CEO Jensen Huang Reveals NVidia’s Close Calls: Lessons in Survival, Perseverance, and Sacrifice

CEO Jensen Huang Reveals NVidia’s Close Calls: Lessons in Survival, Perseverance, and Sacrifice

NVidia almost died 3 times in its 30-year history. CEO Jensen Huang shared these near-death stories at a commencement speech last night.

Here’s what he said: 

LESSON 1: Have the humility to confront failure and ask for help. NVidia’s first big 3D chip contract was for Sega’s new game console.  

From Jensen: 

“After one year of development, we realized our architecture was the wrong strategy…

I contacted the CEO of Sega and suggested that they should find another partner. But I also needed Sega to pay us in full or NVidia would be out of business.  I was embarrassed to ask. The CEO of Sega, to his credit and to my amazement, agreed. His understanding and generosity gave us six months to survive. Confronting our mistake, and with humility, asking for help, saved NVidia. These traits are the hardest for the brightest and most successful.”
 

LESSON 2: Endure the pain and suffering needed to realize your dream in 2007, NVidia announced CUDA, a new computing model for GPUs. 

From Jensen: 

“Creating a new computing model is incredibly hard…NVidia’s profits took a significant hit. We suffered many years of poor performance. Our shareholders were skeptical of CUDA and preferred we focus on improving profitability. But we persevered…  

This journey forged our character to endure the pain and suffering that is always needed to realize a vision.” 

LESSON 3: Make sacrifices for your life’s work in 2010, NVidia had the lead in the mobile chip market. But then the competition came in.  

From Jensen: 

“The phone market is huge; we could have chosen to fight for share. Instead, we made a hard decision and sacrificed the market… 

NVidia’s mission is to build computers to solve problems that ordinary computers cannot. We should dedicate ourselves to realizing our vision. Our strategic retreat paid off. By leaving the phone market, we opened our minds to invent a new one. To retreat from a giant phone market to create a $0 billion market was a risky move, but it paid off. Retreat does not come easily to the brightest people, yet strategic retreat, sacrifice, and deciding what to give up is at the very core of success.”

Jensen wrapped up the speech with this: 

“Run, don’t walk. Either you’re running for food, or you are running from being food”

  1. Have the humility to confront failure and ask for help. 
  2. Endure the pain needed to realize your dream. 
  3. Make sacrifices for your life’s work.