Earlier this month, Elon Musk weighed in after a clip surfaced on social media of Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang sharing how his hands-on leadership style and humble beginnings shaped one of the world's most valuable AI companies.
Born in Taiwan, Huang moved to the U.S. at age 9. As a teenager, he took a job as a dishwasher at Denny's — a job he still references when explaining his leadership philosophy.
"I used to be a dishwasher…I used to clean toilets," Huang said during a March 2024 interview with Stanford's Graduate School of Business, adding, "I’ve cleaned more toilets than all of you combined."
Huang says he engages directly with employees by reviewing their work, no matter how small the task and showing them how he reasons through complex problems.
Huang said that when employees bring him work for review, he aims to guide them through his thought process.
"If you send me something and you want my input on it and I can be of service to you, and in my review of it, share with you how I reasoned through it, I’ve made a contribution to you," he explained.
He added that this approach helps empower employees by giving them insight into how complex decisions are made.
The Nvidia CEO also admits that mentoring and reviewing employees' work requires significant emotional and intellectual energy.
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Huang's hands-on, humble leadership resonated over the weekend when Musk shared a clip of the interview on X, simply commenting: "This is the way."
Huang's values — humility, engagement and empowerment — have been central to Nvidia's growth.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Huang is worth $156 billion.
Nvidia's market capitalization reached $4.58 trillion and, in October 2025, briefly hit the $5 trillion mark, making it one of the world's most valuable tech companies.
Nvidia posted third-quarter revenue of $57.0 billion, marking a 62% increase from the same period last year and surpassing the Wall Street consensus of $54.88 billion, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Nvidia ranks highly for Quality in Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings, with its shares displaying strong upward trends in the short, medium and long term. For more details on the stock, its peers, and competitors, click here.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.