Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang (Chinese: 黃仁勳; pinyin: Huáng Rénxūn; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: N̂g Jîn-hun; born February 17, 1963[2]) is an American businessman, electrical engineer, and the co-founder, president and CEO of Nvidia.[3] In March 2024, Forbes estimated Huang's net worth at $81.7 billion, making him the 17th richest person in the world.[4]
Jensen Huang | |
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黃仁勳 | |
.jpg) Huang in 2023 | |
| Born | February 17, 1963 Tainan, Taiwan |
| Education | Oregon State University (BS) Stanford University (MS) |
| Occupations |
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| Title | Co-founder, president and CEO, Nvidia Corporation |
| Spouse | Lori Huang |
| Children | 2[1] |
| Relatives | Lisa Su (cousin) |
| Jensen Huang | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 黃仁勳 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 黄仁勋 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Early life and education
Jen-Hsun Huang was born in Tainan, Taiwan, on 17 February 1963. His family moved to Thailand when he was five; when he was nine, he and his brother were sent to the United States to live with an uncle in Tacoma, Washington. When he was ten, he lived in the boys' dormitory with his brother at Oneida Baptist Institute while attending Oneida Elementary school in Oneida, Kentucky—his uncle had mistaken what was actually a religious reform academy for a prestigious boarding school.[5] Several years later, their parents also moved to the United States and settled in Oregon,[5] where Huang graduated from Aloha High School just outside Portland.[6] He skipped two years and graduated at sixteen.[5]
Jensen received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1984, and his master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1992.[7][8]
Career
After college, Huang was a director at LSI Logic and a microprocessor designer at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).[3] In 1993, at 30 years old, he co-founded Nvidia with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem and became its CEO and president.[5][9]
Huang has currently been the company's chief executive for over three decades, "a tenure almost unheard of in fast-moving Silicon Valley".[10] He owns 3.6% of Nvidia's stock, which went public in 1999.[11] He earned US$24.6 million as CEO in 2007, ranking him as the 61st highest paid U.S. CEO by Forbes.[11] As of March 8, 2024, Huang's net worth is US$81.7 billion according to Forbes, making him the 17th richest person on Earth.[12]
Philanthropy
In 2022 Huang donated US$50 million to his alma mater, Oregon State University, as a portion of a US$200 million donation towards the creation of a supercomputing institute on campus.[13]
Huang gave his other alma mater, Stanford University, US$30 million to build the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center.[14] The building is the second of four that make up Stanford's Science and Engineering Quad.[15] Huang gave his alma mater Oneida Baptist Institute US$2 million to build Huang Hall, a new girls' dormitory and classroom building.[16]
Awards
- 1999: Named Entrepreneur of the Year in High Technology by Ernst & Young[17]
- 2002: Received the Daniel J. Epstein Engineering Management Award from the University of Southern California[18]
- 2004: Received the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award from the Fabless Semiconductor Association, which recognizes a leader who has made exceptional contributions to driving the development, innovation, growth, and long-term opportunities of the fabless semiconductor industry[19]
- 2005: Named Alumni Fellow by Oregon State University[20]
- 2007: Received the Silicon Valley Education Foundation's Pioneer Business Leader Award for his work in both the corporate and philanthropic worlds[21]
- June 2009: Received an honorary doctorate from Oregon State University[22]
- 2018: Listed in the inaugural Edge 50, naming the world's top 50 influencers in edge computing[23]
- October 2019: Named best-performing CEO in the world by the Harvard Business Review[24]
- November 2020: Named "Supplier CEO of the year" by Automotive News Europe Eurostars[25]
- November 2020: Received honorary doctorate from National Taiwan University[26][27]
- August 2021: Received the Robert N. Noyce Award from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the industry’s highest honor[28]
- 2021 and 2024: Was included in the Time 100, Time's annual list of the world's 100 most influential people[29][30]
- February 2024: Elected to the National Academy of Engineering "for high-powered graphics processing units, fueling the artificial intelligence revolution"[31]
Personal life
While at Oregon State University, Huang met his future wife, Lori Mills, his engineering lab partner at the time.[5] They have two children.[32] His son, Spencer Huang (Chinese: 黃勝斌; pinyin: Huáng Shèngbīn), launched a bar in Taipei in 2015, and it was considered one of the top 50 bars in Asia by Forbes. The bar closed in May 2021, and he is now a product manager at Nvidia.[1]
The Huang family lived in ordinary middle-class starter homes in San Jose before Nvidia went public in 1999.[33] In 2003, they moved to a larger house in Los Altos Hills, California and in 2004 they acquired a second home in Wailea, Hawaii.[33] In 2017, a limited liability company reportedly linked to the Huangs acquired a mansion in San Francisco for $38 million.[33]
Huang and AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su are relatives.[34] Huang's mother is the youngest sister of Su's maternal grandfather, making them first cousins, once removed.[35][36]
See also
References
External links
- "An Interview with Jen Hsun Huang". Wired, July 2002. Volume 10, number 7.
- Nvidia Corporate Biography
- Jen-Hsun Huang (2015). "GPU Technology Conference 2015 - Leaps in Visual Computing". Retrieved March 26, 2015.