Nvidia ft. Jensen Huang - An overnight success story 30 years in the making

The AI revolution has been the biggest story in technology over the last year, as the stuff of science fiction turned into reality seemingly overnight. At the center of it all is Nvidia, a company that until a few years ago was known mostly for video game graphics. A full decade before ChatGPT launched, Nvidia began mobilizing to power the computing potential of AI. Nvidia’s pivot toward AI computing is one of the most remarkable business pivots in history. Hear the whole story directly from founder and CEO Jensen Huang, along with longtime board member Mark Stevens and AI luminary Andrew Ng.
Highlights
The story of Nvidia’s founding [2:07]
Nvidia’s “Why Now” [5:24]
Nvidia's first crucible moment: choosing a zero-billion dollar market [9:24]
A failed launch: the NV1 [11:11]
Nvidia’s partnership with Sega [14:58]
One last chance: the Riva 128 [20:17]
Nvidia introduces the “world's first GPU” [23:28]
The pivot to AI ​​[25:07]
AI: an unproven market in 2012 [29:24]
Lessons learned from Nvidia's pivot [31:48]
Jensen Huang
Jensen Huang cofounded Nvidia in 1993 and has since served as the company’s president, chief executive officer, and member of the board of directors.
Chris Malachowsky
Chris Malachowsky is the cofounder of Nvidia and its Senior Vice President and Fellow. Beyond his technical accomplishments, Malachowsky also received an Emmy for the film “Inheritance,” which won Best Documentary in 2009.
Mark Stevens
Mark Stevens was the Sequoia partner who joined Nvidia’s board in 1993. He has since left Sequoia, but remains on Nvidia’s board. Presently he is the Managing Partner of S-Cubed Capital, his family office.
Alfred Lin
Alfred Lin is a partner at Sequoia on the seed/early team. He serves on the boards of Airbnb, DoorDash, Houzz, Zipline and more.
Andrew Ng
Andrew Ng is a Stanford University computer scientist and former director of Google Brain, whose research was critical to validating Nvidia’s pivot into the field of AI. He is the managing partner of AI Funds and leads both DeepLearning.AI and Landing AI.

[@christopherarmstrong2710]

36:55 Every CEO's job is to look around corners, connect more dots, and be the most bold about opportunities and problems we can go solve that nobody imagines us solving - to be the person that believes the company can achieve more than the company believes it can.

[@techthred6595]

Thanks for this

[@MathieuFrigonChelseaQc]

Amazing story and insights!

[@GodofStories]

there was no massive pivot from Nvidia to AI. They were just producing the best gpus possible. It was just realization by AI researchers that they can be used for matrix multiplications for AI rather than just graphics.

[@arunnsview]

Brilliant insights!

[@EstellaWhite-ws7gh]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@ownthegame3]

really good. listened 3Xs the potential of NVDA products is often zero (GPU and AI) when they started

[@fenderrexfender]

There were attempts to make self-driving cars in the 90s. you can see the demos of a van driving with FBI looking equipment inside of it the van could only go as fast as a crawl because of the processor limitations as and needed a team of people making Corrections they said the calculations often took more time then they're human input took

[@EstellaWhite-ws7gh]

❤

[@EstellaWhite-ws7gh]

🎉❤🎉

[@dcrebbin]

Another banger episode Sequoia! Jensen's iconic leather jacket, I wonder if it's a single piece or there's a cartoon like amount in his wardrobe.

[@fenderrexfender]

I called it! 2017 was huge for CUDA adoption. non dertminstic branch analysts and prediction took off buffer management was open to frameworks like numpy and tensorflow. Op codes hot beautiful wrappers and Chat gpt took off

[@GodofStories]

you have to go back to 2009-2011 when the first GPU's were used for AI. Sorry but you were not early. You would still have made money if you invested in 2017, but much more in 2010

[@EstellaWhite-ws7gh]

❤