Nvidia’s CEO Is the Uncle of AMD’s CEO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Su

by rlprompt • 3 years ago

158 174 3 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

The wiki does a bad job of clarifying what the relationship is (wth does "first cousin once removed" even mean?). Here's a family tree:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/jensen-huang-and-lisa-su-f...

Still, I always loved how immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions, starting or leading top US companies, something that never/rarely happens here in Europe where maintaining the status quo and the "natural order" gets priority at all cost.

frfl• 3 years ago

Maybe the Wikipedia page was just updated, following this post, but it's fairly clear right now. It says fairly clearly in the infobox, "Jensen Huang (表舅 or first cousin once removed)"

FirmwareBurner9• 3 years ago

It says fairly clearly in the infobox, "Jensen Huang (表舅 or first cousin once removed)"

It was already there, but depending where you're from, "first cousin once removed" might not mean anything to you, especially if English is not your mother tongue. Seeing a family tree makes it clear for everyone regardless of language or culture what the relationship is.

Kiro2• 3 years ago

"once removed" is not clear at all. To me, it reads like nonsense.

FredPret2• 3 years ago

Ambitious, capitalistic emigrants are going to choose the US over anywhere else.

In addition, for immigrants from Europe/Asia/Africa, the US has almost complete power to pick and choose candidates whereas Europe is physically attached.

One last factor I noticed as an immigrant is that newer societies, like the US and Canada, are easier to fit into. For older ones like in Europe, it's just harder to change your identity and gain acceptance. This isn't a fault on Europe's part, it's probably just natural progression.

adra• 3 years ago

The enterprising Indian and Chinese citizen should know that it could be basically decades to immigrate to the US, so they're choosing anywhere else as a better substitute (or finding loopholes like gaining citizenship in other nations that don't have as long a waiting list?). Based on the current economic regime, it could be decades before candidates are granted permanent citizenship.

shaism• 3 years ago

Fully agree. Even as second generation immigrant, meaning being born in the EU, I feel less accepted in the EU than when I lived in the US for two years.

I felt that doing things “differently” or having unique background is more often perceived positively in the US than in the EU. In the EU, the norms force you to fit in, whereas in the US, you are allowed to pave your own way, whether that means success or failure.

FirmwareBurner9• 3 years ago

This isn't a fault on Europe's part, it's probably just natural progression.

I'd say it is, considering they/we have decades of data on what makes immigrants successful and what not.

doytch• 3 years ago

Language probably plays a non-insignificant role. I'd hazard a guess that more Indians and Chinese (the nationalities that are fairly well-represented in US leadership positions) are learning English than German, Polish or Slovak.

FirmwareBurner9• 3 years ago

Language probably plays a non-insignificant role.

Maybe so, but even Sony and Nissan had non-Japanese speaking CEOs for a while and Japan is not really know for its openness and progressiveness to foreigners.

Also, we're talking about global tech companies which reap profits from the global economy, so fluency of the local language that's only spoken by 5% of the world's population shouldn't matter that much, when those mega-corps hire teams of cultural and language experts for each market anyway.

I'd say it's more culture, mentality and protectionism of the status quo, than the language itself.

wddkcs• 3 years ago

This could be changing, ai translation knocking down communication barriers.

whimsicalism9• 3 years ago

Europe also largely just has a less pluralistic and diverse society than the coastal US.

Difficult to get the exact stats because it is illegal to measure demographic breakdowns in many European countries.

gambiting3• 3 years ago

Literally everyone under 30 years old in Poland or Germany will speak English(with a varying degree of proficiency, but English lessons are mandatory at school from the age of 7 until 18). No idea about Slovakia but I can only assume it's similar.

atyppo• 3 years ago

I agree that it appears externally that immigrants to the US tend to succeed more than those to Europe, but what's the cause? Higher wages and a stronger economy certainly play a role, but I suspect there's more at play here. A more selective visa program? It's one I would argue is overly selective especially when considering that one can be born here to illegal immigrants and be a US citizen.

