NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang
Resumen
TLDREpisode ieu nyorot wawancara anu menarik sareng Jensen Huang, CEO sareng pendiri Nvidia, anu ngabahas perjalanan perusahaan ti awal dugi ka janten raksasa dina industri teknologi. Diskusi ngadokumentasikeun perjalanan Nvidia dina ngembangake produk 3D Graphics awal nepi ka dominasi dina platform AI sareng data center. Huang ngadombrag cerita ngeunaan kaputusan strategis anu krusial pikeun keberhasilan Nvidia, sanés ngan ukur dina masa lalu tapi ogé pikeun prospek ka hareup perusahaan. Sajaba ti éta, diskusi ngabahas struktur organisasi unik Nvidia, anu henteu struktur hirarki biasa tapi langkung ka arah sistem fungsi cross-collaborative, anu méré perhatian utama ka misi salaku bobot utama dina struktur informasi sareng kaputusan tim. Éta ogé nyorot évolusi Nvidia jadi perusahaan platform kalayan hubungan pamekar anu sepuh anu dirarancang saprak awal, salian nyaéta pergeseran anu strategis ti bisnis chip ka data center anu kabuktian kritis pikeun suksésna dina revolusi AI.
Para llevar
- 🎥 Wawancara NG NvidiaCEO, Jensen Huang, ngabahas perjalanan bisnis Nvidia.
- 💡 Pemikiran strategis anu cerdas ngalantikeun Nvidia in data center industry.
- 🚀 AI geus nginget-ngingetkeun masa depan Nvidia minangka pemimpin teknologi.
- 🧑🔬 Struktur organisasi Nvidia difokuskeun kana kolaborasi sareng efektivitas tim.
- 📚 Buku Klay Christensen nyertakan inspirasi bisnis keur Jensen Huang.
- 🔗 Nvidia ngawangun hubungan pangembang pikeun ékosistem anu kuat.
- 🤝 Akuisisi Mellanox mangrupikeun alesan utama ngembangna Nvidia dina AI.
- 🔒 Pentingna AI safety highlighted ku Jensen.
- 🌌 Nvidia husus pikeun ngatasi pasar zero billion dollar.
- 🥇 Pandangan strategis Jensen Huang berperan penting dina kasuksesan Nvidia.
Cronología
- 00:00:00 - 00:05:00
Episode podcast damelakeun damelkeun ku produksi studio Nvidia, fokus ka wawancara sareng Jensen, pangadeg Nvidia.
- 00:05:00 - 00:10:00
Ben Gilbert sareng David Rosenthal ngenalkeun episode podcast anu ngagambarkeun wawancara sareng Jensen di markas Nvidia.
- 00:10:00 - 00:15:00
David sareng Ben nyarioskeun kumaha Nvidia robih ti Graphics biasa ka basis data sareng AI, ningali tingkatan dominansi AI kiwari.
- 00:15:00 - 00:20:00
Jensen ngawartoskeun carita ngeunaan perjalanan perusahaan ti grafik sederhana ka pusat data sareng AI, sareng persainganeunana.
- 00:20:00 - 00:25:00
Jensen ngobrol ngeunaan ngadopsi hardware di tengah masalah flick DirectX sareng kapercayaan kana naon anu bakal datang.
- 00:25:00 - 00:30:00
Reva 128 dijelaskan salaku langkah ngatur perusahaanna bari ngadukung DirectX.
- 00:30:00 - 00:35:00
Keputusan strategis anu nyalametkeun Nvidia di 1997 nalika perusahaan anu ampir bungkus, ngajadikeun perusahaan focus dina DirectX.
- 00:35:00 - 00:40:00
Simulasi sareng validasi hardware ngagunakeun emulator di hareup produksi, ampir mustahil, tapi eusina penting jangka panjang.
- 00:40:00 - 00:45:00
Keberanian nyandak résiko kalayan cara parantos susunan senar anu sampurna pikeun produksi Reva 128 anu sukses.
- 00:45:00 - 00:50:00
Kepastian saha waé distribusi software énggal tiasa suksés mere anggapan NVIDIA padeukeut ka Danget jangka panjang, contona Cuda.
- 00:50:00 - 00:55:00
CUDA mangrupikeun struktur anu diadaptasi ti CG sareng Jensen nyarioskeun parobihan anu ngamungkinkeun éta.
- 00:55:00 - 01:00:00
Ketepatan NVIDIA dina ningali poténsi deep learning sareng ningali samudra biru ku visioner saalam teknologi anyar.
- 01:00:00 - 01:05:00
Keputusan éksekutif NVIDIA di laboratorium terbesar sareng ngembangkeun produk énggal kalayan kecepatan.
- 01:05:00 - 01:10:00
Ketepatan Nvidia pikeun fokus kana infrastruktur data-center bari sanés ngan saukur prosesornya, nohonkeun Melanox.
- 01:10:00 - 01:15:00
Jensen ngajelaskeun konsep jaringan Neural kecandangan gawé sama antarbalokan, ngamungkinkeun struktur perusahaan anu berevolusi.
- 01:15:00 - 01:20:00
Iman Jensen kana deep learning anu scalable, nu ngagerak minimarket data center platform tiasa disimulasikan.
