{"id":970577,"date":"2026-11-14T16:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T16:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/970577\/"},"modified":"2026-11-14T16:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T16:44:13","slug":"jensen-huang-had-a-strict-meetings-rule-for-his-60-reports-nvidias-interim-ceo-has-a-similar-mantra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/970577\/","title":{"rendered":"Jensen Huang had a strict meetings rule for his 60 reports\u2014Nvidia\u2019s interim CEO has a similar mantra"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Nvidia<\/a> CEO and cofounder Jensen Huang famously avoided unnecessary meetings, prioritizing efficiency over routine check-ins. Even with, at one point, 60 direct reports<\/a>, he refused to do catch-ups. Now that he\u2019s resigned<\/a>, the question is whether his successor (currently Colette Kress<\/a> who has stepped up on an interim basis) will keep the rule.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Stanford University<\/a>, Huang once disclosed his aversion to frequent catch-ups. \u201cI don\u2019t do one-on-ones with any of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Huang argued frequent meetings would clutter his schedule. He said they would also get in the way of the broader team\u2019s ability to address challenges, work effectively, and stay transparent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey never hear me say something to them, that is only for them to know,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s not one piece of information that I somehow secretly tell the staff; I don\u2019t tell the rest of the company.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that way, our company was designed for agility. For information to be to flow as quickly as possible. For people to be empowered by what they are able to do, not what they know,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean he had no time for his team. Huang insisted he still regularly caught up with his executives. They just didn\u2019t need to set time aside in their diaries to be on the same page.<\/p>\n

\u201cI write no reviews for any of them,\u201d he added. \u201cI give them constant reviews and they provide the same to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when an employee genuinely needed a moment of his time, Huang insisted he\u2019d \u201cdrop everything for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colette Kress shares Jensen Huang\u2019s affinity for efficiency<\/p>\n

Stepping into Huang\u2019s shoes (for now) is CFO Colette Kress<\/a>. The interim CEO, who has an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion according to Forbes<\/a>, holds a bachelor\u2019s in finance from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After nearly three decades\u2019 worth of financial roles at companies such as Texas Instruments<\/a>, Cisco, and Microsoft<\/a>, she joined Nvidia<\/a> in September 2013.<\/p>\n

Since then, she guided the company\u2019s finances through a significant transformation, from a business largely focused on video game hardware to a chipmaking powerhouse at the center of the AI boom\u2014and watched its market cap soar from about $9 billion to, at its peak, $5 trillion. Its since dropped below $4 trillion upon the news regarding Huang.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She hasn\u2019t revealed whether she\u2019ll ditch one-on-ones too. But the 59-year-old, who has spent 13 years as Huang\u2019s right hand on Nvidia\u2019s finances, seems to share his affinity for efficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not waste a day, we don\u2019t waste a dime,\u201d Kress said in 2024. \u201cAnd those two things are really important about us, our agility to move fast, but our ability to not waste things along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaders agree: Unnecessary meetings are useless<\/p>\n

Huang isn\u2019t the first leader to argue that meetings aren\u2019t the best use of time.<\/p>\n

Pandora\u2019s former CEO Alexander Lacik told Fortune too many meetings result in every department or company issue getting \u201cequal attention\u201d\u2014whether or not it needs it.\u00a0He limited his catch-ups with management.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s only one, two, three activities that actually draw disproportionate value and the rest is just background noise,\u201d he said. \u201cAs time has gone by and I\u2019m getting towards the end of my career, I\u2019m much more clear on trying to insert myself where I make a high impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

United Airlines<\/a> CEO Scott Kirby<\/a> caps his meetings at four hours a day<\/a>, and wants the ones he does attend to be \u201cquick\u201d and \u201calmost all conversational.\u201d<\/p>\n

E-commerce giant Shopify took one step further and actually axed all meetings <\/a>involving more than two people in 2023, in a company-wide \u201ccalendar purge\u201d meant to give employees more time to work on other tasks.<\/p>\n

And even Amazon<\/a> founder Jeff Bezos\u2014a big fan of \u201cmessy meetings<\/a>\u201d\u2014mandates a strict protocol to ensure they\u2019re actually useful, complete with a six-page memo instead of a PowerPoint (because they\u2019re too vague) and half an hour set aside at the start of the meeting to silently read it together before having \u201ca really elevated discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on June 12, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Huang famously avoided unnecessary meetings, prioritizing efficiency over routine check-ins. Even with,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":970578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2923,45,49,48,153915,8189,12173,99761,78816,6494,149],"class_list":["post-970577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-billionaires","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-evergreen-refresh","tag-jensen-huang","tag-management","tag-management-advice","tag-meetings","tag-nvidia","tag-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/970578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}