Curious thoughts on this article "Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has a no one-on-one meetings rule for his 55 direct reports": https://fortune.com/2024/06/12/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-meeting-rule/
Submitted by Kate Horstman Braun on Tuesday July 2nd, 2024 3:16 pm
I certainly do have thoughts! It's interesting that he suggests "frequent meetings would clutter his schedule” as if speaking with other executives is ‘clutter’ rather than what it is: communicating with the most important people at your org. Since the aggregated behaviors of his directs are essential to the company, spending time communicating with them is not clutter. Scheduling meetings allows priority communications to happen by allocating time to them. How can we be sure we DO have time if it’s not booked? How can we be sure attention is paid to priorities if we don’t book time? And does anyone want their day to have no structure or plan?
Funnily enough, he must agree. Later it’s mentioned “Huang insisted that he still regularly catches up with his executive team—they just don’t need to set time aside in their diaries to be on the same page.” This sounds like anarchy to me. ‘Let’s just meet when we have time’ is either an absolute disregard for reality or even worse, a sign that they’re not truly busy. Does anyone that is very busy just “have time” laying around?
“In that way, our company was designed for agility. For information to be to flow as quickly as possible.” Suggests his people have no questions about how to proceed and nothing to share with him that is timely. Or if they do, he has to “drop everything” to hear it because there’s no time booked for that. Which just sounds like his entire day is back and forth from one crisis of communication to another.
I do appreciate the article noting that “Unnecessary meetings are useless.” I agree. However, the author uses many different quotes from a variety of people and situations to muddy the waters. Not all meetings are useless, but each of the executives noted have different opinions. By smushing these all together, the author attempts to suggest that ALL meetings are useless. Frankly, that is only true if all your meetings are bad or you want zero communication.
Schedule your meetings. Provide an agenda and invite the right people. Use meetings to facilitate communication based on the person or people you need to share information with and for heaven’s sake teach your directs how to do it so that we don't have to live with bad meetings forever.
Submitted by Tom Cassidy on Tuesday September 23rd, 2025 11:35 am
This Jensen Huang with 50 direct reports and no one-on-ones keep coming up in the media...for the most valuable company in the world people notice. Would LOVE to hear you all dissect it further if you have more insight on what actually goes on at Nvidia - or if unique business moats can allow companies get away with poor management practices. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-is-turning-traditional-corporate-org-ch…
Thoughts....
I certainly do have thoughts! It's interesting that he suggests "frequent meetings would clutter his schedule” as if speaking with other executives is ‘clutter’ rather than what it is: communicating with the most important people at your org. Since the aggregated behaviors of his directs are essential to the company, spending time communicating with them is not clutter. Scheduling meetings allows priority communications to happen by allocating time to them. How can we be sure we DO have time if it’s not booked? How can we be sure attention is paid to priorities if we don’t book time? And does anyone want their day to have no structure or plan?
Funnily enough, he must agree. Later it’s mentioned “Huang insisted that he still regularly catches up with his executive team—they just don’t need to set time aside in their diaries to be on the same page.” This sounds like anarchy to me. ‘Let’s just meet when we have time’ is either an absolute disregard for reality or even worse, a sign that they’re not truly busy. Does anyone that is very busy just “have time” laying around?
“In that way, our company was designed for agility. For information to be to flow as quickly as possible.” Suggests his people have no questions about how to proceed and nothing to share with him that is timely. Or if they do, he has to “drop everything” to hear it because there’s no time booked for that. Which just sounds like his entire day is back and forth from one crisis of communication to another.
I do appreciate the article noting that “Unnecessary meetings are useless.” I agree. However, the author uses many different quotes from a variety of people and situations to muddy the waters. Not all meetings are useless, but each of the executives noted have different opinions. By smushing these all together, the author attempts to suggest that ALL meetings are useless. Frankly, that is only true if all your meetings are bad or you want zero communication.
Schedule your meetings. Provide an agenda and invite the right people. Use meetings to facilitate communication based on the person or people you need to share information with and for heaven’s sake teach your directs how to do it so that we don't have to live with bad meetings forever.
Jensen 50 direct reports?
This Jensen Huang with 50 direct reports and no one-on-ones keep coming up in the media...for the most valuable company in the world people notice. Would LOVE to hear you all dissect it further if you have more insight on what actually goes on at Nvidia - or if unique business moats can allow companies get away with poor management practices. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-is-turning-traditional-corporate-org-ch…