As Big Tech showers employees with perks to win the talent war, Nvidia built a nearly $5 trillion company by making people pay for their own lunch

Nvidia may be worth $4.8 trillion, but its employees still have to pay up at the company cafeteria.

The chipmaker fueling the AI boom, led by CEO Jensen Huang, is the most valuable company in the world by market cap, towering above other tech giants like Google, Apple, and Amazon. But that doesn’t mean the company is giving away lunch for free.

Gergely Orosz, a software engineer and author of the The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, highlighted the issue of Nvidia’s food policies in a thread on X after a recent visit to the company’s Santa Clara, Calif. headquarters.

“Snacks and coffee are not free: You have to pay for them. This would be unusual at Big Tech, but no big deal for devs here,” Orosz wrote in a post. 

Former employees who spoke to Business Insider clarified the company’s cafeteria meals are subsidized, not free. While coffee is generally free, employees must pay for some bottled drinks and drinks from on-site cafés. 

Nvidia did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

The company’s food policies have reportedly been around for more than a decade. A blog by a former intern who worked at Nvidia in 2014 shows even then the food at Nvidia was subsidized, not free, and averaged about $6, or about $8.50 today. Some food options in 2014 included chicken and pasta, chicken and rice, fish and chips, and sandwiches. 

Nvidia’s food policy stands apart from other tech companies of its size. The most notable among them is Google, which helped kick off the trend of lavish employee perks that for years have defined tech workplaces. Unlike Nvidia, Google provides free breakfast, lunch, and dinner at cafeterias across its offices. Its GooglePlex headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. reportedly has about 30 locations for employees to grab a bite to eat. 

Yet, at Google, the food is secondary to the connections that come from communion, according to Ruth Porat, the chief investment officer of Google and parent company Alphabet. She said its stocked “micro-kitchens” filled with treats and snacks are located throughout the office to help connect employees from different departments who wouldn’t otherwise speak regularly.

“Serendipity is really valuable and so having people come for meals is one way you get people from all around the company working on different things all of a sudden comparing ideas,” Porat said during an interview published last week.

Still, at Nvidia, the company’s approach to food reflects not just its culture but also its founder’s philosophy.

Huang created Nvidia in 1993 and has transformed it from a fledgling video game chipmaker to the engine behind the AI revolution.
The CEO works seven days per week, including on weekends and holidays. He has previously said he is fueled to work so hard by the fear Nvidia could go out of business, even after it has become the most valuable company on the planet.

“You know the phrase ‘30 days from going out of business,’ I’ve used for 33 years,” Huang said in an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan last year. “But the feeling doesn’t change. The sense of vulnerability, the sense of uncertainty, the sense of insecurity—it doesn’t leave you.”

Huang’s dedication to the grind also reflects his advice to young people. In an address to Stanford students in 2024 he said: “I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.” He argued being uncomfortable often leads to the best results.

Across Silicon Valley, the era of unlimited perks is quietly unwinding. Meta, which at one time offered employees free breakfast, lunch, and dinner at its Menlo Park headquarters, now hands out meal vouchers instead. But in 2024 the company fired two dozen employees it said were abusing the vouchers. Twitter, now X, was once famous for its gourmet cafeteria with a new menu every day, but many food options were cut back after Elon Musk bought the company in 2022.

Still, it’s hard to argue with Nvidia’s approach.

While other companies have spent millions to keep employees fed, Nvidia paid its workers back in company ownership. Its employee stock purchase plan is among the most generous in the industry, offering a 15% discount with a two-year lookback, meaning employees can buy Nvidia stock at 15% below its lowest price over the previous two years.

With the stock rising something like 1,400% in the past five years, employees who have held on to their stock have secured much more value from Nvidia than a free lunch.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com