Source: Wall Street News
Author: Pan Lingfei

In 2023, Open AI set off a wave of generation-time AI, allowing Nvidia, which is in short supply of GPU production capacity$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$It became a popular fried chicken that was not allowed by the whole market.

So far this year, Nvidia's stock price has risen 226%, and its market capitalization has increased by about 850 billion US dollars. It is the best-performing company among the S&P 500 index constituent stocks.

Nvidia Huang Renxun's big gamble on GPUs back then gave him dominance in the AI era. The entire market was impressed by Patriarch Wong's foresight back then. “The New Yorker” published a close-up article on Nvidia last week, letting people know many aspects of Patriarch Huang that are not known, as well as revealing many of Nvidia's unique corporate culture. After reading it, you may be able to understand why Lao Huang's Nvidia has taken the lead in this wave of AI revolution.

This article attempts to extract one or two for the benefit of readers.

Nvidia's motto is “only 30 days until bankruptcy”

Nvidia almost went bankrupt in 1996. The company had to lay off half of its employees and was only a few weeks away from being able to pay wages. Hwang In-hoon said the company has a 50% chance of saving the company with the upcoming Riva 128 graphics chip. Fortunately, the chip was a huge success in the end, but the hopeless experience of 1996 inspired the company's unofficial motto.

“Huang Renxun encouraged employees to continue to launch products with a sense of hopelessness. Over the years, his opening words in employee speeches have always been 'Our company is only 30 days away from bankrupt'”, “The New Yorker” magazine wrote.

Accept failure and make it public

Mr. Huang is convinced that “failure must be shared,” he told “The New Yorker” magazine. Nvidia did the same.

In the early 2000s, Nvidia introduced a defective graphics chip. Huang's first reaction was not to dismiss the product manager team, but to have them give a demo to hundreds of employees and explain all the decisions they made before launching the failed product.

The video card has an insane fan, and Nvidia even distributed a self-deprecating video to the press, comparing the card to a leaf-shaped hair dryer.

Lao Huang writes hundreds of emails every day

Nvidia has a flexible corporate structure, which means that Hwang In-hoon is involved in every aspect of the business. As a result, Hwang In-hoon has to respond to hundreds of emails every day, although each message is usually only a few words long.

“One executive compared these emails to haiku and another to extortion letters,” the New Yorker wrote.

Lao Huang doesn't think artificial intelligence poses a threat to humans

There are many concerns in the AI community that one day, the technology may become powerful enough to replace its creators. Tech giants like Elon Musk also shared these concerns. And everyone is speculating that these concerns may have been an important reason for OpenAI's battle earlier this month.

However, Hwang In-hoon is not concerned about the post-apocalyptic scenario associated with artificial intelligence.

When asked if artificial intelligence might one day kill someone, an Nvidia executive said, “Well, electricity also kills people every year.”

Another question is whether artificial intelligence may one day become self-aware, but Hwang In-hoon doesn't agree with this.

“To be a living organism, you have to be conscious. You have to know yourself, right? I don't know where this started,” Hwang In-hoon said.

Huang Renxun encourages employees to develop products for the “zero billion dollar market”

Much of Nvidia's success can be attributed to the company's ability to anticipate market trends years in advance. Huang Renxun encourages employees to adopt this way of thinking when developing new products.

Hwang In-hoon called it a “zero-billion-dollar market (“zero-billion-dollar).” These exploratory products may have no competitors or prospects today, but that may change in a few years.

Hwang In-hoon compared this way of thinking to the movie “Field of Dreams (Field of Dreams),” where the protagonist built a baseball field in a cornfield and then waited for players and spectators to arrive.

Patriarch Huang's New Big Gamble: An Omnipotent Universe

Over the past few decades, Huang has focused on taking huge risks to develop technology for a market that doesn't exist yet.

When asked what “zero billion dollar market” Nvidia has been betting on in the past few years, Lao Huang gave the phrase “Omniverse (Omniverse).”

Lao Huang pointed out that the omnipotent universe here refers to an “industrial metaverse,” which can simulate the real world with a high degree of detail. The omnipotent universe enables humans to safely control robots and autonomous vehicles in the digital world.

editor/tolk