- 01:20:00 - 01:30:00
Téknologi Nvidia ngadukung AI sarta bisa ngaranan redefine kana Future AI.
Mapa mental
Preguntas frecuentes
Naon anu diulik dina episode podcast ieu?
Episode ieu ngabejaan ngeunaan perjalanan Nvidia, wawancara sareng Jensen Huang, sareng analisis ngeunaan posisi strategis perusahaan dina AI.
Naon wawancara sareng Jensen Huang ngeunaan?
Jensen Huang ngabejaan ngeunaan awal perjalanan Nvidia, strategi bisnis, sareng tantangan anu diatun dina perkembangan Nvidia.
Naon bedana struktur organisasi Nvidia dibandingkeun perusahaan séjén?
Arakteristik unik struktur organisasi Nvidia anu henteu sapertos hirarki biasa, langkung fleksibel sareng terpadu.
Kumaha Nvidia tiasa janten perusahaan platform suksés?
Nvidia parantos janten perusahaan platform kalayan fondasi kuat dina hubungan pamekar ti awal, ngajantenkeun ekosistem berkembang.
Naon anu didadarkeun salaku alesan Nvidia kasohor dina data center?
Nvidia ngaantisipasi pentingna computing sangkan pisah ti alat viewing, naha eta ngamimitian ngamekarkeun produk Data Center.
Buku bisnis naon anu diaku pangaruhna ku Jensen Huang?
CG, sadaya buku-buku Klay Christensen, sareng buku-buku ngadamel bisnis lianna nyaéta anu kaditu Jensen Huang.
Kumaha Nvidia ngajangjikeun pandangan anu béda dina industri AI?
Jensen nyebutun yén Nvidia hoyong jauh tina kaperusahaan chip tradisional sareng nganggap AI jeung akselerator computing minangka fokus utama.
Sabaraha lami Jensen sareng anggota tim manajemen lianna parantos aya di Nvidia?
25 taun anu kalangkung téh katinggaleun ku ayana Jensen Huang sareng tim manajemén anu dibentuk di sakitar 30 taun ka tukang.
Kumaha Nvidia nganteurkeun kasuksésan dina AI ngahontal saluhureun akuisisi strategis?
Kasuksésan Nvidia dina AI loba dibantu ku akuisisi strategis, kayaning akuisisi Mellanox.
Ver más resúmenes de vídeos
- 00:00:00I will say David I would love to have
- 00:00:03nvidia's full production Team every
- 00:00:06episode it was nice not having to worry
- 00:00:08about turning the cameras on and off and
- 00:00:10making sure that nothing bad happened
- 00:00:11myself while we were recording this yeah
- 00:00:14just the gear I mean the drives that
- 00:00:17came out of the camera all right uh RED
- 00:00:19cameras for the home studio starting
- 00:00:21next episode yeah great all right let's
- 00:00:23do it who got the
- 00:00:26truth is it you is it you is it you who
- 00:00:29got got the truth
- 00:00:31now is it you is it you is it you sit it
- 00:00:35down say it straight another story on
- 00:00:38the
- 00:00:40way welcome to this episode of acquired
- 00:00:43the podcast about great technology
- 00:00:44companies and the stories and playbooks
- 00:00:46behind them I'm Ben Gilbert I'm David
- 00:00:48Rosenthal and we are your hosts
- 00:00:51listeners just so we don't bury the lead
- 00:00:53this episode was insanely cool for David
- 00:00:56and I yeah after researching Nvidia for
- 00:00:59something like 500 hours over the last 2
- 00:01:02years we flew down to Nvidia
- 00:01:04headquarters to sit down with Jensen
- 00:01:06himself and Jensen of course is the
- 00:01:08founder and CEO of Nvidia the company
- 00:01:11powering this whole AI explosion at the
- 00:01:13time of recording Nvidia is worth $1.1
- 00:01:17trillion and is the sixth most valuable
- 00:01:20company in the entire world and right
- 00:01:23now is a crucible moment for the company
- 00:01:26expectations are set High I mean Skyhigh
- 00:01:29they have about the most impressive
- 00:01:31strategic position and Lead against
- 00:01:33their competitors of any company that
- 00:01:35we've ever studied but here's the
- 00:01:37question that everyone is wondering will
- 00:01:39nvidia's insane Prosperity continue for
- 00:01:43years to come is AI going to be the next
- 00:01:45trillion dollar technology wave how sure
- 00:01:47are we of that and if so can Nvidia
- 00:01:50actually maintain their ridiculous
- 00:01:52dominance as this Market comes to take
- 00:01:55shape so Jensen takes us down memory
- 00:01:57lane with stories of how they went from
- 00:01:59grass eics to the data center to AI how
- 00:02:02they survived multiple near-death
- 00:02:04experiences he also has plenty of advice
- 00:02:06for Founders and he shared an emotional
- 00:02:09side to the founder journey toward the
- 00:02:11end of the episode yeah I got new
- 00:02:13perspective on the company and on him as
- 00:02:17a founder and a leader just from doing
- 00:02:19this despite you know we thought we knew
- 00:02:21everything before we came in advance and
- 00:02:23uh it turned out we didn't turns out the
- 00:02:25protagonist actually knows more yes all
- 00:02:29right well listeners join the slack
- 00:02:30there is incredible discussion of
- 00:02:32everything about this company AI the
- 00:02:34whole ecosystem and a bunch of other
- 00:02:36episodes that we've done recently going
- 00:02:37on in there right now so that is
- 00:02:39acquired. FMS slack we would love to see
- 00:02:42you and without further Ado this show is
- 00:02:45not investment advice David and I may
- 00:02:47have investments in the companies we
- 00:02:48discuss and this show is for
- 00:02:50informational and entertainment purposes
- 00:02:52only on to Jensen so Jensen this is
