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At a recent gathering at Stanford University, Jensen Huang, one of the world’s wealthiest men and the CEO of Nvidia, a computer chip maker that has helped power the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution, said, “For all you Stanford students, I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.”
Huang didn’t try to be mean to Stanford students. His advice reflects his personal experience. Huang was born in Taiwan and spent his early childhood in Thailand. According to a commencement speech by Huang, when his father came to New York City for training in the 1960s, he was so amazed by America that he was determined to raise his two boys in this "incredible country.” In 1973, Huang’s parents sent him and his older brother from Thailand to live with an aunt and uncle in Tacoma, Washington. Huang was only nine years old and spoke no English.
Looking for the best education for their nephews, Huang’s aunt and uncle enrolled the boys at a boarding school, Oneida Baptist Institute (OBI) in Kentucky. It was the only international school that Huang’s parents could afford. However, something might have been lost in translation because it turned out that OBI was a school for troubled youth. As a shy kid, Huang might have been bullied. Still, for Huang and his brother, OBI was where their American dream began. In the summer, he cleaned all the bathrooms in the boys’ dorm. At night, he would help fill the pop machine.
Two years later, his parents emigrated to the U.S., and Huang moved to Tacoma, Washington, to join them. During the summers, he worked at Denny’s for minimum wage, from dishwasher to busboy, and eventually became a waiter. Looking back, Huang told an interviewer that his summer jobs at Denny’s were an “excellent career choice. I highly recommend everyone start their first job in the restaurant business; it teaches you humility and hard work.”
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