Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, a $2.2 trillion chip company, recently spoke at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where he was asked how to increase the chances of success for ambitious young students.

“I think one of my big advantages is that I have very low expectations,” said Huang, who graduated with a master’s degree from Stanford in 1992. “Most Stanford graduates have very high expectations.”

2733a7fba7c2de6385e4131a7ff4003c.jpg
CEO Jensen Huang admits he has low expectations. (Photo: Yahoo)

“Graduating from one of the best institutions on the planet” will essentially raise students’ expectations for the future but can also hinder their success, he explains.

“People who have very high expectations have very low resilience, and unfortunately resilience is a key ingredient to success,” Huang continued. “I don’t know how to teach you that, except that I expect suffering to happen to you.”

The Nvidia boss also revealed that he often uses the phrase “pain, suffering” in the company but in a positive way. That is because “you want to hone character. You want greatness, greatness is not intelligence, it comes from character. Character is not formed by smart people, it comes from people who have suffered.”

Then he joked: “To all Stanford students, I wish you a lot of suffering.”

Huang certainly endured his fair share of hardship as a young man. Born in Taiwan in 1963, he attended boarding school in Kentucky, where he was constantly bullied and discriminated against by his classmates. Without a mentor, he told The New Yorker, “you have to toughen up and keep going.”

He also told Stanford students that he worked several minimum wage jobs, including washing dishes and even cleaning toilets.

(According to Insider)