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

here in Europe

got it. so here in the US, the overachieving immigrant stereotype is an assumption that is waning in popularity, specifically because it further marginalizes all the immigrants that are not overachievers and do not have the cultural or socioeconomic support system, while other residents assume those immigrants don't need support simply by factor of looking similar to another immigrant.

the phrasing is important. its fine to admire that there is a frequency of visible acceptance and elevation into high level positions. your words say you don't realize how rare that is.

throwawayadvsec5• 3 years ago

The US are a younger country and it's full of immigrants/children of immigrants.

Most of the money here is old money. There are dozens of implicit rules. In France having a teacher as a parent is a better indicator of whether you'll get into a top school than being rich. Because you have to know all the tricks in the book to get anywhere. From my POV getting into Ivy League seems as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, getting approved for a loan. In France, most immigrants kids don't even know the possible paths to get into a top school.

Also yes, salary plays a big role, if you're part of the top 1% of your country intellectual elite, I'd bet you'd rather cross an ocean for 6 figures than for 2000 euros a month and free healthcare.

dustincoates• 3 years ago

As an immigrant to France who wants my kids to succeed… how do I learn these paths?

ttoinou2• 3 years ago

   In France having a teacher as a parent is a better indicator of whether you'll get into a top school than being rich.

They believe more in the education system so they push their kids more into higher education. Most of the high education school in france have a somewhat fair competitive exam to filter the candidates

mlinhares• 3 years ago

That's 100% NOT how to enter an Ivy League college, there's a lot of preparation, planning and "tips and tricks" you get by hiring people specialized in "college applications" to get there. The odds you'll get to an Ivy League college without help from college admission consultants and careful planning is pretty close to 0.

brainfish• 3 years ago

A high SAT score is table stakes for Ivy application, not in any way a free pass. Successful applicants generally need impeccable grades, documented community service + extracurricular activities, stellar recommendations, etc. Or alternatively, be a "legacy", meaning your ancestors attended that school, which is more often than not a proxy for "be rich."

I don't doubt your characterization of the situation in France at all, and there are certainly a plethora of great universities in the U.S. that have reasonably accessible admissions, but the "top" schools (Ivys, MIT/Caltech, etc.) are certainly beyond the reach of many, and favor those who know how to play their game.

dragonwriter3• 3 years ago

From my POV getting into Ivy League seems as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, getting approved for a loan.

Your POV is simply, factually, wrong; more people get high SATs and apply to the Ivy League schools than they can admit by a wide margin, and there are a lot of tricks (many of which leverage accidents of birth, wealth, and social circle) beyond that which go to getting to the top of the list.

The bigger ones involve the hyper rich buying buildings, and the merely very rich engaging in bribery which is higher risk when discovered, but legacies, padding applications with extracurrriculars for which opportunities are very much not equal, etc., all play a role.

vladvasiliu2• 3 years ago

In France, most immigrants kids don't even know the possible paths to get into a top school.

What do you mean? As an immigrant to France when I was in 3rd grade [0], I knew in a couple of months that I had to go to a good high-school, to get into a good prep school, to get into a good grande école. Everybody knows this. And everybody knows how to get there: be good at math, and have good grades in general.

[0] In France, school grades are "reversed". Grades 6 to 3 are "collège" / middle school / junior high. Grades 2, 1, "terminal" are high-school.

freeopinion• 3 years ago

I do not know if your POV is that of somebody who actually attended an Ivy League school. If so, it is understandable that you see through your lens. You got a high SAT and got in. If not, it is still an understandable view. Everyone you've heard of that got in had a high SAT.

Here's a different view. More than 2 million people take the SAT each year. The top 1% score between 1550 and 1600. They number more than 20000 people each year. You can have straight As K-12, achieve a 1570 on the SAT, be president/captain of three clubs/teams, play two musical instruments, be a National Merit Scholar, serve on the board of some national organization, win 12 state championships, and still not get accepted to an Ivy League school. Or you can have a B here and there, score a 1500 SAT and get accepted.

My point is that it is not as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, and getting approved for a loan.

mytailorisrich3• 3 years ago

In France, most immigrants kids don't even know the possible paths to get into a top school.

Not true.

