Jonathan Ross, former CEO of chipmaker Groq, has publicly acknowledged that his leadership missteps in the company's early years cost it three to four years of progress. In a recent episode of the "Founders" podcast, Ross described his initial struggles as a leader, stating, "I was a terrible leader. I was one of the world's worst leaders when I started."
Ross, a former Google engineer, co-founded Groq in 2016 to develop language processing units (LPUs), an alternative to Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs). He attributed his early failures to a steep learning curve in transitioning from technical work to managing people. "The first thing that you have to do as a founder is you have to go from the technical thing that you know how to do and that you can add value with, to learning how to manage people," Ross said. "For me, that probably cost Groq three to four years."
Ross also discussed his hiring mistakes, noting that he initially delegated too much responsibility to employees who were not equipped to operate autonomously. "What ended up happening was things would just grind to a halt because they wouldn't know what to do, and I wasn't telling them what to do, and they were used to being told what to do," he explained. The turning point came when he shifted his hiring strategy from focusing on talent growth to selecting individuals who could work independently. "I went from looking for positives, which is what you do when you're trying to grow talent, to looking for negatives, which is what you do when you're trying to select talent," Ross said.
In December 2023, Nvidia struck a $20 billion licensing and talent deal with Groq, bringing Ross, Groq president Sunny Madra, and other key engineers to Nvidia while allowing Groq to remain an independent company. Ross now serves as chief software architect at Nvidia, while Groq is led by Adam Winter, a former vice president at the company.
Ross's reflections align with similar admissions from other tech founders. In a December podcast, Figma CEO Dylan Field discussed his own early management challenges, including confusing leadership with management and learning basic leadership skills like holding one-on-one meetings and building relationships.