Nvidia's culture, Alysa Liu's mindset, and advice from Coinbase's founder

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Nvidia’s culture

“When Geoff Ribar was hired away in December of 1997 from Advanced Micro Devices to serve as Nvidia’s CFO, he found that his new boss had two impressive traits: Jensen was extremely persuasive and extremely hardworking.

“There may be people smarter than me,” Jensen once told his executive staff, “but no one is ever going to work harder than me.”

He was often in the office from 9:00 a.m. to near midnight, and his engineers usually felt obligated to keep similar hours.

“I used to tell people at AMD, Intel, or anywhere else that if they wanted to see how Nvidia was doing, they should visit the company’s parking lot on weekends. It was always busy,” said Ribar.

Even for the marketing department, working sixty to eighty hours a week, including every Saturday, was the norm.”

Source: The Nvidia Way by Tae Kim

2: Alysa liu’s mindset

Alysa liu is an American figure skater and 2026 Olympic Gold Medallist, who went viral for her joyful approach to her craft:

Liu competed at the Beijing Winter Olympics, then announced her retirement from skating in 2022 at age 16. When she returned to the sport in 2024, the terms were hers. “No one tells me what I’m gonna wear. No one tells me how my hair is gonna be. No one’s gonna try to change me.”

When an interviewer asked Liu whether she feels stressed at the Olympics, she didn’t hedge. “Oh hell no. … Competitions are where I’m least stressed because people get to see what I do. That’s why I do it. So I can share my work.”

Liu shared a sentiment that gets at something deeper: “I love struggling, actually. It makes me feel alive.”

Source: The Mindset That Made Her Golden: Alysa Liu’s Most Inspiring Quotes

3: Advice from Coinbase’s founder

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

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