YouTube videos

Jensen’s talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (link).

My takeaways

• I find Jensen very interesting. He has SRK-like mannerisms, and probably a similar level of charisma (the latest silky, gray-haired Jensen, the Jensen from the mid-2000s, maybe not). He speaks very well, by which I mean he says mostly profound things with very little fluff and is able to talk and deliver his views without making anyone feeling worse. He gives off a huge “sweet talker” vibe (charisma), which is normally something I’ve not seen outside scammers, and to be clear I don’t think he’s anything close to being a scammer.
• “Do what you are uniquely positioned to do” (similar to thoughts I had, and also what Satoro Iwata had said). “The only question is, is this important work? And if we didn’t do it, would it have happened without us?” (23:38). “Your job is to make a unique contribution … to do something that nobod else in the world would do or can do” (at 44:50).
• Organizations should be structured to enable everyone to do their best work (get out of the way, remove obstacles) “(My job is) to create the conditions by which you can do your life’s work” (twic, at 34:30 and AGAIN! at 43:33).
• The CEO (& leaders) should be visible (to employees). “Leaders have to be seen” (27:42). “(if the stock price has dropped by 80%) The most important thing I have to do as the CEO is this: to come and face you, explain it (even if you don’t have a great answer)” (28:35)
• The CEO should not rely on secrecy. Information should be shared publicly. “(sarcastically) The knowledge, the information of a CEO is supposedly so valuable, so secretive, you can only share it with two other people or three […] I don’t believe in a culture, an environment where the information you possess is the reason why you have power. I would like all of us to contribute to the company and our position in the company should have something to do with our ability to reason through complicated things, lead other people to achieve greatness, inspire, empower other people…” (33:10)
• Regulations should be done by specialists in the field (53:05). Interesting thought. I agree and wonder why this level of nuance is not there in most governments (and for that matter most discussions) around the world. Why not have a young tech advisor or tech-enabler to allow governments to digitize and democratize access to information?

Other notes

He also looks back on life to decide what to do, which (to me) is similar to Bezos’ regret minimization framework.
I didn’t understand his point about tokens floating in space (51:10).
Quotes indicate I paraphrased something in the talk. They aren’t exact quotations as you may expect, so I have this note here.