Nvidia's Huang pitches AI tokens on top of salary

Huang is absolutely losing the plot, salary is compensation for work done, for time spent away from other things in life, and to sustain your life outside of work.

Tokens as "compensation" falls into the not-even-wrong bucket, tokens are business expenses as input for work.

Edit: it's actually CNBC using deceptive language in the article, not Huang proposing paying people with tokens as brought up by OJFord [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47454487

He's not saying it like it's a benefit, part of the total comp, article is ridiculous. Here's the source (time stamped): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jw_o0xr8MWU&t=2h3m26s

He's saying it more like a learning & development or conference budget, that it's a tool people need and are going to ask about or want to hear they have a good level of access to when they're looking for a job.

(I've been looking and already asking about it, I think we're already there. Not because I need it personally, but partly just to understand what the AI use is like within the companies I've been talking to.)

Or just give them access to “tokens” as needed by business use-case? Doesn’t make sense to see this as a salary/benefit and then also expect them to use it for work related tasks.

This is some bad reporting, IMO.

Here’s the quote

“ “I’m going to give them probably half of that on top of [their base pay] as tokens ... because every engineer that has access to tokens will be more productive.” “

It’s less of him saying it’s a bonus or a perk and more him saying expect to spend that much more on top of base salary to get enormous productivity boosts.

Now, I could see availability of these tools as an incentive to joining a place, which is no different than joining an engineering team because the use nice MacBooks.

The compensation debate is interesting but I think it's a sideshow to what's structurally happening here. The entity assigning dollar value to tokens isn't an AI service provider. It's the chip supplier. Nvidia manufactures the hardware that makes AI services possible, and now it's defining the unit of account for the downstream market. Every major AI company is losing money on current pricing. OpenAI is projecting $17B in cash burn this year. The industry needs to transition from subscription pricing to metered, per-token billing, but that only works if the market accepts that tokens have intrinsic value. Jensen putting a $150K price tag on an engineer's annual token budget is an anchoring event for that transition, whether it was designed as one or not. I wrote a longer analysis of how this connects to commodity pricing frameworks and who captures value across the token economy: https://unlockedvalue.substack.com/p/ai-token-economics?r=6g...

I've worked for startups which provided perks management (companies covering food, transportation, that kind of thing).

We had to be super careful, because here in Europe there are limits to how much salary is paid non monetarily. You get the book thrown at you for exceeding limits - it is a fundamental rule to prevent workers "paid" with living services, which borders in slavery when abused.

Are there no similar protections in the US? Could you theoretically be paid fully in food and shelter with no laws broken?

I'd be really skeptical of taking this offer, okay if you give me a tokens and I use them to start up a side project do you now have ownership in that side project ?

It's different in every company, but a lot of them really don't like side projects. I imagine if you build anything worthwhile some Nvidia lawyers might try to claim ownership.

As far as I can see, at least some of the cost-of-goods-sold of a token is dictated by GPU costs (both purchase price, and operational costs). Surely if Nvidia continues to produce increasingly sophisticated GPUs, the monetary value of each token will decrease? Seems like a strange incentive for Nvidia to offer their employees.

EDIT: If the tokens are not intended as a form of perk/benefit as others have interpreted, I guess my point does not count.

Reminds me of the pre-prohibition era where distilleries often paid their workers by giving them liquor (payment in kind) to manage liquidity issues.

This looks like a clever way to try to compete for talent without continuing to ratchet up pay, allowing Nvidia to continue to expand their debt without needing additional cash.

Sounds like his feedback loop is finally broken after years of logrolling with sycophants in government and higher ed.

Company paying you with company's currency to be used at the company store. What a new and refreshing concept.

What's happening in tech today is a very clear sign of the AI bubble.

Generally every new technology that increases produtivity is adopted organically. Employees don't protest, because they themselves see the benefits. And yes, those who fail to adapt eventually get left behind.

AI may very well be the same kind of leap forward, not denying that, but rather than rewarding productivity increases from AI companies have started to reward AI use itself. Token use is being measured. Lines of code written using AI is being measured. Workers are being penalized even if their productivity is higher without AI.

The industry is being driven by FOMO, and that never ends well.

that's weird cause if i am paid in tokens, how do i use those tokens on my employer's workflows?

shouldnt the tokens belong to the employer?

i understand the concept of an engineering having tools they own but if they're gonna shove tokens-as-utility down our throats, no boss, i'm not hooking you into my well water.

Great, we're bringing back scrip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip

996 culture, scrip, personalist rule, is there any shitty thing from 100 years ago Silicon Valley won't try to bring back?

"Every employee across the industry should be given a shovel and asked to dig for gold. Completely unrelated – we are selling a new line of shovels for $49.99 a piece."

Just put the fries in the bag bro

Any time I see a pitch for companies paying people in things that aren’t money I think of the Simpsons bit where Homer finds $20 under the couch and is disappointed that it’s not a peanut.

There’s reasons why, because of what a company does, it’s able to offer you something for markedly cheaper than you’d get it on the market, so the arbitrage you can do by getting it at that discount may be worth it, like getting a free meal or drink when you work at a restaurant. But in most cases, money can be exchanged for goods and services and $1 of currency is always going to be more valuable than $1 worth of some commodity.