From Rags-to-riches: Nvidia CEO Lists Waiter, Busboy And Dishwasher Jobs On LinkedIn

Fans clamour for photographs and signatures and chant Jensen Huang’s name wherever he goes. However, the CEO of one of the most valuable firms, Nvidia, disclosed his previous positions as a busboy, waiter, and dishwasher. While he has not been coy about his humble beginnings, the Taiwanese-born American entrepreneur is gaining traction on social media.

The 61-year-old billionaire’s career background includes a job at Denny’s, a prominent American restaurant chain, dating back to his teenage years. Jensen is now the 14th richest person in the world with a real-time net worth of $102.9 billion, according to Forbes.

He began his career as a dishwasher while growing up in Oregon in the 1980s, progressing to become a busboy and then a waiter. Forbes lists Jensen’s educational background as a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Oregon State University and a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University.

Hindustan Times reports that Jensen continued to work as a microprocessor designer at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and as director of CoreWare at LSI Logic following his graduation.

The gaps in his LinkedIn profile from 1983 to 1993 — the year he founded Nvidia — do not include these two places of employment.

As a co-founder of Nvidia, Jensen has led the company as its president and CEO ever since.

Meanwhile, the screenshot of his LinkedIn profile shared on X has garnered praise and applause online.

A user commented, “Keeps you humble to remember your roots.”

Another user said, “Now this is called Motivation.”

A user labelled him, “Legend fr”.

Talking about his days at Denny’s, Jensen said, “Everything that I was doing, I wanted to do the best I could.”

The CEO claimed that he met Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, who would eventually become co-founders, at Denny’s, which the publication claims resembled a version of a Steve Jobs garage for Jensen.

Over coffee and Moons Over My Hammy, the three talked about what would eventually become the nucleus of Nvidia.