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Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

fortune.com

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Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#61

Post by ajross »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #56
ajross wrote: post #49

Not really relevant to Huang's speech per se, but the article engages in IMHO one of the most infuriatingly wrong misconceptions in education journalism: > [Stanford] is one of the most selective in the United States [...] and the few students who get picked to study there are charged $62,484 in tuition fees for the premium, compared to the average $26,027 per annum cost. But, unfortunately for those saddled with stu…

I know many people who have attended ivy league schools and $100k+ debt is not unusual among them.

Not statistically it isn't. I invite you to cite data. Again, you can't get a bank to write you loans of that size without collateral of some kind. Banks will write loans for the subsidized amount (currently capped at $31k per student federally), plus some from other guarantee sources like state programs, and throw in a little on the expectation of future salary. The only people getting $100k loan balances as undergraduates are people whose parents are co-signing (or who otherwise have something that looks like collateral to a bank).

Note that's not true of post-graduate schools. In particular banks are willing to tolerate a much higher debt load for med school students. But the discussion here is about "Does Stanford require more debt than other schools". And it does not.

Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#62

Post by sanderjd »

simpletone wrote: post #36

> Greatness comes from character and character isn’t formed out of smart people—it’s formed out of people who suffered. Or 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them' -- Shakespeare There are many paths to greatness. The article mentions a lot of hurdles and racism that he had to overcome. But those are specific to him. I'm sure there are plenty 'great' people who haven't s…

> I don't think people with low expectations start companies. Certainly those with low expectations don't rise and achieve greatness.

I think this is a common misinterpretation of "expectations", to the point that it honestly just isn't a very clear way to make the point he's making. Here's a restatement of your quote that I would agree with:

> I don't think people with limited aspirations start companies. Certainly those with limited aspirations don't rise and achieve greatness.

But aspiration is not the same as expectation. It is perfectly plausible - and indeed, I agree with Huang, increases the likelihood of success - to shoot for the stars while expecting to miss.

Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#63

Post by op00to »

Is that why he’s a billionaire? Did he decide to set a low standard for himself of becoming a billionaire?

Less flippantly, there is no way that someone who is a billionaire has low standards. If they did, wouldn’t they have stopped working at 1 million, 10 million, or perhaps 100 million dollars?

Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#64

Post by cpach »

refactor_master wrote: post #31

Are there any solid numbers on this, or is it the old “durhh young people lazy” again? Surely every word uttered by a billionaire would be wrought with survivorship bias. You’re more likely to succeed in life if you have a “low resilience pampered degree” than not. I haven’t seen evidence that all the “resilient hard workers” out there automatically turn billionaires given enough time, huffing and puffing.

He didn’t say they where lazy.

Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#65

Post by bell-cot »

Draiken wrote: post #21
Ninjinka wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a Taiwanese immigrant who graduated early and built his own company. I think he contributed some hard work himself.

That's somewhat irrelevant IMO. There are hundreds of thousands of hard workers (probably millions) that are smarter than him that will never become billionaires. The difference is: he got lucky. This is the nature of survivorship bias.

> The difference is: he got lucky

So...back in 1993, when Jensen Huang was founding Nvidia, how many of those million-ish "smarter" people had any real interest in founding a graphics card company? Or any sort of company, period?

Yes, luck favored him a number of times, to make it to $8e10 net worth. If he was only worth a measly $8e5, would you have some other reason(s) to sneer at him?

Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#66

Post by sanderjd »

JohnMakin wrote: post #51
homefree wrote: post #6

It's more about resilience and what sets the stage for it. He argues resilience is created through suffering (which plays into the idea that if you want to know who will be a good founder, ask about their childhood). It makes me curious though about the direction of the causality - how much is resilience actually about temperament and genetics vs. the environmental experience of suffering. Why do some people become r…

Traumatic early childhood experiences (suffering) can cause profoundly negative, irreversible effects on a child's brain development that will have issues persist well into adulthood and beyond - I don't think his take is scientific. edit: not sure why downvoted, here's a source if you don't believe me: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968319/

Yep, I'm with you. I think this "suffering is necessary" point Huang is making is his weakest point. Maybe a more nuanced version of it that I think would be a stronger point is that there is a "sweet spot" of life challenges - not too much, but also not too little - that increase the odds of positive outcomes for people.

But as you say, people who experience extreme suffering are much more likely to experience a lifetime of profound difficulty than to become a great auteur, entrepreneur, or leader.

Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#68

Post by sanderjd »

op00to wrote: post #63

Is that why he’s a billionaire? Did he decide to set a low standard for himself of becoming a billionaire? Less flippantly, there is no way that someone who is a billionaire has low standards. If they did, wouldn’t they have stopped working at 1 million, 10 million, or perhaps 100 million dollars?

Like many comments here, I believe this is conflating "low expectations" with "low aspirations".

Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#69

Post by deciplex »

m3kw9 wrote: post #38
COGlory wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not rich hating, it's that there's a billion poor people who weren't passed a silver spoon, worked hard, but ultimately failed in the one key element: luck. Rich people never understand that most of their success came from luck. In general, it makes them very unqualified to tell other people how to get rich. And no I'm not saying rich people are too dumb to understand it, I'm saying that they're trying to ration…

You got some points but hard work does put one in position to get lucky. By participating and choosing to work hard and focus on one thing over the other, you are taking risk and there is a reward to that risk and luck comes into play. So give both worked hard, and one got luckier and more rich it shouldn’t lower his status. If he was born rich, that would help your argument

The point I think he's trying to make is that our economic system, to a greater degree than many of us want to recognize, hands out rewards arbitrarily. Merit alone will not get you there: luck and family connections (which is basically another form of luck) help a great deal more.

I think a reason we find this so disagreeable to think about is that it removes much of the incentive to work hard. If you are not wealthy and you don't work hard, you have a basically 0% chance of achieving wealth. If you do work hard, you have a 5% chance (for example). So, sure, if you want fiscal security then you have to work very hard, but even with hard work success is unlikely, with the factors other than "work hard" largely out of your control.

Then, of course, if you do achieve success it's easy to attribute it solely to your hard work (after all, again, if you hadn't done that, you wouldn't have been successful) - which is supremely annoying to everyone else as it very obviously isn't the case.

Re: Nvidia founder tells Stanford students their high expectations is a hindrance

#70

Post by [deleted] »

Draiken wrote: post #59
MrYellowP wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess at least some people realize how insulting you are. "Luck" is often a reason given by losers. It's the argument that shifts blame away from their own poor, often stupid decisions. It's used by losers when it comes to starting and running businesses, just like it's used by losers who failed to buy-in on cryptos or stocks when they were low. "Oh, your business actually took off? You got lucky!" "Oh so btc hit 6…

What a load of crap. Being a hard worker is not causation for being rich. That's such a naive take. How many people working 3 jobs you know are billionaires? Even millionaires? Are those not hard working people? Yeah, citing crypto, which is literally gambling, tells me the kind of argument you have. Not sure why the personal attacks are necessary.

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