Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Nvidia went from a video game startup to the world's most valuable company. Try brilliant.org/Newsthink and get 20% off your annual premium subscription.
I highly recommend the book, The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip by author Stephen Witt https://a.co/d/aUVlNDB
Chapters:
0:00 From Denny’s to Destiny
0:50 A Childhood of Resilience
1:34 Falling in Love with Circuits (and Lori)
2:38 Founding Nvidia at Denny’s
3:46 Nvidia’s First Disaster (The NV1)
4:20 30 Days from Going Out of Business
5:42 Today’s Sponsor: Brilliant
6:32 TSMC and The Power of Parallel Processing
7:48 Jensen Huang’s Management Style
8:24 From Gaming to Greatness: The Birth of CUDA
9:36 Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity (cuDNN)
10:24 The AI Gold Rush
11:20 Rivals and Geopolitical Tensions
12:15 “Run, Don’t Walk”
Newsthink is produced and presented by Cindy Pom
https://x.com/cindypom
Grab your Newsthink merch here: newsthink.creator-spring.com
Support Cindy on Patreon! patreon.com/Newsthink
Sources:
Denny’s restaurant: Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Quake III Arena video game: youtube.com/watch?v=ydXjUo0jipo (Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
Oregon State University: saml123, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Breadboard circuits: Miclan, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
NVIDIA’s former headquarters in Santa Clara: Coolcaesar at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Ikos NSIM-64 Hardware Simulation Accelerator (ardware emulator): ShieldforyoureyesDave Fischer, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
NVIDIA’s NV3 chip (Riva 128): © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200: Rafał Nowosad (User:Rafah), CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Jensen Huang at NVIDIA Computex: Rico Shen, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Elon Musk image: ZACK/MCOM, MINISTÉRIO DAS COMUNICAÇÕES, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Jensen Huang gesticulating: Maurizio Pesce, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Nvidia H100: 极客湾Geekerwan, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Nvidia went from a video game startup to the world's most valuable company. Try brilliant.org/Newsthink and get 20% off your annual premium subscription.
I highly recommend the book, The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip by author Stephen Witt https://a.co/d/aUVlNDB
Chapters:
0:00 From Denny’s to Destiny
0:50 A Childhood of Resilience
1:34 Falling in Love with Circuits (and Lori)
2:38 Founding Nvidia at Denny’s
3:46 Nvidia’s First Disaster (The NV1)
4:20 30 Days from Going Out of Business
5:42 Today’s Sponsor: Brilliant
6:32 TSMC and The Power of Parallel Processing
7:48 Jensen Huang’s Management Style
8:24 From Gaming to Greatness: The Birth of CUDA
9:36 Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity (cuDNN)
10:24 The AI Gold Rush
11:20 Rivals and Geopolitical Tensions
12:15 “Run, Don’t Walk”
Newsthink is produced and presented by Cindy Pom
https://x.com/cindypom
Grab your Newsthink merch here: newsthink.creator-spring.com
Support Cindy on Patreon! patreon.com/Newsthink
Sources:
Denny’s restaurant: Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Quake III Arena video game: youtube.com/watch?v=ydXjUo0jipo (Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
Oregon State University: saml123, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Breadboard circuits: Miclan, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
NVIDIA’s former headquarters in Santa Clara: Coolcaesar at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Ikos NSIM-64 Hardware Simulation Accelerator (ardware emulator): ShieldforyoureyesDave Fischer, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
NVIDIA’s NV3 chip (Riva 128): © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200: Rafał Nowosad (User:Rafah), CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Jensen Huang at NVIDIA Computex: Rico Shen, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Elon Musk image: ZACK/MCOM, MINISTÉRIO DAS COMUNICAÇÕES, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Jensen Huang gesticulating: Maurizio Pesce, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Nvidia H100: 极客湾Geekerwan, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
