In 1978, 15-year-old Jensen Huang got his first job as a dishwasher at Denny’s. 45 years later, he returned to the diner to unveil a plaque marking where Nvidia began

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang once used to work as a dishwasher at Denny’s before he being “promoted” to the role of busboy. It was back in 1978 when he got his first job, Huang revealed during a March 2024 interview with Stanford Graduate School of Business. “I never left the station empty-handed. I never came back empty-handed. I was very efficient,” Huang said.

The advanced chip manufacturer company's CEO is now worth billions of dollars. According to the Nvidia blog post, Huang, and Sun Microsystems employees, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, met at one of Denny’s “most popular” locations in Northern California in 1993 to discuss “creating a chip that would enable realistic 3D graphics on personal computers.”

“Chris and Curtis said one day they’d like to leave [Sun Microsystems], and they’d like me to go figure out what they’re going to leave for. They insisted I figure out with them how to build a company,” Huang said.

Denny’s booth dedicated to Huang

At an East San Jose Denny’s location, a booth is dedicated to Huang. A commemorative plaque was also unveiled by Nvidia co-founder along with Denny’s CEO Kelli Valade. The plaque is mounted at the exact corner table where the trio worked. It has also been officially dedicated as "the booth that launched a $1 trillion company."

What is Nvidia Breakfast Bytes?

Not just this, Denny’s has also added a menu item in the honor of Huang last year. It is called Nvidia Breakfast Bytes. The breakfast dish includes four sausage links that customers can wrap in buttermilk silver dollar pancakes and dip in maple syrup. It is Huang’s favorite way to eat the dish, as per Denny’s.

In a statement, Valade said, “Jensen’s journey from Denny’s kitchen and dining room to the pinnacle of the tech world is a testament to the power of dreams and determination. We’re deeply honored that America’s Diner played a role in NVIDIA’s origin story as a global AI powerhouse."

In the Stanford interview, Huang said, “The PC revolution was just getting going. We thought, why don’t we build a company that solves problems that a normal computer that is powered by general purpose computing can’t. That became the company’s mission.”