Employees Who Joined Nvidia 5 Years Ago Now Millionaires And Coasting In 'Semi-Retirement'

Nvidia NVDA has seen incredible growth in recent years. Since the beginning of 2024, the company’s stock has jumped 167%. Over the past five years, it has surged by an impressive 3,450%.

Given these figures, it’s easy to see why many NVIDIA employees who joined the company five or more years ago are likely millionaires today. Additionally, many midlevel managers at NVIDIA reportedly make over $1 million a year, thanks to stock options and the overall appreciation of the company's stock.

However, being flush with cash now means that many established Nvidia executives are reportedly operating in "semiretirement" mode, which caught the attention of CEO Jensen Huang. They are financially comfortable enough that they don’t seem motivated to work as hard as they used to. 

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In response to questions about ‘semiretired' employees, Huang advised all workers to act as the ‘CEO' of their own time and be responsible for determining their work ethic. Still, even Huang received a 60% pay boost last fiscal year, and his compensation reached $34.2 million as Nvidia’s market value is now $3.2 trillion.

But not all Nvidia employees think they’re rich. As one Nvidia engineer earning $250,000 a year shared with Business Insider, employee salaries at the company are only impressive at first glance. He explained that although some Nvidia employees might be lucky enough to become millionaires, "a million doesn’t go too far."

This engineer, based on the West Coast and having joined Nvidia a few years ago, receives almost half of his base salary in the form of restricted stock units (RSUs) annually. He pointed out that from an outsider's perspective, it might seem like all Nvidia employees are rolling in money, especially with the company’s stock skyrocketing. 

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However, he clarified that not everyone receives a large number of RSUs as there's a limit on how many stock units employees can get. Even the top performers are capped at receiving 50% of their base salary in stock each year. 

"You will end up cashing your stocks to meet your annual obligations in terms of personal taxes, property taxes, and any other expenses you will have," he said.

As former Tesla director of AI Andrej Karpathy recently pointed out, "Most people don't HODL, and the government takes half." In other words, many Nvidia and Tesla employees could have been millionaires if they hadn’t sold their company stock when they immediately could. On the other hand, he added that long-term holders are likely awaiting Tesla to achieve fully autonomous driving with its FSD software before they sell at a premium. 

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