What happens, and not only in France (it's like that in the UK as well), is that primary and secondary schools that are in not very good areas are not ambitious for their pupils. They'll say average is fine, going to a technical college is very good, etc. so in the end those pupils do not think of taking the "high road" because they've been convinced it is not for them.

On the other hand, if your parents are highly educated and you go to one of the top secondary schools you'll be pushed and told that you should work hard and that you can get into a top university.

htrp• 3 years ago

From my POV getting into Ivy League seems as simple as getting a high SAT, applying, getting approved for a loan

It's more like the teacher in France example, except you also have to be rich.

bakuninsbart• 3 years ago

I think a major difference, at least to my country, Germany, is that in the US the university you graduate from has an outsized influence on your career potential, especially when it comes to senior positions at large companies. On the contrary, here in Germany these positions are usually filled through either familial connections or company-internal mentorships. Board members and C-suite often have been with the company for at least 20 years.

One other difference is that all the major companies in Germany are very old, and around half of them are either privately owned, or state companies. BionTech, the last company to really rise to the major players was actually founded and is being led by immigrants.

agloe_dreams3• 3 years ago

A key element in the US is that VC is a poison. With growth at all costs as a priority, many US companies are focused on getting whomever is willing to push sales over all else, this generally requires a name with a history of success so most internal hires are out. Also, most of these companies won't exist in 20 years to have someone whom has been there for 20 years.

roland35• 3 years ago

I haven't seen this trend in US tech at least. Most other engineers I've worked with have gone to good state schools but very few have gone to top ivy or similar (eg MIT/Stanford).

I bet you're correct with other industries such as investment banking or finance though.

ilikehurdles• 3 years ago

I think you’re half right. In the US, the university you graduate from has not that much influence in most career paths. For jobs expecting post-graduate education, then it starts to matter a whole lot. Matching into specific medical schools and law schools can have an immense impact on the respective careers. Tech jobs don’t fall into those buckets.

You are right about this being different:

On the contrary, here in Germany these positions are usually filled through either familial connections or company-internal mentorships.

Some government jobs are notoriously products of nepotism and inbreeding, but private industry is, in my experience, invested in recruiting the best candidates available to them.

It’s hard to explain in a comment, and it’s easy for locals to take it for granted, but private industry in the US incentivizes speculation (risk-taking). It feeds into how we start companies, how and when we invest, where we live, our liquid financial markets, and I think we idealize hiring not from academic titles or genes but from merit. This idea that we settle on the same things for the 30 years is somewhat antithetical to that.

princeb• 3 years ago

immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions

this is a myth. even if you just look at asian immigrant groups alone, many groups do very poorly economically - the burmese, hmongs, nepalis etc are all poorer than the average american. in fact, i think the only asian ethnicity that is over-represented in business leadership are not the chinese nor the japanese but the indians, and i don't even think that's true specifically for first-generation or even second-generation americans of indian origin.

pfannkuchen• 3 years ago

That doesn’t make it a myth, it just means that not every immigrant group has an equal chance. Do you think there is some super granular discrimination going on though? Seems more correlated with how developed the country of origin is.

zarkov99• 3 years ago

I do not see it that way. I was born in Europe and immigrated to the US. In my mind the differences is that the US attracts more ambitious and talented people than Europe.

epolanski6• 3 years ago

Don't forget friendlier business conditions both in taxes and bureaucracy.

Few of my friends that launched startups, despite being based in Europe, working from Europe, and everyone being European, incorporated in Delaware anyway.

US is simply friendlier to ambitious and greedy people. You can be so anywhere in the world but you won't get the same benefits you get in the United States.

hot_gril13• 3 years ago

My Middle Eastern family members always say the word around their nations of origin is, move to the US if you want to work hard and succeed, move to Germany or France if you want to chill and get free money.

jsiepkes• 3 years ago

something that never/rarely happens here in Europe where maintaining the status quo and the "natural order" gets priority at all cost.

That's not a thing unique to Europe. Same goes for almost every Asian company with Korean, Taiwanese, etc. roots.

