In 1993, Nvidia cofounders Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem sketched out their vision for a chip company over coffee at a Denny’s. More than three decades later, the company has grown into one of the world’s most valuable businesses, boasting a roughly $4.7 trillion market capitalization as demand for its AI chips has skyrocketed.
Now, Huang believes the technology Nvidia helped build has created an even bigger opportunity for the next generation of entrepreneurs.
“This is absolutely the single greatest time to start a company,” Huang said this week at Y Combinator’s Startup School 2026, in conversation with its CEO Garry Tan.
Huang, who is 63, added he was “jealous” of the opportunity ahead for young founders. While the pace of technological change can feel intimidating, Huang argued that overthinking is often the biggest obstacle and encouraged entrepreneurs to approach any challenge with one simple question: “How hard can it be?”
“Let the suffering come to you a little bit at a time,” Huang said. “Don’t imagine how hard it’s going to be and let all of that turn into anxiety and not doing something about it. You want to imagine in your head, ‘How hard can it be?’”
Nvidia’s CEO still fears his company could go out of business—but says embracing learning is the key to success #
Huang’s advice isn’t necessarily rooted in believing success comes easy. After all, the billionaire CEO has said he still works seven days a week amid a constant fear of his company going under.
“You know the phrase ’30 days from going out of business,’ I’ve used for 33 years,” Huang said on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience last year. “But the feeling doesn’t change. The sense of vulnerability, the sense of uncertainty, the sense of insecurity—it doesn’t leave you.”
Instead, Huang said his confidence comes from knowing that entrepreneurs don’t need to have all the answers from day one—they just need to be willing to learn.
Early in its history, Huang recalled realizing Nvidia had bet on the wrong graphics technology—and didn’t know how to fix it. And with just a few hundred dollars in his pocket, he went down to Fry’s—a former retail chain—bought three technology textbooks and handed them to his engineers.
“We actually started the company, raised money and bought textbooks—when you think about it,” Huang said at the Y Combinator event. “The big lesson for me is that technology is changing all the time, and so long as you’re able to confront the reality, so long as you are able to learn, the technology itself actually doesn’t matter.”
Americans are already taking Huang’s advice and starting businesses at record rates #
For aspiring entrepreneurs, the timing may not seem ideal to take Huang’s advice. After all, the economy remains sluggish, conflict in the Middle East continues to weigh on markets, and AI is reshaping entire industries almost overnight. But according to Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, uncertainty shouldn’t keep would-be founders on the sidelines.
“In fact, the best time to start a business, proven by the statistics, is in chaos,” O’Leary told Politico last year. “Every time the American economy is going through some kind of a correction is a fantastic time to be an entrepreneur and start something. And then you have to figure out how to pivot through it.”
Many Americans appear to agree. A record 3.23 million business applications were filed in the first half of 2026, a 12.1% year-over-year uptick, * Inc.* reported.
Starting a business does not guarantee success. In fact, nearly half of all businesses fail within five years of beginning operations, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said aspiring founders can improve their odds by learning from established companies before striking out on their own.
“I always advise to young people: Go work at a best-practices company somewhere where you can learn a lot of basic fundamental things [like] how to hire really well, how to interview, etc.,” Bezos said at Italian Tech Week last October.
“There’s a lot of stuff you would learn in a great company that will help you, and then there’s still lots of time to start a company after you have absorbed it.”
The Fortune 500 Innovation Forum will convene Fortune 500 executives, U.S. policy officials, top founders, and thought leaders to help define what’s next for the American economy,
Nov. 16-17 in Detroit.