- 00:02:56acquired so we want to start with story
- 00:02:58time so we want to wind the clock all
- 00:02:59the way back to I believe it was
- 00:03:021997 you're getting ready to ship the
- 00:03:04Reva 128 which is one of the largest
- 00:03:08Graphics chips ever created in the
- 00:03:10history of computing it is the first
- 00:03:13fully 3D accelerated Graphics pipeline
- 00:03:17for a computer yeah and you guys have
- 00:03:20about months of cash left and so you
- 00:03:24decide to do the entire testing in
- 00:03:27simulation rather than ever receiving a
- 00:03:30physical prototype you commission the
- 00:03:32production run sight on scene with the
- 00:03:34rest of the company's money so you're
- 00:03:36betting it all right here on the revo
- 00:03:38128 yeah it comes back and of the 32
- 00:03:41DirectX blend modes it supports eight of
- 00:03:44them and you have to convince the market
- 00:03:48to buy it and you got to convince
- 00:03:49developers not to use anything but those
- 00:03:52eight blend modes walk us through what
- 00:03:55that the other 24 weren't that
- 00:03:57important okay so wait wait first
- 00:03:59question
- 00:04:01was that the plan all along like when
- 00:04:03when did you realize that I realized I
- 00:04:06didn't learn about it until it was too
- 00:04:08late we should have implemented all 32
- 00:04:10yeah but but we buil we built and so we
- 00:04:12had to make the best of it that was
- 00:04:14really an extraordinary time remember
- 00:04:17Revo 120 was
- 00:04:18mv3 mv1 and mv2 were based on forward
- 00:04:22texture mapping no triangles but curves
- 00:04:26and it tesselated the curves and because
- 00:04:28we were rendering higher level objects
- 00:04:30we essentially avoided using Z buffers
- 00:04:34and we thought that that was going to be
- 00:04:35a good rendering approach and turns out
- 00:04:37to have been completely the wrong answer
- 00:04:40and so what Revo run 28 was was a reset
- 00:04:42of our company now remember at the time
- 00:04:45that we started the company 1993 we were
- 00:04:47the only consumer 3D Graphics Company
- 00:04:49ever created and we we were focused on
- 00:04:52transforming the PC into an accelerated
- 00:04:55PC because at the time Windows was
- 00:04:57really a software rendered system and so
- 00:05:00anyways Revo
- 00:05:02128 was a reset of our company Because
- 00:05:05by the time that we realized we had gone
- 00:05:06down the wrong road Microsoft had
- 00:05:08already rolled out DirectX it was
- 00:05:10fundamentally incompatible with nvidia's
- 00:05:12architecture 30 competitors have already
- 00:05:15shown up uh even though we were the
- 00:05:16first company at the time that we were
- 00:05:18founded so the world was a completely
- 00:05:20different place the question about what
- 00:05:22to do as a company strategy at that
- 00:05:25point I would have said that we made a
- 00:05:27whole bunch of wrong decisions but on
- 00:05:30that day that mattered we made a
- 00:05:33sequence of extraordinarily good
- 00:05:35decisions and that time 1997 was
- 00:05:39probably nvidia's best moment and the
- 00:05:41reason for that was our backs were up
- 00:05:43against the wall we were running out of
- 00:05:44time we were running out of money for a
- 00:05:46lot of employees running out of Hope and
- 00:05:49the question is what do we do well the
- 00:05:50first thing that we did was we decided
- 00:05:52that look direct ex is now here we're
- 00:05:54not going to fight it let's go figure
- 00:05:56out a way to build the best thing in the
- 00:05:57world uh for it and and Revo 128 is the
- 00:06:01world's first uh fully accelerated
- 00:06:04Hardware accelerated pipeline for
- 00:06:06rendering 3D and so the transform the
- 00:06:10projection every single element all the
- 00:06:12way down to the frame buffer was
- 00:06:14completely Hardware accelerated uh we
- 00:06:16implemented a uh a texture cache we took
- 00:06:20the bus limit the frame buffer limit to
- 00:06:21as big as as a physics could afford at
- 00:06:24the time we made the biggest chip that
- 00:06:26anybody had ever imagined building we
- 00:06:29use the fastest memories basically if we
- 00:06:32built that
- 00:06:33chip there could be nothing that could
- 00:06:36be
- 00:06:36faster and we also chose a cost point
- 00:06:40that is substantially higher than the
- 00:06:43highest price that we think that any of
- 00:06:45our competitors would be willing to go
- 00:06:47if we built it right we accelerated
- 00:06:49everything we Implement everything in
- 00:06:51direct X that we knew of and we build it
- 00:06:54as larger as we possibly could then
- 00:06:57obviously nobody can build something
- 00:06:58faster than that today in a way you kind
- 00:07:01of do that here at Nvidia too you were a
- 00:07:03consumer Products Company back then
- 00:07:05right it was end consumers who were
- 00:07:07going to have to pay the money to buy
- 00:07:08this that's right but we observed that
- 00:07:09there was a segment of the market where
- 00:07:12people were because at the time the the
- 00:07:13PC industry was still coming up and it
- 00:07:16wasn't good enough everybody was
- 00:07:17clamoring for the next fastest thing and
- 00:07:20so if your performance was 10 times
