Fortune

Jensen Huang was once Denny’s “best dishwasher.” “I planned my work. I was organized. I was mise en place,” Huang said during a March 2024 interview with Stanford Graduate School of Business. “I washed the living daylights out of those dishes.” Now he’s beating the living daylights out of the competition as president and CEO of Nvidia, the world’s premiere advanced chip manufacturer. He’s now worth $101 billion, and the company he cofounded has a $2.9 trillion market cap. But Huang attributes his wild success in business to the work ethic he picked up during his time with Denny’s as a dishwasher, before he was “promoted” to busboy. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gjrQWqSR

The internet has been rife with second-hand anxiety over the Boeing Starliner astronauts’ being stranded in space for nine months. They initially launched their test flight in June 2024, anticipating the trip would only take over a week. But after several of Boeing’s Starliner capsule Calypso’s thrusters failed during docking, the two astronauts were stuck in orbit until yesterday, March 18, 2025. It’s an existential nightmare to most—and no amount of money would convince some people to take the risk of the job. But NASA astronauts like the Boeing Starliner’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore brave the profession for quite little: they make an annual salary of $152,258, according to NASA’s 2024 pay rates.  Plus, they don’t get overtime or any pay bump for the danger of the situation. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gG7zZTkM

The White House has signalled more clearly than ever that the US intends to re-engage commercially with Russia when the war on Ukraine comes to some sort of reliable end. That would mean relief from US sanctions initially in part and perhaps later in full. More than a few US companies are waiting for this sort of green light to return to Russia. In the piece below for Fortune magazine, I argue that the lifting of sanctions shouldn't be the end of a company's discussions about going back to Russia. It should be the beginning. Beyond sanctions, much has changed in Russia during a war that has lasted much longer than anyone anticipated. Many thanks to Steve Mollman for the invitation to contribute a few thoughts and to Fortune for providing the link below without the paywall.

Eric Migicovsky, the creator of the original Pebble smartwatch, says it’s always been difficult to design a device that works with Apple’s iPhone, but said “things have actually gotten worse” recently. “Apple systematically makes it nearly impossible for 3rd party wearable developers to build a smartwatch experience comparable to the Apple Watch experience,” he wrote in a blog post. Migicovsky announced two new Pebble watches this week, the first new watches using the Pebble branding in eight years. But while Migicovsky says mass production for the new Pebble watches will ramp up “later this year,” he made it clear you should not buy this watch if you’re going to compare it to an Apple Watch. Read more: https://lnkd.in/edSMnUYm

When Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo confirmed she was being paid more than $20m a year for her work on the show, she hoped it would be celebrated as evidence of equal pay coming to Hollywood. However, before The Hollywood Reporter interview—which revealed Pompeo’s $575,000 an episode income, plus a seven-figure signing bonus and equity points in the series estimated to be worth $13m—went live, Pompeo was warned by her manager that she may not get exclusively positive feedback. At the time, Pompeo told the Reporter the deal had been struck as she took on the solo lead role of the medical drama, named after her character. But in a recent podcast interview with Alex Cooper’s ‘Call Her Daddy’, Pompeo reflected that she hadn’t considered her success wouldn’t be celebrated by her peers. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eNCrGZt3

Malicious hackers attempting ransomware attacks are increasingly using legitimate software tools already on the computers of their victims, according to two recent reports. Access brokers—or criminal hackers who gain a foothold in companies, then later sell that access to other criminals—have been shifting from phishing and other malware-driven attacks. Instead, they’re focusing more on social engineering—such as impersonation—and infiltrating software tools like those used by IT support to get remote access into colleagues’ computers, according to the latest global threat report from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The new reality shows how hackers are adapting to the defenses used by businesses to monitor and respond to intrusions in their systems. By increasingly masquerading as legitimate users on corporate networks, hackers are more difficult to detect. Read more here: https://trib.al/8VCmK2D

Last year, Nvidia’s annual GTC conference—hailed as the “Woodstock of AI”—drew a crowd of 18,000 to a packed arena befitting rock legends like the Rolling Stones. On stage, CEO Jensen Huang, clad in a shiny black leather jacket, delivered his keynote for the AI chip behemoth’s annual developer’s conference with the flair of a headlining act. On Tuesday, a year later, Huang was onstage once again, shooting off a series of T-shirt cannons and clad this time in an edgy motorcycle black leather jacket worthy of a halftime show. This time, Nvidia-watchers tossed around the metaphor of the “Super Bowl of AI” like a football. Nvidia did not shy away from the pigskin comparison, offering a keynote “pre-game” event and a live broadcast that had guest commentators like Dell CEO Michael Dell calling plays on how Nvidia would continue to rule the AI world. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eW4rpeXi

Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) CEO Glenn Fogel shares insights on leading through uncertainty, the resilience of the travel industry, and why, despite a lifetime of global adventures, his favorite place to travel is home in the latest episode of the #LeadershipNext podcast. Listen here: https://trib.al/RmZXVlL

For Term Sheet, I wrote about the new $177 million fund out of SemperVirens Venture Capital and how they're leveraging secondary sales to generate returns for their investors: Thanks for chatting Robby Peters Allison Baum Gates https://lnkd.in/e4RSBuM4

Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital firms, is laying off its Washington, D.C.-based policy team and shuttering its office there, just as some tech-related companies try to increase their visibility in the U.S. capital after President Trump’s re-election. The changes will take effect at the end of March and impact three full-time employees as well as policy fellows who worked with the firm. Sequoia confirmed the layoff while two sources familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because the topic is sensitive, said that the firm would close its Washington office. Sequoia says it had set up its small policy team five years ago—during the first Trump Administration—to advise its investment team and portfolio companies on regulatory issues, deepen its knowledge of the policy landscape, and strengthen its connections with global policymakers, experts, and think tanks. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ef-RBJwV