Employees at AI chip maker Nvidia are expected to sit at their desks seven days a week, often until 2 a.m., but the company’s generous pay packages reportedly make them reluctant to leave.
Ten people who have worked or still work at the company described a high-pressure environment where meetings often devolved into shouting matches, according to Bloomberg News.
A former Nvidia marketer told Bloomberg News that he often attended as many as 10 meetings a day, each with more than 30 participants.
Former employees said the meetings were marked by yelling and arguments, but that employees put up with them thanks to “golden handcuffs.”
Nvidia, a Santa Clara, California-based company that makes chips used to power artificial intelligence technology, boasts relatively low turnover because it offers employees stock grants that typically vest over four years.
Nvidia’s stock price has soared 3,776% since 2019, meaning employees who have worked for the company for the past five years are likely to become millionaires.
The company has become a major semiconductor manufacturer as demand for semiconductors grows in tandem with the rise of artificial intelligence.
According to Bloomberg News, stock-based compensation plans provide a powerful incentive for employees to stick with a company through tough times.
Last year, 5.3% of employees left Nvidia, but after the company’s market capitalization surpassed $1 trillion, employee turnover dropped to just 2.7%.
According to Nvidia, the semiconductor industry has a much higher employee turnover rate: 17.7%.
A former Nvidia engineer told Bloomberg News that employees who have been with the company for 10 years have enough money to retire but are choosing to work longer because they expect a bigger windfall when their next stock grants vest.
The former engineer also said he often heard the company’s newly millionaire employees boast about the new vacation homes they had purchased.
He told Bloomberg News that it’s common for people to buy up large numbers of tickets to events like the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals.
According to Bloomberg News, NVIDIA’s employee parking lot is also filled with luxury cars, including Porsches, Corvettes and Lamborghinis.
A real estate agent based near Palo Alto, California, told Bloomberg News that he has worked with several Nvidia employees, some of whom have put down 40% to 60% down payments on homes worth millions of dollars.
Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that pushing employees hard means “if you want to do something extraordinary, it’s not going to be easy.”
The Post has reached out to Nvidia for comment.
