Jensen Huang Says Fear of Failure Still Shapes His Decisions at Nvidia

Even as Nvidia sits at the peak of the global tech industry, CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang says he continues to live with the same pressure, vulnerability, and anxiety that defined the company’s early days. Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Huang revealed that massive success has done little to ease the fear that something could go wrong at any moment.

Huang said that despite steering Nvidia to a valuation exceeding $5 trillion, the emotional weight he carried in the 1990s never really went away. He admitted that a sense of collapse always felt close in the company’s early years — and it still feels that way today. “The sense of vulnerability, the sense of uncertainty, the sense of insecurity, it doesn't leave you,” he said. According to him, success changes very little about the constant pressure of running a fast-moving technology company.

What continues to push him forward is not the pursuit of glory but a deep aversion to failure. Huang explained that he has always been more motivated by fear than ambition. “I have a greater drive from not wanting to fail than the drive of wanting to succeed. Failure drives me more than greed or whatever it is,” he told Rogan. For the Nvidia leader, the pressure that comes with that mindset is something he has learned to live with.

During the conversation, Huang also recounted one of the most terrifying moments in Nvidia’s history — an incident that nearly ended the company before it had the chance to grow. In the mid-1990s, Nvidia was developing a graphics chip for a new Sega gaming console when the team discovered a critical flaw. The error left the young company on the brink of collapse, with only a small amount of cash left. Huang flew to Japan to deliver the bad news in person, telling Sega executives that the chip wouldn’t work and the project needed to be dropped.

At the time, Nvidia desperately needed the final $5 million from the Sega contract just to stay afloat. Instead of pulling the plug entirely, Sega made a surprising decision: it converted the remaining payment into an investment, giving Huang and his team the lifeline they needed to keep going. Looking back, Huang described those difficult periods as formative, saying the suffering he endured helped shape his perspective. “Suffering is part of the journey,” he said, adding that hardship builds resilience and a deeper appreciation for the real world.

Huang also spoke about his children, Madison and Spencer, both of whom pursued completely different careers before eventually returning to Nvidia. Madison trained at the Culinary Institute of America, while Spencer explored marketing, moved to Taiwan, learned Mandarin, and even ran a cocktail bar. Their eventual return to the company added a new dimension to his life both personally and professionally. “My kids work every day. Both of my kids work at Nvidia,” he said proudly. “Now we have three people working every day and they want to work with me every day and so it is a lot of work.”

Despite the pressure, Huang’s reflections reveal a leader who embraces vulnerability, credits hardship for his growth, and continues to operate with the mindset that helped build Nvidia from the ground up.