Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the present moment is the best time in history to start a company, arguing that the AI boom has created an unusually wide opening for new founders.
According to Fortune, Huang made the remarks during a recent conversation at Y Combinator Startup School 2026. He urged young entrepreneurs not to let anxiety block action and said they should keep learning as technology keeps changing.
Huang says today offers unmatched startup opportunities
Speaking with Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, Huang said, “This is by far the best time to start a company.”
He looked back to 1993, when he and co-founders Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem sketched out the vision for a chip company at a Denny’s restaurant. More than three decades later, Nvidia has grown into a technology giant with a market value of about $4.7 trillion, driven by demand for AI chips.
Huang said he feels “jealous” of the scale of opportunity available to young founders today. He added that the technology foundation Nvidia has been building is creating possibilities that were not available to earlier generations of entrepreneurs.
“How hard can it be?”
Huang said one of the biggest obstacles founders face is overthinking. In his view, people often talk themselves out of building before they even begin.
“Let the pain come to you a little at a time. Don’t imagine how hard it’s going to be and convert all that anxiety into doing nothing. In your mind, you have to imagine: ‘How hard can it be?’” he said.
The point was not that startups are painless. It was that founders need to move first and deal with problems as they arrive, rather than letting fear settle the question before any work starts.
Learning, not certainty, is what gives confidence
Huang also made clear that success does not erase pressure. He said that even with Nvidia at its current scale, he still works seven days a week and often says the company is “30 days from going out of business.” That sense of vulnerability, he said, has not gone away in 33 years.
For Huang, confidence comes from a willingness to learn, not from having every answer at the outset.
He described an early Nvidia setback, saying the company bet on the wrong graphics technology. With only a few hundred dollars left in his pocket, he went to Fry’s, bought three technical textbooks, and had engineers start learning again from scratch. The lesson, he said, was that technology keeps changing, but it becomes less intimidating if people are willing to face reality and keep learning.
Business formation data points to continued startup activity
The report said the broader backdrop remains difficult, with a weak macroeconomic environment and geopolitical instability still in play. Even so, Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary said periods of disorder are often the best times to start a business.
It also cited U.S. business applications totaling 3.23 million in the first half of the year, a record high and up 12.1% from a year earlier.
From a Denny’s table in 1993 to a company worth about $4.7 trillion, Huang’s message to young founders was direct: take the first step, then keep learning.