Jensen Huang, a Taiwanese-American billionaire and electrical engineer, has a net worth of around $120 billion. He built his wealth as the co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Corporation, a technology company known for making GPUs, APIs, and SoCs, along with other hardware and software products.
From 2016 to 2023, Huang’s net worth changed a lot, growing from about $3 billion to a high of $30 billion by the end of 2021, then dropping to $10 billion before going back up to $20 billion.
He became a billionaire for the first time on May 28, 2024, when Nvidia’s stock value hit $2.8 trillion. Huang has donated generously to his alma maters, Oregon State University and Stanford University. At present, he owns 3.5% of Nvidia’s shares, along with 3 million vested restricted stock units.
Early Life and Education
Huang was born as Jen-Hsun Huang on February 17, 1963, in Tainan City, Taiwan. He moved to the United States when he was nine and first lived in Oneida, Kentucky, where he attended the Oneida Baptist Institute boarding school.
His family later moved to Oregon, where he finished his education at Aloha High School in the Portland area. Huang then went to Oregon State University in Corvallis and earned a degree in electrical engineering in 1984. He later went on to pursue a master’s degree in electrical engineering at Stanford University, graduating in 1992.
Career Beginnings
After finishing his master’s degree in electrical engineering at Stanford in 1992, Huang became the director at LSI Logic Corporation in Santa Clara. He also worked as a microprocessor designer at Advanced Micro Devices, a semiconductor company based in Santa Clara.
Nvidia Corporation
In 1993, Jensen Huang, along with former Sun Microsystems engineer Chris Malachowsky and ex-Sun and IBM senior engineer and graphics chip designer Curtis Priem, started Nvidia. The three of them saw that the future of computing would focus on graphics and believed that video games would be a key part of this change.
Nvidia became well-known in 1998 with the release of the RIVA TNT, a graphics accelerator chip for personal computers, which helped establish the company as a leader in graphics technology.
Nvidia Corporation, founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem, is a major American multinational technology company based in Santa Clara, California.
The company specializes in designing graphics processing units (GPUs) and has greatly impacted industries like gaming, professional visualization, data centers, and automotive technology.
The following year, Nvidia introduced the GeForce 256, which added on-board transformation and lighting capabilities to consumer-level 3D hardware.
This launch happened alongside the company’s initial public offering. In the early 2000s, Nvidia grew its business by acquiring several companies, including 3dfx, Exluna, MediaQ, iReady, ULI Electronics, Hybrid Graphics, and Ageia.
Nvidia is especially known for its professional GPU lineup, which is used in many fields such as engineering, architecture, entertainment, manufacturing, and scientific research.
The company has also created an API called CUDA, which helps in developing programs that take full advantage of GPU capabilities, and it is widely used in supercomputing around the world.
As Nvidia has grown, it has started focusing more on mobile computing, especially on vehicle navigation systems and mobile processors for smartphones and tablets.
The company has also expanded its presence in the gaming industry by making handheld consoles like the Shield Portable and launching the cloud gaming service GeForce Now. Nvidia has become a leader in the field of artificial intelligence as well.
Philanthropy
In terms of philanthropy, Huang made a major donation of $50 million to Oregon State University, his alma mater, in 2022. This money was used to help build a supercomputing institute on the university’s campus.
Before this, he had donated $30 million to Stanford University, another of his alma maters, to help create the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center. He also gave $2 million to the Oneida Baptist Institute, which he attended as a child, to help build a new dormitory and classroom building for girls.
Honors and Awards
Huang has received many awards and honors for his business success and charitable work. In 2003, he was given the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award by the Fabless Semiconductor Association.
He then received the Daniel J. Epstein Engineering Management Award from the University of Southern California. In 2007, he was presented with the Pioneer Business Leader Award by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, and in 2009, he was given an honorary doctorate by Oregon State University.
Other awards he has received include the Robert N. Noyce Award, which is the highest honor from the Semiconductor Industry Association. In 2021, Time magazine listed him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Personal Life & Real Estate
Huang is married to Lori, whom he first met while they were both engineering lab partners at Oregon State University. They have two children together. After finishing their studies at Oregon State, Jensen and Lori bought a 1,500 square foot house in San Jose, California.
They sold this house in 1988 for $185,000. That same year, they bought a new home in San Jose for $338,000. In 1999, around the time Nvidia went public, the Huangs sold their home for $500,000 in 2002.
In 2003, they spent $6.9 million on a newly built 7,000 square foot mansion in Los Altos Hills, California. They still live in this house, which is their main residence in California.
In 2004, the Huangs bought an 8,000 square foot mansion in a gated community in Maui for $7.5 million. Then, in 2017, they bought a newly-built mansion in San Francisco that is 11,400 square feet, for $37 million. Jensen Huang’s path from a young immigrant to the visionary leader of Nvidia shows how powerful innovation and determination can be.
His groundbreaking work has not only changed the tech industry but has made Nvidia a global leader in GPUs and AI. Beyond his business success, Huang’s charitable work shows his dedication to giving back, leaving a lasting impact on education and technology.
With an impressive career and net worth that reflects his influence, Huang continues to shape the future of computing and inspire future entrepreneurs around the globe.
How Huang compares to other tech CEOs and billionaires
Huang’s total compensation for 2024 was fairly average when compared to other tech CEOs from the Mag 7 companies.
He is one of around 15 centibillionaires listed on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
At 62 years old, Huang is older than some of his Big Tech peers, such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Amazon’s Andy Jassy, but younger than others, like Apple’s Tim Cook.
How Huang spends his fortune
When it comes to real estate, Huang owns property in California, where Nvidia’s headquarters is located, as well as in Hawaii.
He’s not known for making many flashy purchases, but one thing that stands out is his leather jacket, which has become a signature part of his style. He has worn several different leather jackets at important events, including a lizard-embossed jacket that seemed to be from Tom Ford’s spring 2023 collection, which cost $8,990.
Huang has also used some of his wealth for charitable purposes. In 2007, he and his wife started the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation.
They donated $50 million to Oregon State University, which later named a research center after the couple, who are both OSU graduates.
The couple gave $30 million to Stanford University, where Huang got his master’s degree, to support an engineering center. They’ve also donated $22.5 million to the California College of the Arts.
