Two of Nvidia’s senior leaders are now billionaires, joining co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Nvidia’s Chief Financial Officer, Colette Kress, and the company’s Executive Vice President of World Field Operations, Jay Puri, are now each worth more than one billion dollars due to their ownership of Nvidia stock, according to Bloomberg.
Related: How Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Transformed a Graphics Card Company Into an AI Giant: ‘One of the Most Remarkable Business Pivots in History’
Kress, 57, owns nearly three million Nvidia shares and sold over 27,000 earlier this month for a cash amount of $4.7 million, according to a July 15 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. She joined Nvidia in 2013, when the company’s market value was just over $9 billion, after nearly two decades at Cisco and Microsoft. The CFO graduated with an MBA in finance from Southern Methodist University, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Meanwhile, Puri, 70, joined Nvidia even earlier, in 2005, when the company’s market value was $6.25 billion. He oversees sales and marketing at Nvidia and was one of the first employees at Sun Microsystems, where he helped start its marketing department. An SEC filing from late June shows that he directly owns over 630,000 Nvidia shares worth more than $108 million, with indirect beneficial ownership of 20 million additional shares through various trusts.
With the new additions, the total number of billionaires working at Nvidia is at least six people, Bloomberg reports. The ranks include longtime directors Mark Stevens, Tench Coxe, and Harvey Jones in addition to Huang, Kress, and Puri.
Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by Johannes Neudecker/picture alliance via Getty Images
Earlier this month, Nvidia achieved a milestone by becoming the first company in the world to hit a market value of $4 trillion, with the company’s stock growing 44% over the past six months. Two years ago, Nvidia’s market value was just $500 billion, highlighting its tremendous growth.
Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Will Make Nearly $1 Billion This Year Just from Selling Stock
Huang, who has served as Nvidia CEO since co-founding the company in 1993, said last week that he has “created more billionaires” on his management team than any other CEO in the world.
The 62-year-old CEO passed Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett in net worth earlier this month and is currently the ninth-richest person in the world with a net worth of $153 billion.
Huang co-founded Nvidia with former Sun Microsystems engineers Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. Forbes estimated last year that Priem, who left Nvidia in 2003 after serving as its chief technical officer for a decade, had a net worth of $30 million. Malachowsky, who still works at Nvidia as a senior technology executive, has an undisclosed net worth, according to Business Insider.
Related: Nvidia CEO Says ‘100% of Everybody’s Jobs Will Be Changed’ Due to AI
Nvidia’s stock growth has also minted millionaires — who still show up to work in the office. Employees who have been with Nvidia for five years are likely millionaires now, with a $77,700 stock grant received in 2019 worth more than $1.6 million today, according to Finlo’s investment calculator.
The rise in net worth has led to an increase in “semi-retired” employees who still work at Nvidia, but boast greater personal wealth. At a December 2023 meeting, Nvidia employees asked Huang how to address “semi-retired” employees, and the CEO responded by asking every employee to take responsibility for their work.
Nvidia’s stock is up over 1,580% over the past five years at the time of writing.
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