It even goes further then the Asian continent. For example the president of Samsung Benelux is June Young Park.

automatic6131• 3 years ago

something that never/rarely happens here in Europe

The English PM is the son of Indian immigrants though

soligern• 3 years ago

66 of the top 500 unicorns in the US have Indian founders. I don’t think you would see that in Europe.

eldaisfish6• 3 years ago

Yes, the UK is the exception in Europe. The ethnic diversity of the European Parliament dropped significantly after Brexit.

lm284692• 3 years ago

how immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions

What's your definition of "always" ?

eldaisfish6• 3 years ago

Immigration is a choice and this acts as a filter. Second - the USA and many new world societies are not built around ethnicity. This means that hard work has a decent return on investment. In the old world, who you are and whom you know are often more important than your skills.

European society is constructed around sharply defined ethnic groups, often identified by name and appearance. Ethnicity cannot be changed.

Curiously, Indians and Chinese nationals tend to do well in the USA because their motherlands are poor. This means that only the most well off can even contemplate moving to the USA. Obviously, these folks do well relative to poorer immigrants. Europe's other problem is that it attracts mostly low skilled, older immigrants.

tazjin• 3 years ago

This happens in European tech companies, there just aren't many (that aren't American anyways).

epolanski6• 3 years ago

something that never/rarely happens here in Europe

It's a young country built on the premise of immigration and kicking out the natives, that might be part of it.

pastacacioepepe• 3 years ago

Way to spin it!

Completely ignore the family cartel thingy and focus on the American dream.

purpleblue• 3 years ago

First cousins once removed is the relationship between yourself and your cousin's children.

You and your children are first cousins. Your children and your cousin's children are 2nd cousins. Your children and your cousin's children's children and 2nd cousins once-removed.

jxramos• 3 years ago

I think there's a lot packed into that at all cost phrase at the end. I'm realizing that with development of technology or the pursuit of truth, anything that detracts from some main objective comes at some cost. When political angling arises, or maintaining the status quo, or whatever extra objective is added and overlayed onto a project which is not directly aligned with the outcome of the project you expose your development to getting lost in the weeds of suboptimality. How deep can those weeds get? Who knows, but trying to maintain face or balance a lot of other accessory details can occupy a lot of time and attention.

This kind of harkens to the optimality surrounding meritocracy based systems.

dahart• 3 years ago

wth does “first cousin once removed” even mean?

First cousin means they share a grandparent, second cousin means they share a great-grandparent, etc. Once removed means they’re offset by 1 generation, so one person’s grandparent is the other’s great-grandparent. There is a directionality; the person who is “once removed” is the one whose parent is first cousins with other other person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin

avgcorrection• 3 years ago

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/first_cousin_once_removed

Jenk• 3 years ago

wth does "first cousin once removed" even mean?

It is using a very well established (i.e., has been used for a long time) terminology to describe familial relationships.

The "first" refers to how many horizontal genealogy lines are crossed (self -> sibling -> first cousin -> second cousin -> etc.) the "once" refers to the vertical, so the "first cousin once removed" refers to either your cousin's parent or child, and as we refer to our cousin's parents as aunt or uncle, we usually conclude that your "first cousin once remove" is your aunt/uncle's grandchild, ergo your [first] cousin's child.

riffic2• 3 years ago

I was going to reply with a similar explanation but then upon a reread it seemed like a flippant remark that didn't seem like an earnest inquiry.

do people just not know how to Google things these days?

HWR_143• 3 years ago

never/rarely happens here in Europe where maintaining the status quo and the "natural order" gets priority at all cost.

The US lets people rise to higher heights, but income mobility is better in many parts of Europe. That is, the odds of moving from low or lower-middle class parents to the upper-middle class are higher in most major European countries (e.g. UK, France, Germany, Scandinavian). For that matter, it is also better in Japan, Australia and Canada. [0]

Or maybe what I saw is flawed and biased. I haven't spent a lot of time confirming it. I definitely have seen the claim pop up from time to time. It makes intuitive sense that society could prioritize either goal but that policies that help one hurt the other.

