Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the Metaverse, permanent WFH, and accelerating raises

Nvidia posted big earnings gains and unveiled its 54-billion transistor A100 artificial intelligence chip in the past couple of weeks. We talked with CEO Jensen Huang about that and his view of the Metaverse, or the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One. We also asked him if gaming will emerge from the pandemic as the biggest entertainment industry by any measure.

We discussed Nvidia’s best idea for its employees, and whether he is a fan of employees working from home permanently. We talked about the company’s earnings growth for the first fiscal quarter ended April 26 and what he sees ahead for the second half of the year, and whether we’ll see delays in self-driving cars as a result of the pandemic. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.