Why I Rejected My NVIDIA Job Offer

[@RobertElderSoftware]

I didn't realize how terrible this camera angle looked until I had finished recording. For context, I filmed this video during my 'one video every day for 30 days', so after the 3 hours of scripting and 2 hours to sit down and actually record this video, I didn't have time to re-film it or I would end up missing my daily video deadline. I hadn't used this particular camera lens much before, so I ended up sitting way to close to the camera, and I also recorded the entire video out of focus. lol, oh well, just hide the video and listen to the audio portion if this fisheye closeup of my face annoys you too much :)

[@whiteingale]

Please wear hat.

[@bradz9413]

Maybe a hat will allow better focus or contrast, but shit happens.

[@kusy]

I thought it was an artistic angle mimicking an inmate confessing his story.

[@somebody-anonymous]

The "no thank you" phrase is my favorite English phrase. I use the "no thank you" phrase to maintain my sanity and avoid being pulled in to the liminal void

[@intazoid]

Same here.

[@RobertElderSoftware]

This is my favorite sanity.

[@realGBx64]

Great way to politely say “wtf get the f out with that sh”

[@brians7100]

"shortly after the internship, one of these interns killed himself" damn bro wasn't ready for that

[@andrechen846]

prob unrelated to the internship though, as Robert dosen't make it seem like the internship was that bad

[@wuza8405]

what a spoiler 💀

[@bongo2319]

I could feel the cubicle pulling me into the liminal void

[@tefkah]

interesting video, insane camera angle

[@MainelyElectrons]

Hahaha glad I’m not the only one who felt that way. I watched this on my phone from 3ft and still felt like it was too up close and personal. Very entertaining and informative video nonetheless!

[@matthiaswandel]

sounds rather dystopian. My experience in tech was very different.

[@bobweiram6321]

Mathias! KZbin's algorithms are scary. How did we get the same feeds? You and I are from a different generation from Robert. Today's job market and workplaces are very dystopian. Getting a job these days is a lot more difficult with intense global competition.

[@skyhappy]

Can you elaborate on your experience

[@the-e1c]

damn, your sense of humor... that dry humor is top-notch. great story. truly loved it. thank you.

[@stalker6617]

This is my favorite Nvidia intern

[@bradley144]

The cubicle story almost sounds like a story from a prison sentence.

[@u2b83]

5:13 Dude, you got a photo with Jensen, nice! I took a street-side selfie of Buffet's house (while driving through Nebraska) and was followed by an undercover car with a PUC number for several blocks lol

[@br2716]

dont simp for rich Aholes who dont care you exist

[@fabio.1]

I went there years ago and didn't take a picture =-/

[@TeslaExplorer]

on a side note: I never valued man pages until watching your channel

[@Thomas10962]

actually really cool to hear about your time in the trenches!

[@iggypopped]

I’ve been 5 years at Nvidia now, I haven’t watched the whole video but for me it’s been a great company full of great people. I’m a fan of your content. Great job telling stories and explaining to us your history.

[@justindearing2832]

Look at his other videos. He is clearly very difficult to work with and has bizarre expectations for employers/jobs. He spends an hour in one video talking about why he is 'broke' and essentially deflects to all the people around him and 'the culture' versus simply leaning into the fact he is not a super prodigy who will lead a top 10 tech company. He has -every- single deliverable he has ever done memorized because they are few and far between. Its like people who remember the 5 wild stories they have from High School frame-for-frame because they are the only wild times they have ever had. Also, if he isn't working FAANG level any form of non self-employment is below him apparently. Dude might have some sort of autism (not saying that in a hateful way) but a lot of his issues seem to be ego and life planning related.

[@Demonrzxx]

@@justindearing2832true i think any other person with his opportunities would be rich

[@dkgong]

$20k in NVidia stock in 2012 would be worth about $6.4M today.

[@SelfImprovementin2024]

dont buy individual stocks, its too risky ; ) 20k in bitcoin in 2012 would be worth billions today. The trend will continue on both assets.

[@89elmonster]

6 rounds of interviews and only to be told they have no positions is crazy.... wow

[@and1play5]

I had 4 with AMD and got told the same

[@the-e1c]

@@and1play5 had the same exact experience with AMD this summer

[@goopah]

And people always asked me why I stuck with the same job for 22 years. It's because looking for another job sucks, and that other job may actually turn out worse. The devil you know, and all that.

[@CalvinAytch]

What if I told you that this kind of interview gauntlet is not uncommon in tech? 😅

[@VagrantCode]

That’s the USA for ya. When I was 15 I had a job as a telemarketer. I had to cross a literal expressway with a concrete wall in the middle on foot. I had to climb the wall and jump over.

[@dryoldcrabman6890]

Your content helps me man. I really appreciate it.