- 00:07:23higher this year than what was available
- 00:07:26there's a whole large Market of
- 00:07:27enthusiasts who who we believe with
- 00:07:29would have gone after it and we were
- 00:07:30absolutely right that the PC industry
- 00:07:33had a substantially large Enthusiast
- 00:07:35Market that would buy the best of
- 00:07:38everything to this day it's kind of
- 00:07:40remains true and for certain segments of
- 00:07:43the market where the technology is never
- 00:07:44good enough like 3D graphics and we
- 00:07:46chose the right technology 3D Graphics
- 00:07:48is never good enough and we call it back
- 00:07:50then 3D gives us sustainable technology
- 00:07:53opportunity because it's never good
- 00:07:55enough and so your technology can keep
- 00:07:57getting better we chose that we also
- 00:07:59made the decision to use this technology
- 00:08:01called emulation there was a company
- 00:08:04called iOS and on the day that I called
- 00:08:07them they were just shutting the company
- 00:08:08down because they had no customers and I
- 00:08:10said hey look uh I'll buy what you have
- 00:08:12in inventory and uh you know no promises
- 00:08:16are necessary and the reason why we
- 00:08:18needed that emulator is because if you
- 00:08:20figur out how much money that we have we
- 00:08:23taped out a
- 00:08:24chip and we uh got it back from the Fab
- 00:08:28and we started working on our soft Ware
- 00:08:30by the time that we found all the bugs
- 00:08:32because we did the software then we
- 00:08:34taped out the chip again well we would
- 00:08:36have been out of business already yeah
- 00:08:37and so I knew and your competitors would
- 00:08:39have caught up well not to mention we
- 00:08:41would have been out of
- 00:08:42business who cares exactly so if you're
- 00:08:45going to be out of business anyways that
- 00:08:47plan obviously wasn't the plan the plan
- 00:08:51that companies normally go through which
- 00:08:53is you know build the chip write the
- 00:08:55software fix the bugs tape out the new
- 00:08:58chip so on so forth that that method
- 00:08:59wasn't going to work and so the question
- 00:09:01is if we only had 6 months and you get
- 00:09:04to tape out just one time then obviously
- 00:09:07you're going to tape out a perfect
- 00:09:08chip so I so I remember having
- 00:09:11conversation with our leaders and they
- 00:09:13said but Jensen how do you know it's
- 00:09:14going to be perfect and I said I know
- 00:09:15it's going to be perfect because if it's
- 00:09:17not we'll be out of business and so
- 00:09:19let's make it perfect we get one shot we
- 00:09:22essentially virtually prototype the chip
- 00:09:24by buying this emulator and Dwight and
- 00:09:26the software team wrote Our software the
- 00:09:28entire step back and ran it on this
- 00:09:31emulator and just sat in the lab waiting
- 00:09:34for Windows to paint you know and it was
- 00:09:37like 60 seconds per a frame or something
- 00:09:39like that EAS I actually think that was
- 00:09:41an hour per frame something like that
- 00:09:43and so we would just sit there and watch
- 00:09:44a paint and so on the day that we
- 00:09:46decided to tape out I assumed that the
- 00:09:48chip was perfect and everything that
- 00:09:50that we could have tested we tested in
- 00:09:53advance and told everybody this is it
- 00:09:55we're going to tape out the chip it's
- 00:09:56going to be perfect well if you're going
- 00:09:58to tape out a chip and know it's perfect
- 00:10:00then what else would you do that's
- 00:10:01actually the good question if you knew
- 00:10:04that you hit enter you taped out a chip
- 00:10:06and you knew it was going to be perfect
- 00:10:07then what else would you do well the
- 00:10:08answer obviously go to production and
- 00:10:11marketing Blitz yeah yeah and developer
- 00:10:13Rel everything off KCK everything off
- 00:10:15because you got a perfect chip and so we
- 00:10:17got in our head that we have a perfect
- 00:10:19chip how much of this was you and how
- 00:10:21much of this was like your co-founders
- 00:10:23the rest the company the board was
- 00:10:24everybody telling you you were crazy no
- 00:10:26everybody was clear we had no shot
- 00:10:31not doing it would be crazy because
- 00:10:34otherwise you home you're G to be out of
- 00:10:36business anyways so anything aside from
- 00:10:38that is crazy so it seemed like a fairly
- 00:10:41logical thing and quite frankly right
- 00:10:42now as I'm describing it every you're
- 00:10:44probably thinking yeah it's pretty
- 00:10:45sensible well it worked yeah and so we
- 00:10:48take that out and went directly to
- 00:10:50production so is the lesson for Founders
- 00:10:52out there when you have conviction on
- 00:10:55something like the revo 128 or uh Cuda
- 00:10:59go bet the company on it and this keeps
- 00:11:01working for you so it seems like your
- 00:11:04lesson learned from this is yes keep
- 00:11:06pushing all the chips in because so far
- 00:11:08it's worked every time no how do you
- 00:11:10think about that no no when you push
- 00:11:12your chips in um I I know it's going to
- 00:11:15work notice we assume that we taped out
- 00:11:18a perfect chip the reason why we taped
- 00:11:20out a perfect chip is because we
- 00:11:21emulated the whole chip before we taped
