Nvidia made a $20 billion licensing and talent agreement deal with AI chip startup Groq last year. Groq’s founder and former CEO, Jonathan Ross, says his own management mistakes delayed the company’s progress by as much as four years. Speaking on a recently released episode of the Founders podcast, Ross said the setbacks were caused not by technical challenges but by leadership decisions he made while learning to manage people, stating, "I was a terrible leader... For me, that probably cost Groq three to four years." Ross, who led Groq for seven years before leaving in December 2025 to join Nvidia full-time as chief software architect, said one of his biggest mistakes was hiring employees who expected detailed instructions while giving them broad responsibility. He later changed his hiring approach by focusing on identifying reasons not to hire candidates rather than reasons to hire them. The $20 billion agreement signed in December allowed Ross and several key engineers to join Nvidia full-time, while Groq continued to operate as an independent company, with Adam Winter becoming CEO.