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Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

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Re: Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

#31

Post by paxys »

What's happening in tech today is a very clear sign of the AI bubble.

Generally every new technology that increases produtivity is adopted organically. Employees don't protest, because they themselves see the benefits. And yes, those who fail to adapt eventually get left behind.

AI may very well be the same kind of leap forward, not denying that, but rather than rewarding productivity increases from AI companies have started to reward AI use itself. Token use is being measured. Lines of code written using AI is being measured. Workers are being penalized even if their productivity is higher without AI.

The industry is being driven by FOMO, and that never ends well.

Re: Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

#32

Post by dotancohen »

UncleMeat wrote: post #17
dotancohen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of Nvidia's employees probably use token outside of work. Just like they just cars, heath insurance, and other benefits that many companies provide on top of salary. If a company can provide a service or product to employees cheaper than the market can, then it makes sense to provide it as a perk.

Company scrip.

That is a valid way to look at it, sure, if you wish to drag along all the not-relevant negative connotations. But this is in addition to salary, so no different than other perks such as a company vehicle. And Nvidia employees could presumably work for other entities. Additionally, the tokens are for a very specific purpose, and not related to a life necessity in any way - you're not buying food with Nvidia tokens as was the case with company scrip.

Re: Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

#33

Post by hellisothers »

OJFord wrote: post #18

He's not saying it like it's a benefit, part of the total comp, article is ridiculous. Here's the source (time stamped): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jw_o0xr8MWU&t=2h3m26s He's saying it more like a learning & development or conference budget, that it's a tool people need and are going to ask about or want to hear they have a good level of access to when they're looking for a job. (I've been looking and already aski…

I think you’re both right but missing a bigger issue which is the implication that these provided tokens are what the developers will use to develop with, at work “to be more productive”. That’s extra savage, today your work provides you access to AI, in the future you pay for that access out of your own “pocket”. It’s like being a lumberjack and having to bring your own chainsaw and gas.

Re: Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

#34

Post by markus_zhang »

hellisothers wrote: post #33
OJFord wrote: post #18

He's not saying it like it's a benefit, part of the total comp, article is ridiculous. Here's the source (time stamped): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jw_o0xr8MWU&t=2h3m26s He's saying it more like a learning & development or conference budget, that it's a tool people need and are going to ask about or want to hear they have a good level of access to when they're looking for a job. (I've been looking and already aski…

I think you’re both right but missing a bigger issue which is the implication that these provided tokens are what the developers will use to develop with, at work “to be more productive”. That’s extra savage, today your work provides you access to AI, in the future you pay for that access out of your own “pocket”. It’s like being a lumberjack and having to bring your own chainsaw and gas.

It's more like, being a lumberjack, they provide chainsaw but you provide gas. If you don't have tokens, use your muscle! If you have tokens, they promote you to the team lead, and you can sell tokens in the black market.

Re: Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

#35

Post by OJFord »

hellisothers wrote: post #33
OJFord wrote: post #18

He's not saying it like it's a benefit, part of the total comp, article is ridiculous. Here's the source (time stamped): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jw_o0xr8MWU&t=2h3m26s He's saying it more like a learning & development or conference budget, that it's a tool people need and are going to ask about or want to hear they have a good level of access to when they're looking for a job. (I've been looking and already aski…

I think you’re both right but missing a bigger issue which is the implication that these provided tokens are what the developers will use to develop with, at work “to be more productive”. That’s extra savage, today your work provides you access to AI, in the future you pay for that access out of your own “pocket”. It’s like being a lumberjack and having to bring your own chainsaw and gas.

It's still a big leap from what he actually said to assume that one would be restricted to an individual budget.

It's already variably the case or not (whether 'unlimited' or limited across the whole team) at different companies today.

All he's saying is that he expects to be paying not a couple of hundred a month per employee, or mere thousands, but about half of an employee's salary per employee on LLM usage. The article acts like he said it was going to come out of the employees' pocket directly with a corresponding pay-cut!

Re: Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

#36

Post by drivingmenuts »

markus_zhang wrote: post #28
OJFord wrote: post #18

He's not saying it like it's a benefit, part of the total comp, article is ridiculous. Here's the source (time stamped): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jw_o0xr8MWU&t=2h3m26s He's saying it more like a learning & development or conference budget, that it's a tool people need and are going to ask about or want to hear they have a good level of access to when they're looking for a job. (I've been looking and already aski…

In the future, when AI is mandatory (as it is already in some workplaces, such as mine), token is in effect part of your compensation. You will need it for automation in your home, in your life, everywhere. AI will be the new smart thing -- and smart things today will be the new dummy thing. Your appliances or computers in 2040 won't even run without tokens -- you can choose to find some scrape appliances or computer…

If it becomes mandatory in the workplace, it needs to be a work budget item, like other equipment, not as part of the compensation package. As for the rest of your prediction, I would have to be a complete idiot to pay for tokens to run a stove or a refrigerator.

Re: Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

#37

Post by markus_zhang »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #36
markus_zhang wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the future, when AI is mandatory (as it is already in some workplaces, such as mine), token is in effect part of your compensation. You will need it for automation in your home, in your life, everywhere. AI will be the new smart thing -- and smart things today will be the new dummy thing. Your appliances or computers in 2040 won't even run without tokens -- you can choose to find some scrape appliances or computer…

If it becomes mandatory in the workplace, it needs to be a work budget item, like other equipment, not as part of the compensation package. As for the rest of your prediction, I would have to be a complete idiot to pay for tokens to run a stove or a refrigerator.

I’m sorry, but they are already doing something similar for the TV. I mean the smart part. Sure, there are still dumb TVs but the writing has been on the wall for a long time. And it is from there that I see the future.

Re: Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

#38

Post by neobobkrause »

The compensation debate is interesting but I think it's a sideshow to what's structurally happening here. The entity assigning dollar value to tokens isn't an AI service provider. It's the chip supplier. Nvidia manufactures the hardware that makes AI services possible, and now it's defining the unit of account for the downstream market. Every major AI company is losing money on current pricing. OpenAI is projecting $17B in cash burn this year. The industry needs to transition from subscription pricing to metered, per-token billing, but that only works if the market accepts that tokens have intrinsic value. Jensen putting a $150K price tag on an engineer's annual token budget is an anchoring event for that transition, whether it was designed as one or not. I wrote a longer analysis of how this connects to commodity pricing frameworks and who captures value across the token economy: https://unlockedvalue.substack.com/p/ai-token-economics?r=6g...
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