[@txdmsk]

People ignoring e-mails is just completely standard corporate practice. In my group of 10+ close coworkers I am literally the only one that reads and answers to mails, even though a lot of problems and information come to us via mail. I also send out a lot of important info through mails, and people are almost never aware of that stuff, because they just never read it.

[@CalvinAytch]

The worst is when you spend a good 30 minutes writing a nice, concise, well-structured email and the person(s) you sent the email to instantly reply with questions that would have obviously answered if they read your first email.

[@Ander0072originalv2]

Part of the issue is so much garbage is e-mailed and distributed, as result, when you have 1000 e-mails a day, it's like, who will read it?

[@txdmsk]

@@Ander0072originalv2 Yes. There is a lot of spam. But setting up an outlook rule or 10 for various corporate spam bullshit takes just a few minutes.

[@txdmsk]

@@CalvinAytch Yes. Most people are unable to read in a way to comprehend what is written. It does not matter how well you structure it.

[@n00dle_king]

I commuted all across San Jose via bus and even starting at Samaritan Hospital all the way up to Berkeley when I didn’t have housing there and though it was consistently slow it was also consistently safe and on time.

[@n00dle_king]

9:49 Oh god the flat tires are soooo bad there. Gatorskins are mandatory if you are biking.

[@haughtygarbage5848]

AC Transit being that insanely late isn't by any degree standard or normal, being car-less in the bay area generally works out well

[@anonymouscommentator]

wow your performance report sounds incredible!! its actually so good that i was unsure if you were making it up lol

[@CaptTerrific]

I've heard nothing but good things about the nVidia culture, I'm surprised you'd reject an offer! Can't wait to hear this :)

[@khwaac]

Comment after watching

[@user-ri4qk1xy3c]

Nvidia is famous for their engineering driven culture. Any employee can email and chat with Jensen about code and projects.

[@dave7244]

I've worked at a large company in the UK with the "tailgating" policy. I understand they don't want unauthorised people in the building but it requires you to be rude. Which I dislike intensely due to growing up in a small town. So it drives my paranoia up through the roof.

[@dmurvihill]

If they hate tailgating so much, they should install turnstiles.

[@dave7244]

@@dmurvihill They did in the end. But they also have a similar policy on the internal doors.

[@Bonzo632]

Robert I love these videos hearing about your time working for Nvidia and amazon, i'd love to hear more of your stories! It's also quite helpful as a canadian student looking for coop jobs soon... I'll try my best not to work for a thousand yard stare company. PS your linux command videos are coming in super handy now that all my courses focus on linux. Cheers!

[@pouf-dk3nq]

Awesome video, i'm still young and don't know how the work environment is in these corporations, this is good info and i would also have rejected the offer if i was in your place.

[@sorenkair]

14:48 wtf that caught me way off guard lmao

[@hashfors]

I don’t know what’s worse, inviting ppl in to look at your “cool” stuff or affirming the psychosis by looking at them..

[@TheDa6781]

You have that same thousand yard stare in your photo with the nvidia boss.

[@GrindLifter]

This is my favourite hidden gem

[@aphexpin]

Lame that one of your videos is expressing negative cash flow yet you pass up these opportunities. Many of use would kill for such a review.

[@ElmerGLue]

He is good which is why he is able to pass up opportunities. Focus on the tech and not the job and it will come to you as well. The issue is most come from it trying to reach something and then trying to imitate instead of just doing the work. Either you get hired or you learn on your own and get hired cause you are the few that went deep enough.

[@dallassegno]

I remember back in the day when they were telling us niggas building pyramids was a great opportunity. Thousands of years later, they would discover how well we were paid.

[@AnotherDante]

That's why he'll eventually be successful and you'll have to slave for someone until you die😊

[@dantheman1337]

​@@ElmerGLue not true, he is broke, single, prsctically homeless, no assets, and relying on donations. He is passing up on opportunities for daft reasons like his bicycle getting punctures

[@HUEHUEUHEPony]

NPC mindset

[@FryAndLeelaAndBender]

Sir, what do you think about the xz compressor backdoor that almost affected entire GNU/Linux ecosystem these days? Thanks for your content!

[@RobertElderSoftware]

It's a crazy story indeed. I'm not sure we have all the details yet on who is involved. If the maintainers of a repo can't be trusted, then all bets are off in terms of security. The exceptionally strange looking block of 'head -c 1024 > /dev/null' statements really should have raised a red flag, so not sure how someone allowed that to get past code review without at least a detailed comment explaining why you'd even want to add that to the project.

[@FryAndLeelaAndBender]

I hope this incident is not something done to deviate attention from another (and worse) possible attack inside xz project or some other related project in GNU/Linux and Open Source ecosystems. Some people on KZbin are also taking about Social Engineering characteristics behind this backdoor and how it was built.

