Jensen Huang on why he rarely fires people and will instead “torture them into greatness”

You once told me that you really didn't like firing people and very seldom did it. Can you elaborate on that?

Well, I'd rather improve you than give up on you. You know, when you fire somebody, you're kind of saying. You're kind of saying, well, you know, a lot of people say, well, it wasn't your fault, or I made the wrong choice, or there are very few jobs. Look, I used to clean bathrooms, and now I'm the CEO of a company. I think you can learn it. I'm pretty certain you can learn this. And there are a lot of things in life that I believe you can learn, and you just have to be given the opportunity to learn it. I had the benefit of watching a lot of smart people do a lot of things. I'm surrounded by 60 people. They're doing smart things all the time, and they probably don't realize it, but I'm learning constantly from every single one of them. And so I don't like giving up on people because I think they could improve. And so it's kind of tongue in cheek, but people know that I rather torture them into greatness.

That was the phrase that I was hoping to uncover. Yeah, I remember you mentioned that.

Yeah. So I'd rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you. And I think coaches that really believe in their team torture them into greatness. And oftentimes they're so close. Don't give up. They're so close. You know, greatness kind of. It comes all of a sudden. One day is like, I got it. Do you know what I'm saying? That feeling that you didn't get it yesterday, and all of a sudden, one day, something clicked and, oh, got it. Could you imagine? You gave up that. Just that moment right before you got it, you know? So I don't want you to give up on that. So let's just keep torturing you.