Founder Bojan Tunguz defended the policy as signaling professional autonomy.
Went to NVIDIA HQ today.
Two interesting observations:
1. Snacks and coffee are not free: you have to pay for them. This would be unusual at Big Tech, but no big deal for devs here. "We use this thing called salary to buy stuff we actually need." Food for thought (literally!)
Positive users praise NVIDIA's policy of charging for HQ snacks and coffee as responsible adult behavior and a sign of strong culture, while negative users call it greedy and criticize the lack of free coffee.
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2. Inside HQ, Codex and other AI startups have dedicated offices where they hold office hours for NVIDIA employees. Never seen anything like this!
I assume because no other large tech company is the kind of "platform" for so much of the tech industry like NVIDIA. The Codex team is v popular here btw as I heard!
> chip company > no free chips
Went to NVIDIA HQ today.
Two interesting observations:
1. Snacks and coffee are not free: you have to pay for them. This would be unusual at Big Tech, but no big deal for devs here. "We use this thing called salary to buy stuff we actually need." Food for thought (literally!)
@GergelyOrosz is it subsidized at least? sometimes it's nice to just be able to go grab a lacroix and some chips without having to pay for something.
Everything about NVIDIA feels different to most of Big Tech I know, in the tactical stuff they seem to do.
But then the team I met operates more nimble and faster than most startups would do. I'm just not used to seeing this inside a public company. Ofc this was just one team.
Oh, and "Jensen" comes up every few minutes. He seems to be such a big driving force behind a lot of things there.
I will probably get more details and do a more in-depth writeup on NVIDIA. It's overdue anyway!
3. I talked with a bunch of devs, and also a few non-dev folks on teams.
Everyone I met felt like a mix of positive, focused, confident and chill. "Boomeranging" to NVIDIA seems common (met a dev who did 1 year at NVIDIA, left to start a startup, then came back 6 years ago).
Average tenure seems high. Switching teams easy, and the manager I talked with is someone who invests in people (as in taking on ppl on the team without in-depth expertise in what they do [build AI agents] knowing folks learn quickly.)
This was literally one of the top signals when I joined Nvidia that the company treats me like an adult.
Went to NVIDIA HQ today.
Two interesting observations:
1. Snacks and coffee are not free: you have to pay for them. This would be unusual at Big Tech, but no big deal for devs here. "We use this thing called salary to buy stuff we actually need." Food for thought (literally!)
@GergelyOrosz coffee is free and the snacks are subsidized
the cost is just to add some kinda friction so you don't grab 1000
@GergelyOrosz Damn if they let the internal market dictate the prices then a cup of coffee might cost $10k
Everything about NVIDIA feels different to most of Big Tech I know, in the tactical stuff they seem to do.
But then the team I met operates more nimble and faster than most startups would do. I'm just not used to seeing this inside a public company. Ofc this was just one team.
Oh, and "Jensen" comes up every few minutes. He seems to be such a big driving force behind a lot of things there.
I will probably get more details and do a more in-depth writeup on NVIDIA. It's overdue anyway!
@GergelyOrosz I am sure you are aware, Microsoft, you need to pay for everything except micro kitchen. I think it's company's initial culture rather than recent ones. Same in Apple too
@GergelyOrosz not unusual at Amazon. they only give one free banana a day lol
@GergelyOrosz Does NVIDIA have ketchup. I was told ketchup isn’t available anymore.
@runT1ME I'll have to ask
@GergelyOrosz Avoids food wastage imo. Big tech pays enough to buy your own food. No free food at Microsoft as well.
@GergelyOrosz One thing to keep in mind, pre-big tech it was a big perk to just have on campus food. I worked at one place where it was bring your lunch or eat Carls Jr in the couple years before they built a cafe.
NVIDIA is a bit older, so likely has that DNA.
@Atrioc @GergelyOrosz Of course you know that the coffee is free ICANT
@GergelyOrosz Free high quality food at work is worth more then equivalent pay increase and probably cheaper to provide than the employee would have to pay solo due to scale and no restaraunt margins. Plus getting people to show up early and stay late if you offer breakfast and dinner
@GergelyOrosz a company with nvidia's margins charging staff for coffee is a choice.
@GergelyOrosz That’s such an NVIDIA line 😭
“Free snacks are for companies trying to impress you. We’re paying you enough to expense your own almonds.”
@GergelyOrosz My two friends work at Nvidia, and middle management makes many things unnecessarily tedious and difficult.