[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-social-mobility-...

foogazi• 3 years ago

Still, I always loved how immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions, starting or leading top US companies

Yea, we are all tech CEOs over here

david38• 3 years ago

I assure you it’s not “always.”

TMWNN• 3 years ago

Still, I always loved how immigrants to the US always ended up in high level positions, starting or leading top US companies, something that never/rarely happens here in Europe where maintaining the status quo and the "natural order" gets priority at all cost.

I read an interesting point recently: Austria's 100 wealthiest families have two thirds of the country's wealth, and zero have earned their money from technology; they've all inherited it.

How different would the same list be for Germany? One, perhaps two families earned their fortunes from tech?

seeknotfind• 3 years ago

Jenson Huang is extremely nice and personable.

newsclues• 3 years ago

Just hates gamers!

stu2b50• 3 years ago

It’s hard to blame him for that, tbh

DonHopkins• 3 years ago

He has a great spatula collection.

gok• 3 years ago

Well that's gotta be an awkward family dinner.

agloe_dreams3• 3 years ago

Eh, I bet they are actually quite friendly. Supposedly they both are very nice and I would argue that nobody understands each other's life better than each other. Plus, much of all of this is to their own gain. If AMD killed their GPU division, then Nvidia would be a monopoly and might get broken up or stagnate so a different company could swoop in and kill them. AMD's bet on TSMC is NVIDIA's 4090 gains.

zeroonetwothree• 3 years ago

“Uncle” has a specific meaning in English and so this title is misleading.

cosmojg• 3 years ago

Nah, both my English-speaking and Italian-speaking family use "uncle" and "aunt" with a similar amount of ambiguity. It's a term of respect for elder family members, extended or otherwise.

kaashif2• 3 years ago

On the other hand, I've never heard of uncle meaning any family member other than the brother of a parent.

At the very least, we can agree that using "uncle" like this is incredibly easily misinterpreted.

influxmoment• 3 years ago

Uncle has a specific meaning in English. In nearly ever other culture/language family titles are more flexible

hn_throwaway_994• 3 years ago

That's a bad analogy that's missing context. I have a very close friend of my dad's that I called "Uncle Bob" when growing up. That's very different than reading a news article that says "Famous Person X is Famous Person Y's uncle" - in that context I would expect a very specific set of possible relationships.

hn_throwaway_994• 3 years ago

Yeah, they are first cousins once removed.

mmaunder• 3 years ago

She is his first cousin once removed, if you want to get technical about it. She’s his cousins kid.

onehair• 3 years ago

In some cultures, that's not too far :P Where I am from, I have met all my grandfather's siblings and their entire sub families every year and we have very close ties.

whimsicalism9• 3 years ago

I have always found it surprising that the CEO of Nvidia just happens to be Taiwanese-American given the prominence of Taiwan in the semiconductor business but AFAIK he was not raised in Taiwan

aikinai• 3 years ago

Thomas Kurian, the CEO of Google Cloud, is identical twins with George Kurian, CEO of NetApp.

agloe_dreams3• 3 years ago

Have we considered just having one guy run 10 different companies that will sometimes cross each other's path? Saves on the number of kids you need that are related.

vasco• 3 years ago

Blackrock and Citadel enter the chat.

klohto• 3 years ago

Has anyone seen them together in a room, hmm?

boeingUH60• 3 years ago

Another example but not tech; Doug Lawler, CEO of oil giant Continental Resources, is the brother of David Lawler, CEO of BP America.

synergy20• 3 years ago

More than that, people tied to Taiwan have always been super influential about semiconductor industry at large, from Cadence to Nvidia/AMD/Mediatek to TSMC, they're doing really well.

EE is hard to take on for kids born in US, life is comfortable why bother? so immigrants and their kids filled the vacancy, could this be a possible reason of it?

BearOso• 3 years ago

They're both at least masters of EE, and not drop-outs. I find that refreshing for CEOs, and it shows an individual passion for and knowledge of their product. Intel's new CEO Gelsinger follows the same trend after a slew of MBAs. I'm hoping this means more competition and progression.

lukaesch• 3 years ago

I met him in person at the Nvidia AI inception event in Berlin a few weeks ago.

