Recently, I watched an interview with Jensen Huang, the legendary CEO of NVIDIA, discussing the rivalry between his company and Intel. More than a decade ago, Huang was already articulate about his conviction that GPUs would significantly alter the computing landscape. His clarity and foresight were truly remarkable, leaving me astounded. This is what distinguishes a visionary leader from everyone else.
Huang co-founded NVIDIA 31 years ago, firmly believing in the revolutionary potential of GPUs to expand computer applications beyond mere text editing and spreadsheet calculations to art, images, videos, and games. Now, with the recent AI surge, his early beliefs are vindicated, making him the 17th richest person globally with a net worth of $81.7 billion—an impressive feat for the son of Taiwanese immigrants who once worked as a dishwasher and busboy at 15.
Known as a demanding perfectionist by his staff, Huang admits, "If you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn't be easy." As an immigrant myself, I resonate deeply with his ethos of hard work and perseverance—there truly is no free lunch.
Here are two impactful quotes from Huang:
- Speaking to Stanford students, he remarked, "People with very high expectations have very low resilience—and unfortunately, resilience matters in success." This resonated with me as I, too, once had high expectations and low resilience, not due to a lack of diligence but due to becoming accustomed to easy successes.
- "I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering. Greatness comes from character, and character isn't formed out of smart people—it's formed out of people who suffered." This has become my new mantra: expect pain to achieve greatness.
Inspired by Huang, I am now diligently working on Lycee AI. The AI revolution is still in its nascent phase. Do you want to be part of it, or do you prefer to stay on the sidelines? If you decide to act, here's what you can do:
- Start learning how to program language models using DSPy. Here's the perfect course for that.
- After mastering the basics, explore the advanced use cases of DSPy. Here is the ideal course for that.