[@RobertElderSoftware]

@@FryAndLeelaAndBender In the long-term, whatever software development model that will end up using, will eventually need to expect attacks like this and be robust against them. It's not just nation states. 1% of people are mentally ill, and 1% of that 1% are still sane enough to try and do strange things. Lots of people have suggested that this attack was insanely complicated, but I think it just looks that way because very few people understand build scripts. If you boil it down to "how many man hours would this take", it's not something that necessarily requires a nation state.

[@sofiendami1166]

One of the things I like most about Robert Channel is this cinematic touch that makes you feel like you are watching a movie. "RobertElderSoftware Channel is my favorite channel"

[@Avengerie]

“I don’t like my job and I don’t think I’m gonna go anymore”

[@Pawhustler]

Reasonable and understandable.

[@quarkinjapan]

Nvidia Optimus on Linux, I remember the pain of trying to make it work on my Laptop... I think I was running Gentoo at the time... I had plenty of time on my hands!

[@deckard5pegasus673]

Why go to a bike shop? learn how to patch inner-tubes. Buy Tyre Levers and patch kit for $5 and in most cases you don't have to change the tyre, just patch the inner-tube, and you can do it on the side of the road. You can repair it in 15 minutes. It's a necessary skill if you are going to commute by bike.

[@8BitNaptime]

Are Mr Tuffy tire liners no longer a thing?

[@haughtygarbage5848]

​@8BitNaptime they probably are but self patching gives you max DIY points

[@MrBlockyTV]

If you didn't want to work at Microsoft or Nividia - why even go into computer science anyway? Like what was the plan and why study something that is worked on in a corporate environment

[@HUEHUEUHEPony]

uhm, having fun?

[@ironuckles]

Do you think that you should have just accepted one of these offers to build up a nest egg for a while before going on to do the entrepreneurial work you did later? It occurs to me that you had MANY opportunities to make a LOT of money and simply turned down those opportunities to pursue a passion. I appreciate that you are not bitter or angry about your current situation, but that does seem to be one possible moral to extract from your experience.

[@elnegro23]

He jumped into entrepreneurship too quickly without without cementing any industry experience or better networks within his industry by not taking those jobs. Pursuing your passions is not always the best thing to do. At least secure the bag first i guess.

[@CalvinAytch]

I do think he made some critical mistakes in building his career path and tried to get into self-employment too fast. However, hindsight is 20/20.

[@kiri101]

I ended up working under an American psychopath who knew nothing about IT but ran the department, that was fun. Consulting might suck but there's something to be said for starving with dignity.

[@skyhappy]

What made him a psychopath

[@dallassegno]

Sociopath?

[@lifeisstr4nge]

lmao, stories like these are so funny :D I remember lots of chill stories, really

[@user-ri4qk1xy3c]

Should have worked at nvidia for a couple years THEN contract in Silicon Valley. You would have been in the money!!

[@stu0things0and0stuff]

"Wooden thing with nails all through" "lots of them" were they carpet grippers ? Short nails ? Made of ply wood ? The bain of fly tipping scoundrels and bikes.

[@GOAT352u]

14:50 that was a bit shocking to say it like that

[@JamesJansson]

I literally said "What the fuck" and worried my partner. Lol outta nowhere.

[@rafalklepinski7372]

"I skipped our CEOs presentation and went to see the one at Twitter".. what a Chad! :)

[@BRUH.141]

Halfway through the video I started having an existential dread... Pretty good video as always!

[@jibblyjenkins5212]

Very personal, thank you!

[@sophisticatedphilistine]

So, in your entrepreneurial pursuits, did you find what was missing at NVIDIA and Amazon?

[@Dysfunctional704]

"I'm not sure if they actually offered me a job or not" 💀💀💀💀

[@simonabunker]

It would be great if you could do a video about how to get US internships as an international student and how that adds extra challenges.

[@RobertElderSoftware]

I went to the University of Waterloo which has a very good co-op program, and I'd say that's the main secret. These companies recruit from these schools specifically because there is a concentration of talent there, and they can interview a bunch of people at once. The university admin are also very knowledgeable about the US visa process, so they were able to coach us through the process. So I'd say the #1 most important thing is to pick a school with a good co-op program.

[@kozlovskyi]

Voice of engineer in an ocean of "influencers".

[@garyshearer0]

big back log of linux vids to binge. subbed.

[@allenp8165]

I feel like a couple years in a space like this could seriously yield insane financial benefit that could help you get more consulting gigs and more time to do youtube. The job market wont get better, might as well survive

[@5milemacc737]

im up huge in NVDA thx g

[@Neura1net]

Your channel is awesome Linux-Jesus!

[@mannyc19]

Given the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ you turned down over time and amazing opportunities, that decision was a crazy stupid decision. SMH.