Very friendly and down to earth personality. He said that Nvidia had tough competition when he started (there was only on chip graphics acceleration in 1994) and literally no market for his product because no applications/games supported external graphic acceleration. Still, he and his team were convinced that general purpose computing (CPUs) for everything is not as good as providing a dedicated, specialized computing unit (in this case for graphics). So they just built it and made it. Even though they were nearly bankrupt for multiple times, they survived until 2023 and established themselves as a leader in their field.

He basically worked on this for 30 years. Not many founders show the same endurance.

hypeit• 3 years ago

Important to remember this kind of stuff when people tell you to work hard (for them) to get ahead. We're all just worker bees enriching a small network of capital holders.

hn_throwaway_994• 3 years ago

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber and former CEO of Expedia, also has a pretty illustrious immigrant family - see the Personal Life section of his Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dara_Khosrowshahi

walthamstow2• 3 years ago

Rich Iranians fleeing the revolution with their money and becoming rich Britons or Americans is not exactly a fairytale. Just because someone is an immigrant it doesn't mean they earned everything by their bootstraps.

hn_throwaway_994• 3 years ago

Just because someone is an immigrant it doesn't mean they earned everything by their bootstraps.

First of all, I never said it did. More importantly, though, they weren't able to flee the revolution with all their money, as most of it was confiscated by the Iranian government.

These types of folks are quite privileged, but not in ways that are often presented in arguments like the one you gave, i.e. "they were just born into money". Their main privileges are connections, their inherent confidence and belief that they have the power to be successful, and a deeply ingrained work ethic.

Daktest2• 3 years ago

According to the source article in Wikipedia: "“We had very limited money,” Lili Khosrowshahi recalled of the family’s early days in the U.S. “I’d never worked before. I started working full-time, and every penny we earned was put in Dara [and two other son’s] education… and it was expensive. I remember at the time coffee was $0.15 [a cup], and I wouldn’t buy a cup of coffee for myself.”"

https://observer.com/2018/10/uber-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-moth...

grumpy_coder• 3 years ago

I always enjoy the story of poor immigrants 'humble beginnings' sent away to expensive boarding school in foreign country.

Daktest2• 3 years ago

He also has a cousin who is the SVP of Engineering at Slack!

https://www.crunchbase.com/person/farzad-khosrowshahi

bee_rider• 3 years ago

Merge Intel and Nvidia, put Huang in charge of both, to cause family drama and get us some good chips.

riffic2• 3 years ago

"it's a big club and you ain't in it"

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/543644

ChrisArchitect• 3 years ago

Discussed just two months ago under the profile piece on her:

Lisa Su saved AMD – Now she wants Nvidia's AI crown

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36164887

saaspirant• 3 years ago

Context: https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/jbqm8x/its_a_big_cl...

bragr2• 3 years ago

Kind of a tangent, but I worked for a Chinese company for a couple years as the only westerner mostly. My coworkers and I had so much confusion talking about family until the mutual realization that we were not using words the same way and understood some concepts differently. That lead to a lot of sitting around and pointing at a family tree going "ok who would this person be to you, how important?", and sometimes really surprising each other. Long way of saying, she may call him uncle, but he's not her uncle in the western European/Anglo-american sense.

whimsicalism9• 3 years ago

Is it western European or anglo? My Portuguese family will call me uncle sometimes but perhaps that is just because first cousin or whatever is too difficult of a concept

bragr2• 3 years ago

There's some variation of course, but the family dynamics in western Europe all seem pretty similar to me, at least compare to the chinese clan system or other systems around the world. You can probably blame the Catholic church for that ;)

lost_tourist• 3 years ago

While nepotism/name recognition will give you a leg up, it will not keep you in the driver's set. Lisa has done a great job at AMD and good chance the company might be dead by now without her.

dang• 3 years ago

"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

An alternative is to find a different article that's more focused on the point you think is important. For example the link that FirmwareBurner found (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/jensen-huang-and-lisa-su-f..., via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36956184) would have been a better submission in this case.

Nvidia’s CEO Is the Uncle of AMD’s CEO

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