- Rahul Gudise landed an Nvidia internship after sending more than 200 applications.
- The experience taught Gudise that he wanted to build something of his own.
- Gudise cofounded AI startup Gale, which has raised $2.7 million.
My philosophy about luck is that it's really about how many times you're willing to flip the coin. At some point, it stops being luck and turns into inevitability.
While studying at the University of Waterloo, I treated applying to internships like a statistical game.
Working my way through a GitHub list of openings, I sent out 200-300 applications before landing an internship at Tesla. The next recruiting cycle, I did it all over again to land one at Nvidia. I honestly don't even remember applying.
After the initial callback, the hiring process was pretty chill. I had two interviews before Nvidia told me I got the job, and all in all, it took about four days. It helped that my background in high-performance software happened to fit what the data center tooling team needed.
The role was a little atypical because I worked out of the Redmond, Washington, office rather than Nvidia's Santa Clara headquarters, where most interns are based. The community felt smaller, but I had great mentors, and the work-life balance was reasonable. Sometimes you would work overtime, but most people worked pretty normal 9-to-5 hours.
What surprised me most was how passionate everyone was. The engineers didn't treat their work as just a job — they treated it like a craft, and genuinely cared about building great software.
The greatest gift Nvidia gave me
I came into the internship wanting to be a full-time Nvidia employee. I thought that the money you could make in Big Tech would bring a sense of freedom.
But ultimately, being a small part of a larger organization felt unfulfilling. The greatest gift the experience gave me was teaching me what I wanted to do with my time — to build something of my own.
I also thought I'd become a better engineer by starting a company. At a startup, you have to understand the problem before you can build the solution, whereas in Big Tech, you're often working within a much narrower sandbox.
I launched an AI startup called Gale
I cofounded Gale, an AI startup that automates work visa applications, after my Nvidia internship ended and while I was still finishing school. We were accepted into Y Combinator and raised $2.7 million in seed funding last May.
My parents initially worried I was walking away from a stable career. But seeing Gale gain traction has changed their perspective.
And when we got our first customer, realizing something I'd built with my own hands could be genuinely useful to someone was one of the best feelings I've ever had.
Nvidia's culture has also shaped who I am as a founder. At Nvidia, mistakes weren't about blame. Managers would work with us to improve processes together so that the same problems wouldn't happen again. That mindset of learning and iterating, instead of pointing fingers, is something I've tried to bring to Gale.
Do you have a story to share about Nvidia? Contact this reporter at gweiss@businessinsider.com.
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