- 00:11:24it out we developed the entire software
- 00:11:26stack we ran QA on all the drivers and
- 00:11:29all the software we ran all the games we
- 00:11:31had we ran every VGA application we had
- 00:11:34and so when you push your chips in what
- 00:11:37you really doing is you're when you bet
- 00:11:38the farm you're saying I'm going to take
- 00:11:40everything in the future all the risky
- 00:11:41things and going to pull it in advance
- 00:11:44and that is probably the lesson and to
- 00:11:46this day everything that we can prefetch
- 00:11:49everything in the future that we can
- 00:11:51simulate today uh we preet it we talk
- 00:11:54about this a lot we were just talking
- 00:11:56about this on our Costco episode you
- 00:11:58want to push your chips in when you know
- 00:11:59it's going to
- 00:12:00work so every time we see you make a bet
- 00:12:03the company move yeah you've already
- 00:12:05simulated it you know yeah yeah yeah do
- 00:12:08you feel like that was the case with
- 00:12:09Cuda uh yeah in fact before there was
- 00:12:12Cuda there was a CG right and so we were
- 00:12:16already playing with the concept of how
- 00:12:18do we create an abstraction layer above
- 00:12:21our chip that is expressible in a higher
- 00:12:24level language and higher level
- 00:12:25expression and and how can we use our
- 00:12:28GPU for uh things like CT reconstruction
- 00:12:31image processing we were already down
- 00:12:33that path and so there were some
- 00:12:35positive feedback and some intuitive
- 00:12:38positive feedback that that we think
- 00:12:40that that general purpose Computing
- 00:12:41could be possible and if you just looked
- 00:12:43at the pipeline of a programmable Shader
- 00:12:45it is a processor and is highly parallel
- 00:12:47and it is uh massively threaded and it
- 00:12:50is the only processor in the world that
- 00:12:52does that and so there were a lot of
- 00:12:53characteristics about programmable
- 00:12:55shading that would suggest that Cuda has
- 00:12:57a great opportunity to succeed and that
- 00:13:00is true if there was a large Market of
- 00:13:04machine learning practitioners who would
- 00:13:06eventually show up and want to do all
- 00:13:08this great scientific Computing and
- 00:13:10accelerated Computing but at the time
- 00:13:12when you were starting to invest what is
- 00:13:14now something like 10,000 person years
- 00:13:17in building that platform yeah did you
- 00:13:19ever feel like oh man we might have
- 00:13:21invested ahead of the demand for machine
- 00:13:24learning since we're like a decade
- 00:13:26before the whole world is realizing it I
- 00:13:29guess yes and no you know when we saw
- 00:13:32deep learning when we saw
- 00:13:34alexnet and realized it's incredible
- 00:13:37Effectiveness and computer vision we had
- 00:13:40the good sense if you will to go back to
- 00:13:43First principles and ask you know what
- 00:13:44is it about this thing that made it so
- 00:13:47successful when a new software
- 00:13:49technology a new algorithm comes along
- 00:13:52and somehow Leap Frogs 30 years of
- 00:13:54computer vision work you have to take a
- 00:13:56step back and ask yourself but why and
- 00:13:59fundamentally is is it scalable and if
- 00:14:01it's scalable what other problems can it
- 00:14:03solve and there were several
- 00:14:05observations that we made the first
- 00:14:07observation of course is that if you
- 00:14:09have a whole lot of example data you
- 00:14:12could teach this function to make
- 00:14:15predictions well what we basically done
- 00:14:17is discovered a universal function
- 00:14:19approximator because the dimensionality
- 00:14:21could be as high as you want it to be
- 00:14:22and because each layer is trained one
- 00:14:24layer at a time there's no reason why
- 00:14:26you can't make very very deep uh neural
- 00:14:29networks okay so now you just reason
- 00:14:32your way through right okay so I go back
- 00:14:34to 12 years ago you could just imagine
- 00:14:37the reasoning I'm going through my head
- 00:14:39that we've discovered a universal
- 00:14:40function approximator in fact we might
- 00:14:42have discovered with a couple more
- 00:14:44Technologies a universal computer that
- 00:14:47have you been paying attention to the
- 00:14:48image neet competition you're leading up
- 00:14:50to this yeah yeah and the reason for
- 00:14:51that is because we're already working on
- 00:14:52computer vision at the time and we were
- 00:14:54trying to get Cuda to be a good computer
- 00:14:56vision system or most of the algorithms
- 00:14:58that were creative for computer vision
- 00:15:00aren't a good fit for Cuda and so what
- 00:15:02we're sitting there trying to figure it
- 00:15:03out all of a sudden Alex net shows up
- 00:15:05and so that was incredibly intriguing
- 00:15:08it's so effective that it makes you take
- 00:15:10a step back and ask yourself why is that
- 00:15:12happening so by the time that you reason
- 00:15:14your way through this you go well what
- 00:15:16are the kind of problems in a world
- 00:15:18where a universal function
- 00:15:20approximator can solve right well we
- 00:15:23know that most of our algorithms uh
- 00:15:25start from principled Sciences okay you
