Jensen Huang can talk about founder mode even at midnight.
On an episode of the “20VC” podcast released on Sunday, Shiv Rao, the CEO of healthcare AI startup Abridge, shared the leadership advice the Nvidia CEO gave him during a late catch-up.
“He once called me at midnight, and it was like on his way home, and I knew it was him. I picked it up, and it was awesome,” Rao said. “He wanted to unpack a challenge that I was experiencing.”
Rao said that he had emailed Huang earlier that day for guidance — Nvidia is one of Abridge’s investors. When Huang called him back, the startup founder said he was impressed by the quick turnaround.
“One of the lessons for me that day was your job is to fall in love with whatever the job is,” he said, about Huang’s advice. “That is something you can do, and you can convince yourself.”
Abridge, which makes tools for transcribing and summarizing patient visits, was cofounded in 2018 by Rao, a cardiologist. In June, Abridge raised a $300 million Series E round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Khosla Ventures, valuing the company at $5.3 billion.
On the podcast, Rao said one of the things he learned to “bend” his DNA to love was “living on an airplane.”
“If you caught me like five years ago, I’d be like, ‘Never. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to find other ways to grow and scale,'” he said. “But this is what the job requires, and I enjoy it.”
Huang, who cofounded Nvidia in 1993, has famously flipped the conventional script on finding a career in what you enjoy doing. He has repeatedly said that it is easier to fall in love with what you do than to find what you love.
“I loved it when I was a dishwasher. I loved it when I was a busboy. I loved it when I was delivering papers,” he said in a 2023 podcast. He added, “I loved every single day at Nvidia that I’ve ever had, and I just learned to love what I’m doing.”
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