[@RobertElderSoftware]

I forget what the starting salary for NVIDIA was back then, but I think was only something like $65k starting salary. When you do the math on cost of housing and taxes down there, it doesn't really seem like such an amazing opportunity. The amount of money that I would have made on NVIDIA stock would have been on the order of 100x as much as what I would have made from my salary, so the winning move wasn't to work there, it was to buy the stock.

[@tatenda1803]

@@RobertElderSoftwaredude it’s not just the money. It’s connections and a career base. A lot of your content sounds like long rambling with excuses mixed in. You do take ownership but it feels like you want everything to be perfect to stick with it.

[@tonymontana8741]

​@@RobertElderSoftware you would've had better opportunities than what u ended up having with contract work, at least you would've had a stable job

[@idkwayta1722]

@@RobertElderSoftware It might not been THE winning move but you might end up better than now

[@btm1]

@@tatenda1803 I don't think it has to do with perfection, he decided that this was not something he wanted to do with his life. As long as he is ok with his decision, I say good on him

[@vilijanac]

I like it, your confessions here. I am different, not was lucky have access in older days to get into IT in Australia. Even as an coder also knew electronics, can make an rasberry pie before it got invented. If needed me to.

[@TheDa6781]

You know coding and electronics but cant produce a sentence in English that makes sense.

[@vilijanac]

@@TheDa6781 Thank you, only coders can understand me.

[@TheDa6781]

@@vilijanac i mama tvoja

[@vilijanac]

@@TheDa6781 Ahahaha!

[@ahmedanwer6899]

def not the video i shouldve watched before starting my internship in san jose

[@riittap9121]

The title: "Why I Rejected My NVIDIA Job Offer", but content: "I'm not even sure if I was offered a job" 🙄 My husband has been working with Nvidia since 2012 and the only regret is all those stocks he sold too early 😆 Great job with great people. They even get two extra days off every quarter, they're called Jensen holidays.

[@gcchec]

i think you are so close to the camera. Its kind a hard to watch for me.

[@RobertElderSoftware]

Yeah, I've only used this lens a few times before and I'm not really used to it. I didn't notice how bad it looked until I finished recording, but at that point it's to late to go back and re-record it from scratch. I set the focus wrong too. My shirt is in focus, but my face is not. That's what you get when the deadline for releasing a video is midnight every day.

[@kuulajarkkoperse]

I thought it was a joke, like the red hat

[@dennischen2922]

@@RobertElderSoftware I personally am fine with this angle. It feels like having a one-on-one conversation.

[@somebody-anonymous]

I can only say I enjoyed the video and I didn't think about how close the camera was (who knows if another camera setup might have made it even more enjoyable, but I don't think it would have a big impact on me)

[@txdmsk]

Ok, there are some really naive stuff in this video. What do you want a workplace to be? A daycare center? A LAN party? A hippie commune? A place where people inwardly work for a couple of hours in silence then go for lunch together, and then work for a few hours again and take some walks together in short breaks is literally the ideal workplace. Your coworkers are NOT your friends, your managers are NOT your friends, HR / etc. are NOT your friends. And almost likely will never be. You will both pretend and be courteous and do friend"ly" stuff, but it will most likely never grow beyond that. That is always the case, everywhere. In IT even getting some skirt at the office is difficult. Let alone a wife. A lot of people have illusions about how their life will turn into a buddy cop comedy or a romcom once they start a job, but that is just as naive as it gets. Instead, make the time at the company more valuable for you through various means. I used to make some tea there, protein shakes, I plugged some audiobook into my ears, or music, or a podcast, plan my finances, whatever. I also had a lot of social interaction, but I quickly learned that they are pretent friendships without much essence.

[@ay5960]

Imagine you did get a full time job there at that time ...

[@1873Winchester]

America sounds so fucking dystopian too, Canada doesn't sound much better by the way, can't understand why you all aren't luigin out

[@npn7564]

You seem like a very decent man.

[@alphadog6970]

Ah yes the modern day american dream.😅

[@illusive_agent]

legend

[@user-ro1cc8tz6d]

its over 9000

[@tuzzogetti]

Chatting with colleagues is really that necessary in Software development? I mean, you cant have a little metting with a coworker for small questions?

[@nurahamed7230]

Hello sir Can u please explore the new tools such as 1. Fluxion 2. Lynis These 2 tools r very useful just make a tutorial on that particular tool.

[@fL0p]

Dude just stop being poor and pay for your internet connection Imagine trying to hack wi-fi credentials in 2024 unironically

[@---usr]

Wow, I'm almost first 😊

[@recoverybot777]

You are a good liar

[@IQof2]

Was not expecting the intern plot twist 🫤

[@SB-qm5wg]

You give them the Linus Torvalds response? lol