- 00:15:29want to understand the causality and
- 00:15:31from the causality you create a
- 00:15:33simulation algorithm that allows us to
- 00:15:35scale well for a lot of problems we kind
- 00:15:38of don't care about the causality we
- 00:15:40just care about the predictability of it
- 00:15:42like do I really care for what reason
- 00:15:46you prefer this toothpaste over that I
- 00:15:49don't really care the causality I just
- 00:15:51want to know that this is the one you
- 00:15:52would have predicted do I really care
- 00:15:55that the fundamental cause of somebody
- 00:15:57who buys a hot dog buys ketchup and
- 00:15:59mustard it doesn't really matter it only
- 00:16:01matters that I can predict it it applies
- 00:16:04to predicting movies predicting music it
- 00:16:07applies to predicting quite frankly
- 00:16:10weather we understand thermodynamics we
- 00:16:13understand radiation from the sun we
- 00:16:16understand Cloud effects we understand
- 00:16:17Oceanic effects we understand all these
- 00:16:19different things we just want to know
- 00:16:20whether we should wear sweat or not
- 00:16:22isn't that right and so causality for a
- 00:16:24lot of problems in the world doesn't
- 00:16:26matter we just want to emulate the
- 00:16:27system and predict ICT the outcome and
- 00:16:30it can be an incredibly lucrative market
- 00:16:32so if you can predict what the next best
- 00:16:35performing uh feed item to serve into a
- 00:16:37social media feed turns out that's a
- 00:16:39hugely was go I love the examples you
- 00:16:41pulled it you know toothpaste catchup
- 00:16:44music movies when you realize this you
- 00:16:46realize hang hang on a second a
- 00:16:48universal function approximator a
- 00:16:50machine Learning System you know
- 00:16:52something that learns from examples
- 00:16:54could have tremendous opportunities
- 00:16:56because just the number of applications
- 00:16:58is quite enormous and everything from
- 00:17:02obviously we just talking about Commerce
- 00:17:03all the way to science and so you
- 00:17:06realize that maybe this could affect a
- 00:17:08very large part of the world's
- 00:17:10Industries almost every piece of
- 00:17:12software in the world would would
- 00:17:13eventually be programmed this way and if
- 00:17:15that's the case then how you build a
- 00:17:17computer and how you build a chip in
- 00:17:19fact can be completely changed and
- 00:17:21realizing that the rest of it is just
- 00:17:24comes with you know do you have the
- 00:17:25courage to put your chips behind it so
- 00:17:27that's where we are today
- 00:17:29um and that's where Nvidia is today but
- 00:17:32I'm curious in that you know there's
- 00:17:33couple years after Alex net and this is
- 00:17:36when Ben and I were getting into the
- 00:17:38technology industry and the Venture
- 00:17:39industry ourselves I started at
- 00:17:41Microsoft in 2012 so right after Alex
- 00:17:44snap but before anyone was talking about
- 00:17:46machine learning and even the mainstream
- 00:17:47engineering community there were those
- 00:17:49couple years there
- 00:17:52where to a lot of the rest of the world
- 00:17:55these looked like science projects yeah
- 00:17:58the technology companies here in Silicon
- 00:17:59Valley particularly the social media
- 00:18:02companies they were just
- 00:18:04realizing huge economic value out of
- 00:18:07this the Googles the Facebooks the
- 00:18:08Netflix's Etc and obviously that led to
- 00:18:11lots of things including open AI a
- 00:18:12couple years later but during those
- 00:18:13couple years when you saw just that huge
- 00:18:17economic value unlock here in Silicon
- 00:18:19Valley how are you feeling during those
- 00:18:21times the first thought was of course
- 00:18:23reasoning about uh how we we should
- 00:18:26change our Computing stack the second
- 00:18:29thought is where can we find earliest
- 00:18:32possibilities of use if we were to go
- 00:18:34build this computer what would people
- 00:18:36use it to do and we were fortunate that
- 00:18:39working with the world's universities
- 00:18:41and researchers was was innate in our
- 00:18:43company because we were already working
- 00:18:45on Cuda and cuda's early adopters were
- 00:18:48researchers because we democratize
- 00:18:50supercomputing you know Cuda is not just
- 00:18:52used as you know for AI Cuda is used for
- 00:18:54almost all fields of science everything
- 00:18:57from molecular Dynamics to Imaging CT
- 00:19:00reconstruction to um uh seismic
- 00:19:03processing to you know weather
- 00:19:05simulations quantum chemistry the list
- 00:19:07goes on right and so the number of
- 00:19:09applications of Cuda in research was
- 00:19:11very high and so when the time came and
- 00:19:13we realized that deep learning could be
- 00:19:15really interesting uh it was natural for
- 00:19:17us to go back to the researchers and
- 00:19:19find every single AI researcher on the
- 00:19:22planet and say how can we help you
- 00:19:24advance your work and that included Yan
- 00:19:27Lun and Andrew a and and Jeff Hinton and
- 00:19:30that's how I met all these people and
- 00:19:32and I used to go to all the AI
- 00:19:34conferences and that's where you know I
- 00:19:36met Ilia susc there for the first time
