There’s this clip going around of Jensen Huang being interviewed by Patrick Collison in a Stripe corporate event talking about how he doesn’t do 1:1s.
The reason, as discussed within the scope of that segment in the interview, was essentially because he thinks 1) feedbacks (as far as I understood it, on their ideas and projects) should be given in a group setting, as a group-learning opportunity, and 2) information empowers.
Many people are apparently triggered hearing about this practice, saying he doesn’t understand the point of 1:1s, it’s not about information dissemination, and how they feel sorry for his direct reports.
We need to chill on the anti-cargo culting. He’s not saying, “The secret to NVIDIA’s success is I don’t have 1:1s“.
I think it’s worth highlighting that what the clip misses is what’s revealed later in the same interview: how Jensen valued tenure in his org.
This might mean that his group of 60 direct reports have built enough ineffable capital such as safety, trust, and rapport with Jensen (and with each other), through different mechanisms in the past to allow him to do this kind of management style right now.
I am not saying I don’t see value in 1:1s, but let’s not miss this important context here.
Here’s an edited excerpt from the interview on this point about tenure, love, and care
Jensen Huang on tenure, love, and care
Jensen (JH), as quoted by Patrick (PC): “you can achieve operational excellence through process, but craft can only be achieved with tenure”
JH: I think a lot of good things could be made with operational excellence. But you can’t make extraordinary things through just operational excellence.
And the reason for that is because a lot of the great things in your body of work, and the products that you make, the company you created, the organizations you’ve nurtured, it takes love and care.
And you can’t even put it in words. How do you put how do you put love and care in an email? And for people to go “oh I know exactly what to do”, You can’t put that in a business process, “love and care“
PC: And is love and care kind of an NVIDIA catchphrase?
JH: Well, I use “love” fairly abundantly, and “care” I use abundantly
PC: At Stripe we talk a lot about “craft” and “beauty”
JH: Yeah right, you have to use these words, because in a lot of ways, there are no other words to describe it. You can’t put in numbers, you can’t write it in the product specification. You can’t specify these things.
And that balance is hard to find. You just feel your way there. And when you have a team that’s with you, that feels the way there together, in a lot of ways we’ve codified, we’ve encoded the magic of the company in a way that no words can describe.
And you don’t want to lose that. You don’t want to lose that. You want to take that and take it to the next level next time. And so I don’t want to reset.
Worth considering:
- He said, “it’s not conventional, but it’s the best practice (for them)“
- This is what works for them at this moment. Will there be n-order effects from this? Sure, but we won’t know, and not many seem to be responding to this clip in that level of depth or nuance anyway.
- He seems to be highly aware of how information flow is the key determining factors in his org building and how to best structure that flow of information.
- He’s a CEO, not a middle manager, running a layer of unconventionally-sized group of direct reports, on an org hierarchy that’s tailored to what his org is designed to do best.
- He might have other channels to accept and provide personal feedbacks from/for his direct reports (e.g. asynchronously)
- He’s not claiming that he has never done 1:1s ever (and now I’m just putting imaginary words in his mouth).
- He doesn’t seem like a heartless psychopath. He seems humane, has good EQ, and a good sense of humor. He seems to value “love” and “care” // Even though it could just mean “loving the mission of the org” and “caring about delivering results”. But, for real, your work colleagues are not your family and your boss is not your friend.
Well, we’re all just speculating here. For all we know, he might be a jerk IRL, his direct reports might be deprived of personal touch and career growth, and NVIDIA might implode in some legendary managerial failure. But hey, it seems to work for him right now.
