Before founding his company, he worked various jobs, including dishwasher, server, and waiter.
Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang entered the top 10 richest people in the world on Monday. This marks the first time a former waiter has made it onto the list.
Huang has become perhaps the most recognizable name associated with the boom of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the 2020s.
Interestingly, Huang had very humble beginnings. As a young man, before founding Nvidia, he worked various jobs, including dishwasher, server, and waiter.
Born in Taiwan, Huang emigrated to the United States (U.S.) as a child and grew up in Oregon. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he worked at the well-known U.S. restaurant chain Denny’s.
Rapid wealth growth
Huang’s fortune increased by 3.6 billion dollars in recent days, reaching 124.1 billion dollars, surpassing former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s 122.5 billion dollars. Ballmer swapped places with Huang, becoming the 11th richest person in the world.
Huang’s wealth surged as Nvidia shares rose 4.1 percent to an all-time high of nearly 144 dollars.
Huang’s approximately 3.5% stake in Nvidia accounts for nearly his entire net worth, with his shares valued at 122.2 billion dollars.
Since founding the company in 1993, the 61-year-old Huang remains Nvidia’s largest individual shareholder, even after selling 713 million dollars worth of shares this summer.
A trio of current Nvidia board members – Tench Coxe, Harvey Jones, and Mark Stevens – who have been connected with the company since the early 1990s, are also billionaires.
Nvidia is a leading designer of specialized AI technology needed for advanced AI applications developed by major tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla.
Headquartered in Santa Clara, Nvidia holds around 80 percent of the rapidly growing AI accelerator market, according to a recent Bank of America report.