- 00:19:38yeah and so it was really about at that
- 00:19:40point what are the systems that we can
- 00:19:42build and the software Stacks we can
- 00:19:43build to help you be more successful to
- 00:19:46advance the research because at the time
- 00:19:48it looked like a toy but we had
- 00:19:50confidence that even Gan the first time
- 00:19:52I met goodfella the Gan was was like 32
- 00:19:55by
- 00:19:5632 and it was just a you know blurry
- 00:19:59image of a cat you know but how far can
- 00:20:01it go and so we believed in it we
- 00:20:04believe that one you could scale deep
- 00:20:06learning because obviously it's trained
- 00:20:08layer by layer and you could make the
- 00:20:10data sets larger and you could make the
- 00:20:12models larger and we believe that if you
- 00:20:14made that larger and larger it would get
- 00:20:16better and better yeah kind of sensible
- 00:20:18and I think the discussions and the
- 00:20:21engagements with the researchers was the
- 00:20:23exact positive feedback system that we
- 00:20:25needed I would go back to research it
- 00:20:28was that's where it all happened when
- 00:20:30open AI was founded in 2015 yeah I mean
- 00:20:34that was such an important moment that's
- 00:20:37obvious today now but at the time I I
- 00:20:39think most people even people in Tech
- 00:20:41were like what is this were you involved
- 00:20:45in it at all like you know because you
- 00:20:47were so connected to the researchers to
- 00:20:48Ilia taking that Talent out of Google
- 00:20:52and Facebook to be blunt but reeding the
- 00:20:55research community and opening it up um
- 00:20:58was such animportant moment were you
- 00:20:59involved in it at all I wasn't involved
- 00:21:01in the founding of it but I knew a lot
- 00:21:03of the people there and um Elon of
- 00:21:06course I knew and uh Peter Beal was
- 00:21:09there and Ilia was there and we have we
- 00:21:12have some great employees today that
- 00:21:13were there in the beginning and I knew
- 00:21:16that they needed this amazing computer
- 00:21:17that we were building and we're building
- 00:21:19the first version of the dgx which you
- 00:21:21know today when you see a hopper it's 70
- 00:21:24lbs 35,000 Parts 10,000 amps but dgx the
- 00:21:29first version that we built was uh used
- 00:21:31internally and I delivered the first one
- 00:21:33to open Ai and that was a fun day but
- 00:21:36most of our success was aligned around
- 00:21:40um in the beginning just about helping
- 00:21:42the researchers get to the next level I
- 00:21:45knew it wasn't very useful in its
- 00:21:47current state but I also believe that in
- 00:21:50a few clicks it could be really
- 00:21:52remarkable and that belief system came
- 00:21:55from the interactions with all these
- 00:21:57amazing researchers and it came from
- 00:21:59just seeing the incremental progress at
- 00:22:02first the papers were coming out every 3
- 00:22:03months and then then papers today are
- 00:22:05coming out every day right so you could
- 00:22:07just monitor the archive papers and I
- 00:22:10took an interest in learning about the
- 00:22:12progress of deep learning and and and to
- 00:22:14the best of myability read these papers
- 00:22:16and you could just see the progress
- 00:22:18happening you know in real time
- 00:22:20exponentially in real time it even seems
- 00:22:22like within the industry from some
- 00:22:25researchers we spoke with it seemed like
- 00:22:28like no one predicted how useful
- 00:22:31language models would become when you
- 00:22:33just increase the size of the models
- 00:22:35they thought oh there has to be some
- 00:22:36algorithmic change that needs to happen
- 00:22:38but once you cross that 10 billion
- 00:22:40parameter Mark and certainly once you
- 00:22:41cross the 100 billion they just
- 00:22:43magically got much more accurate much
- 00:22:45more useful much more lifelike were you
- 00:22:47shocked by that the first time you saw a
- 00:22:49truly large language model and do you
- 00:22:52remember that
- 00:22:53feeling well my first feeling about the
- 00:22:55language model was how clever it was to
- 00:22:59just mask out words and and uh make it
- 00:23:01predict the next word it's
- 00:23:03self-supervised learning at its best we
- 00:23:05have all this text you know I know what
- 00:23:07the answer is I'll just make you guess
- 00:23:09it and so my first impression of Bert
- 00:23:12was really how clever it was and now the
- 00:23:14question is how can you scale that you
- 00:23:16know the first observation almost
- 00:23:17everything is interesting and then and
- 00:23:19then try to understand intuitively why
- 00:23:21it works and then the next step of
- 00:23:22course is from first principles how
- 00:23:24would you extrapolate that yep and so
- 00:23:26obviously we knew that Bert was going to
- 00:23:28be a lot larger now one of the things
- 00:23:30about these language models is it's
- 00:23:32encoding information isn't that right
- 00:23:34it's compressing information and So
- 00:23:36within the world's languages and text
- 00:23:39there's a fair amount of reasoning
- 00:23:40that's encoded in it and we describe a
- 00:23:42lot of reasoning things and and so if
- 00:23:44you were to say that uh F step reasoning
