Some people start a business in their parents’ garage or basement. Others start theirs at university, thus building a clientele among their classmates.
Jensen Huang launched Nvidia, his trillion-dollar technology company, while eating at a Denny’s restaurant in San Jose, Calif., he recently told CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
Nvidia, one of the chipmakers behind the booming artificial intelligence sector, is currently worth $2.22 trillion, ranking it among the most valuable companies in the world. But in 1993, it was a business idea shared by three friends and engineers – Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem – who wanted to revolutionize gaming and media with 3D graphics.
In 1993, the trio met at Denny’s, Huang said. He was 30, married with two children when inspiration struck him at the same restaurant where he once worked as a busboy at the age of 15, he added.
“We came here to this Denny’s, sat down there, and the three of us decided to start the company,” said Huang, who remains Nvidia’s CEO today. “Frankly, I didn’t know how to do it, and neither did they. None of us knew how to do anything.”
From breakfast stand to booming business
By 1995, Nvidia had developed a low-cost computer processing chip called the NV1, according to the company’s website. This helped them enter into a partnership with Sega to make its games accessible on PC.
But the chip was a failure, too “technically poor” to render at a meaningful graphics level, Huang told graduate students during a May 2023 commencement speech at National Taiwan University.
This mistake almost pushed the company into bankruptcy. Huang negotiated a buyout deal with Sega that provided Nvidia with a financial lifeline and resources to develop the NV1’s successor.
The new chip, called RIVA 128, debuted in 1997 and quickly became a commercial success. In the 2010s, Nvidia was diversifying beyond the video game industry into laptops, automobiles, artificial intelligence and even cloud computing during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nvidia shares have returned more than 500% since the start of 2023, Goldman Sachs reported last month.
Huang’s secret to success
The billionaire CEO never imagined that Nvidia’s diversification, driven by the development of a particularly powerful graphics processing chip, would prepare it for the era of artificial intelligence, he said.
“It was a chance based on a vision,” Huang said. “We invented this capability and then one day the researchers who were creating deep learning discovered this architecture. Because this architecture turned out to be perfect for them… Perfect for AI.”
This particular type of optimism is a crucial factor in leading a successful life and career, according to cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot.
“Optimism changes subjective reality,” Sharot said in a 2012 TED talk. “The way we expect the world changes the way we see it. But it also changes objective reality. It acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Controlled experiments have shown that optimism is not only linked to success, it leads to success.
As for Huang, the 61-year-old marveled at how a session at Denny’s launched a tech giant and said his dedication will take you far.
“It’s the most extraordinary thing,” he said. “That a normal dishwasher boy could become this. There’s no magic. It’s just 61 years of hard work every day. I don’t think there’s anything more .”
Want to earn extra money outside of your day job? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course How to earn passive income online to learn more about common passive income streams, tips for getting started, and real-life success stories. CNBC Make It readers can use special discount code CNBC40 to get 40% off through 8/15/24.
More, sign up for the CNBC Make It newsletter for tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.
cnbc
