Employees at AI chipmaker Nvidia are expected to be at their desks seven days a week and often until 2 a.m. — but workers are loathe to leave due to the company’s generous pay package, according to a report.
Ten people who either worked at the company or are still employed at the firm described the environment as a pressure cooker in which meetings often descend into shouting matches, according to Bloomberg News.
A former marketing employee at Nvidia told Bloomberg News that she would often attend up to 10 meetings per day — each of them involving more than 30 people.
The meetings would be characterized by shouting and fighting, but employees put up with it because of the “golden handcuffs,” according to the ex-staffer.
Nvidia, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of semiconductors used to power artificial intelligence technology, boasts a relatively low worker attrition rate due to the fact that its employees are given stock grants that typically vest over a four-year period.
Since 2019, Nvidia’s stock has surged by 3,776% — meaning that employees who have been working at the company for the past five years are likely to be millionaires.
The company has become the dominant chipmaker as demand for its semiconductors has grown in parallel with the rise of artificial intelligence.
According to Bloomberg News, the stock compensation package is a powerful incentive for employees to withstand the grind and remain at the company.
Last year, 5.3% of employees left Nvidia. But after the company’s market capitalization exceeded $1 trillion, the rate of worker attrition fell to just 2.7%.
In the semiconductor industry, the rate of employee turnover is much higher — 17.7%, according to Nvidia.
A former engineer at Nvidia told Bloomberg News that those who have been with the company for a decade have more than enough money to retire, but instead are choosing to work more because of a larger windfall that awaits them when the next stock grant vests.
The former engineer also said that he would often hear newly minted multimillionaire employees at the company brag about new vacation homes they were buying.
He told Bloomberg News that it was also routine to see many of them snap up tickets for events such as the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals.
Nvidia’s employee parking lot is also full of high-end cars such as Porsches, Corvettes and Lamborghinis, according to Bloomberg News.
A real estate agent based in nearly Palo Alto, Calif. told Bloomberg News that he has worked with several Nvidia employees — some of whom make down payments of between 40% and 60% on homes worth millions of dollars.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s co-founder and chief executive officer, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that he pushes employees hard because “if you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn’t be easy.”
The Post has sought comment from Nvidia.
