Summary of Key Points
This article focuses on the phenomenon of Nvidia employees becoming wealthy due to the company's stock performance, clarifies the inaccuracies in the data circulating online, and reveals the unusual trend where the year of employment has a greater impact on wealth than one's job title. It analyzes the internal conflicts arising from older employees adopting a "lazy" attitude while newcomers are dissatisfied. The article also discusses how the low turnover rate among wealthy employees hinders the innovation ecosystem from thriving. Finally, by comparing Nvidia with companies like Microsoft, it proposes that a stagnant stock price can actually promote talent mobility and ecosystem development.
Detailed Breakdown
1. **Nvidia Employee Wealth Data: Don't Believe the Exaggerated Figures**
The claim that "50% of employees have a net worth of over $25 million" is not credible. The data comes from an internal survey conducted in June 2025, with only 3,000 employees out of Nvidia's nearly 40,000 staff responding (a response rate of less than 10%). Think about it: Who would seriously fill out a survey asking about their net worth? It's likely to be those with substantial financial assets, not new hires still saving for a down payment in the Bay Area. Moreover, the data has been misreported—sometimes it says one-third of employees have over $20 million, other times 50% have over $25 million—without any reliable source. Nevertheless, it's true that most Nvidia employees no longer have to work for money.
2. **Early Employment Is More Valuable Than High Ability: 2019 Graduates Outperform Senior Engineers**
A person named Zuhayeer Musa created a chart to calculate the value of the initial stock grants based on the year of employment. The results were surprising:
- An ordinary engineer hired in 2019 (IC2, with 1-2 years of experience) has stock worth $3.3 million;
- A senior engineer hired in 2026 (IC6, with 15 years of experience and leading a team) has only $786,000 in stock—more than a four-fold difference;
- A 2019 graduate has stock worth $1.6 million, while a 2026 graduate has only $64,000—more than a 25-fold difference!
The same position and job performance can lead to a 20-fold difference in wealth, simply due to the year of employment. At Nvidia, wealth is determined by the year you joined, not by your abilities or job title.
3. **The "Lazy" Attitude of Older Employees: A Problem That Money Can't Solve**
At the 2023 company-wide meeting, an employee asked why middle managers, who attend meetings and then go home to watch their stock prices, leave all the work to the newcomers while earning 20 times less. Huang responded by saying everyone should "be their own CEO of their time"—but this didn't provide a real solution.
The reason this issue persists is that employees hold too much stock. Stock incentives are meant to motivate them to work hard, but when stock values reach a certain level, employees think, "Whether I work extra hours or not doesn't affect the stock price," leading to a lazy attitude. Huang's solution was to personally review everyone's salary and increase it regularly. However, the more he increased salaries, the wealthier the employees became, and the less motivated they were to work, creating a vicious cycle.
4. **40,000 Millionaires, Only 48 Companies Founded?**
The report tracked employees who left Nvidia to start their own businesses and found that only 81 founders created 48 companies (a conversion rate of 0.16%, compared to former Google employees who founded over 1,200 companies). There are two main reasons:
- Compensation Mechanisms Retain Employees: While other companies give a large portion of stock in the first year and reduce it over time, leaving employees with little unvested stock after three to four years, Nvidia guarantees a certain amount of new stock each year, making employees feel they have more to gain in the future and thus less inclined to leave.
- Fear of Missing the Action: Staying at Nvidia allows employees to witness the development of human computing infrastructure firsthand; starting a business might mean working long hours without achieving significant success, so they prefer to stay.
5. **Innovation Ecosystem Needs "Exit": A Stagnant Stock Price Can Boost New Companies**
The core cycle of an innovation ecosystem is: Wealth Creation → Talent Departure → Entrepreneurship/Investment → New Companies → Further Wealth Creation.
For example, Microsoft's stock price remained stagnant for ten years after 2000, prompting employees to leave and start businesses or invest, which contributed to the growth of Seattle. Companies like Xilinx and PayPal saw their talent flow out due to operational stagnation or acquisitions, leading to new companies being formed.
However, Nvidia's stock price has been rising, and employees are not leaving, preventing the flow of capital that could nourish the innovation ecosystem. Perhaps only when Nvidia's stock price stagnates will more employees leave and new companies emerge.
In essence, this article argues that while Nvidia has been successful in creating wealth, the wealth of its employees who remain inactive hinders innovation. For true value to be created, capital needs to flow.