and encourage siloing.
| Everyone has to guess what 'the boss' said to the others, and to
| figure out which piece of the puzzle they've been entrusted with
| - classic oppressive divde and conquer strategy. Of course for
| people who may not be comfortable in social settings, 1:1s may be
| the only thing they can grapple with properly.
| christofosho wrote:
| I appreciate your opinion and although I disagree, I'm curious
| about how you handle talking to reports about their careers,
| the work they've been doing, progress on their goals, problems
| they are encountering, etc.?
| version_five wrote:
| All of that sounds like something that could happen annually.
| JTbane wrote:
| I absolutely despise 1-on-1s. It's either me complaining about
| corporate policies that I have no power to change (looking at
| you, WFH) or some feature is a complete dumpster fire and I get
| lectured about it.
| tstrimple wrote:
| That's odd. 1:1s shouldn't be used for normal every day work
| and project activities. It definitely shouldn't be just a
| status update to your manager. For me they are a way of
| checking in on longer career and growth goals that can be
| neglected when caught up in the "real work". They are also
| where I check in on promotion readiness and ensuring
| expectations are aligned. Things which you typically _don 't_
| want the rest of the team in on. Anything directly project
| related should be either a team meeting or shared via more open
| communication channels.
| justheretoday wrote:
| The other anomaly is that Jensen talks all the time with ICs
| doing the work. I was only a couple of months into working at the
| company before I got to have a face to face discussion with him
| about a project I was working on. I have seen many mid-level
| engineers (IC4-IC5) give him deep dives in these group meetings.
| It can be very stressful being under Jensen's microscope, but it
| dramatically reduces the "let's show pretty slides to the CEO to
| show him everything is good" BS. I was previously at a startup
| 1/100th of this size where the CEO was far less connected to rank
| and file engineers, so it has been a really nice change.
| icedchai wrote:
| I've been on small teams where the direct manager was
| completely clueless about the day-to-day work of his 3 or 4
| reports. These are professional meeting attenders, basically.
| 10+ years ago this seemed much less common in tech. Management
| was more technical and CEOs would actually talk to the ICs.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| With 40 direct reports, he can pay attention to each one for at
| most about an hour per week on average. (Even if he works crazy
| hours, you have to factor in overheads and other tasks.)
| koolba wrote:
| Only having your boss bother you for an hour a week doesn't
| seem so bad.
| nipponese wrote:
| Published by "strategy" consultant with no cited sources. Naa.
| dang wrote:
| Some are listed here:
| https://twitter.com/petergyang/status/1701644142739349898
|
| I haven't watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xY_kRKHxE
| but perhaps someone will be interested enough to.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| A lot of modern software management is utter BS with ceremonies
| and processes, all filled with BS work for optics and politics.
|
| The old-school SV management style of actually being a leader is
| lost these days.
| khazhoux wrote:
| You're wrong. Not a single piece of working software (literally
| zero) was shipped before Agile was invented 15 years ago.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| > You're wrong. Not a single piece of working software
| (literally zero) was shipped before Agile was invented 15
| years ago.
|
| You're wrong. Not a single piece of working software
| (literally zero) was shipped before a combination of Leetcode
| + agile + performance reviews + feature factory culture +
| microservices was invented in the last decade.
| greenthrow wrote:
| Don't blame systems for ineffective leaders. Those leaders
| would be ineffective under any system.
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