Nvidia gave them financial stability. These founders used it to walk away.

• Nvidia gave them financial stability. Some used it to walk away.
• Many founders wrestled with golden handcuffs at Nvidia.
• Ex-employees say the chip giant shaped how they're building and leading their startups.

Roughly nine years into his tenure at Nvidia, Antons Davis hopped on a call with CEO Jensen Huang to pitch his ideas.

Davis, who led design for several Nvidia gaming products, brought up an idea for how the company could build an educational ecosystem. Huang challenged him to move beyond theory and prove the concept. Instead, the Nvidia CEO urged him to build something.

"'If you can show me, then we can talk about it,'" Davis recalls Huang telling him. "And that was a good reality check for me."

Ultimately, that's what Davis did. In 2022, he quit what would become one of the most coveted jobs in tech and embarked on a self-exploration journey of travel and retreats. During an ayahuasca ceremony, one message stuck: "I am a healer," he recalled scribbling in a notebook.

That led him to found a life-coaching practice, Touch of Humane, and later, a tech startup, Osmo, that develops software for coaches.

Davis is an anomaly at Nvidia, which has seen its stock grow twelvefold since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. The company's soaring valuation and relative stability in an industry recently defined by layoffs have created powerful incentives for many to stay, as their stock options have exploded.

Some Nvidians chose to start their own ventures instead and said the company's success gave them the freedom to walk away. Business Insider spoke to former Nvidia employees who left to become founders amid the height of the AI boom.

Nvidia's golden handcuffs

Some former Nvidians described wrestling with golden handcuffs.

Adnan Boz, who left Nvidia in 2023 to found SoftwareAgent.AI, a startup building autonomous AI programmers, said he delayed his departure twice while waiting for the next quarterly vest, only to realize it was a "moving target." Nvidia stock payouts unlock over time — a tactic that tech companies have used for years to retain employees.

At 54, Boz knew his career timeline was finite.

Likewise, Davis said the decision to leave came at a cost. Unfulfilled by the "churn" of corporate life, he made what he described as a tough decision for someone with a survival mindset, having grown up in a small town in southern India.

Davis sold enough Nvidia stock to create a buffer of three to five years until he got his coaching business off the ground. He said he ultimately left "millions" on the table in pending stock compensation.

"I don't know how many people are able to let go of that golden handcuff and make that leap," he said.

Former Nvidia employees chase the AI startup boom

At the height of the AI boom, many former Nvidia employees saw an opportunity to build their own companies.

Mo Nasir got his first job out of college at Nvidia, working on control systems for self-driving cars. In his 20s, he felt an entrepreneurial pull — and as AI models improved, he saw an opportunity to build software that could automate work. Acceptance into Y Combinator gave him permission to take his side project into a full-time venture.

"If you want a shot at making a billion dollars, it is next to impossible to do that as an employee," he said.

Nasir left Nvidia in 2024 after over four years to launch Altrina, which creates agents in regulated industries. The company has raised $1.8 million in funding and has four employees.

While Nasir left behind a substantial amount of Nvidia equity, he said he underestimated the financial upside available to startup founders.

If Altrina were to sell at its pre-seed valuation, he "would have made back 10x what I left on the table when I left," Nasir said. "The numbers are just bonkers."

The right time to leave Nvidia

For Sam Karu, leaving Nvidia was less about a lack of fulfillment than about timing.

He didn't have a concrete idea for a startup when he quit after over three years at the company in 2025. But he'd just turned 30 and knew he wanted a family, so he sought to take advantage of his most productive years, recognizing that the ability to work around the clock wouldn't last forever.

"I knew I was giving up a job that most people would die to have," he said.

Karu left Nvidia to found the Y Combinator-backed startup Logical, which is building an AI work assistant.

After leaving, the founders said Nvidia's reputation helped establish credibility with investors, customers, and other stakeholders. And they said the company's culture informed their journey as entrepreneurs.

"Jensen is like a school," said Boz, the SoftwareAgent.AI founder, said of Nvidia's CEO.

He said that Huang taught employees to become comfortable with failure and to see setbacks and blame as parts of building something new — a lesson that sits at the heart of entrepreneurship.

"You have to make mistakes so you can actually fine-tune your goal," Boz said.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at gweiss@businessinsider.com or Signal at @geoffweiss.25. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.