"The CEO of the world's most valuable company didn't learn about America through elite universities or tech incubators. His education started in a rural Kentucky boarding school where the students smoked, carried knives, and the youngest student on campus, at 9 years old, was assigned to clean the toilets. That student was Jensen Huang. In a recent podcast appearance with Joe Rogan, the Nvidia CEO traced that improbable starting point back to his parents, who had sent him and his brother to the United States in the mid-1970s with almost nothing."
"He found one: Oneida Baptist Institute in Clay County, Ken., one of the poorest counties in the country then and now. The dorms had no closet doors, no locks, and a population of kids who smoked constantly-Huang said he also tried smoking for a week, at 9 -and settled disputes with knives. Huang's roommate was a 17-year-old wrapped in tape from a recent fight; the "toughest kid in school," he said."
Jensen Huang was sent to the United States from Bangkok in the mid-1970s after his parents feared for the children's safety during a coup. An uncle in Tacoma found a school for the brothers: Oneida Baptist Institute in Clay County, Kentucky. The dorms lacked closet doors and locks, and students smoked and settled disputes with knives. Every student worked; Huang became the janitor cleaning bathrooms for a hundred teenage boys while his brother worked in the school's tobacco fields. Huang recalls those years mostly positively and remembers marveling at a brightly lit restaurant, calling it "like the future."
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