Most CEOs of trillion-dollar companies don't spend much time talking about their toilet-cleaning past. Jensen Huang is not most CEOs.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk chimed in after a clip surfaced on social media showing the Nvidia Corp (NVDA) CEO explaining how his humble beginnings washing dishes shaped the way he runs one of the world's most valuable AI companies. Musk's take? "This is the way."
The Dishwasher Who Built An AI Empire
Huang's story starts in Taiwan, where he was born before moving to the U.S. at age 9. As a teenager, he took a job as a dishwasher at Denny's. That experience still informs how he thinks about leadership today.
"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. "I've cleaned more toilets than all of you combined."
It's not just colorful backstory. Huang genuinely believes those early jobs taught him that no task is beneath anyone, including a CEO running a $4.5 trillion company.
How Huang Leads: Reasoning Out Loud
Here's where it gets interesting. Huang doesn't just delegate and disappear. He engages directly with employees by reviewing their work, regardless of how small the task might seem, and walks them through his thinking 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.
The idea is that by showing employees how he works through complex problems, he's not just fixing issues but actually empowering people to think differently. It's mentorship baked into every interaction.
Huang admits this approach requires serious emotional and intellectual energy. But apparently, it's worth it.
The Numbers Behind The Philosophy
Huang's leadership style isn't just warm and fuzzy. It's delivering results that are hard to ignore.
Nvidia's market capitalization reached $4.58 trillion, and in October 2025, it briefly hit the $5 trillion mark, cementing its position as one of the world's most valuable tech companies. According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Huang himself is worth $156 billion.
The company posted third-quarter revenue of $57.0 billion, a 62% jump from the same period last year, easily beating the Wall Street consensus of $54.88 billion.
Huang's values—humility, engagement, empowerment—aren't just nice corporate buzzwords. They appear to be central to how Nvidia operates and grows. And when Musk publicly cosigns your leadership approach, you're probably doing something right.
From dishwasher to AI titan, Huang's journey suggests that remembering where you came from might actually help you get where you're going.