- 00:23:48is somehow learnable from just reading
- 00:23:50things I wouldn't be surprised you know
- 00:23:53for a lot of us uh we get our common
- 00:23:56sense and we get our our reasoning
- 00:23:57ability by reading and so why wouldn't a
- 00:24:00machine learning model also learn some
- 00:24:01of the reasoning capabilities from that
- 00:24:04and from reasoning capabilities you
- 00:24:06could have emergent capabilities right
- 00:24:08emergent abilities are consistent with
- 00:24:10intuitively from reasoning and so some
- 00:24:13of it could be predictable but
- 00:24:15still it's still amazing the fact that
- 00:24:18it's sensible doesn't make it any less
- 00:24:21amazing right I could visualize
- 00:24:24literally the entire computer um and and
- 00:24:27all the modules in self-driving car and
- 00:24:29the fact that it's still keeping Lanes
- 00:24:31makes me insanely happy and
- 00:24:34so I even remember that from my first
- 00:24:36operating systems class in college when
- 00:24:38I finally figured out all the way from
- 00:24:40programming language to the electrical
- 00:24:42engineering classes bridged in the
- 00:24:43middle by that OS class I'm like oh I
- 00:24:45think I understand how the Von noyman
- 00:24:47Computer Works Soup To Nuts and it's
- 00:24:50still a miracle yeah yeah yeah yeah
- 00:24:52exactly yeah yeah when you put it all
- 00:24:54together it's still a miracle yeah now
- 00:24:57is a great time to talk about one of our
- 00:24:58favorite companies stat Zig and we have
- 00:25:01some tech history for you yes so in our
- 00:25:03Nvidia part three episode we talked
- 00:25:05about how the AI research teams at
- 00:25:07Google and Facebook drove incredible
- 00:25:09business outcomes with cuttingedge ML
- 00:25:11models and these models powered features
- 00:25:13like the Facebook Newsfeed Google ads
- 00:25:15and the YouTube next video
- 00:25:17recommendation in the process
- 00:25:19transforming Google and Facebook into
- 00:25:21the Jugger kns that we know today and
- 00:25:24while we talked all about the research
- 00:25:26we didn't touch on how these models were
- 00:25:28were actually deployed yeah the most
- 00:25:30common way to deploy new models was
- 00:25:32through experimentation AB testing when
- 00:25:34the research team created a new model
- 00:25:36product Engineers would deploy the model
- 00:25:38to a subset of users and measure the
- 00:25:41impact of the model on core product
- 00:25:43metrics great experimentation tools
- 00:25:45transformed the machine learning
- 00:25:47development process they drisk releases
- 00:25:50since each model could be released to a
- 00:25:51small set of users they sped up release
- 00:25:53Cycles researchers could suddenly get
- 00:25:56quick feedback from real user data and
- 00:25:58most most importantly they created a
- 00:25:59pragmatic datadriven culture since
- 00:26:02researchers were rewarded for driving
- 00:26:04actual product improvements and over
- 00:26:06time these experimentation tools gave
- 00:26:08Facebook and Google a huge Edge because
- 00:26:11they really became a requirement for
- 00:26:13leading ml teams yep so now you're
- 00:26:15probably thinking well that's great for
- 00:26:17Facebook and Google but my team can't
- 00:26:19build out our own internal
- 00:26:20experimentation platform well you don't
- 00:26:23have to thanks to staig so stat Sig was
- 00:26:26literally founded by Facebook Engineers
- 00:26:29who did all this they've built a
- 00:26:30best-in-class experimentation feature
- 00:26:33flagging and product analytics platform
- 00:26:35that's available to anyone and surprise
- 00:26:37surprise a ton of AI companies are now
- 00:26:40using stat Sig to improve and deploy
- 00:26:43their models including open Ai and
- 00:26:46anthropic yep so whether you're building
- 00:26:48with AI or not stat Sig can help your
- 00:26:49team ship faster and make better
- 00:26:51datadriven product decisions they have a
- 00:26:53very generous free tier and a special
- 00:26:55program for venture-backed companies
- 00:26:56simple pricing for Enterprises and no
- 00:26:59seat-based fees if you're in the
- 00:27:01acquired Community there's a special
- 00:27:02offer you get 5 million free events a
- 00:27:05month and white glove onboarding support
- 00:27:08So visit stats.com Acquired and get
- 00:27:11started on your datadriven journey we
- 00:27:13have some questions we want to ask you
- 00:27:15uh some are cultural about Nvidia but um
- 00:27:18others are generalizable to company
- 00:27:20building broadly and the first one that
- 00:27:23we wanted to ask is uh we've heard that
- 00:27:24you have 40 plus direct reports and that
- 00:27:28this org chart works a lot differently
- 00:27:31than a traditional company org chart do
- 00:27:33you think there's something special
- 00:27:35about Nvidia that makes you able to have
- 00:27:39so many direct reports not worry about
- 00:27:42coddling or focusing on Career growth of
- 00:27:45your Executives and you're like no
- 00:27:46you're just here to do your freaking
- 00:27:47best work and the most important thing
- 00:27:49in the world now go a is that correct
- 00:27:52and B is there something special about
- 00:27:54Nvidia that enables that I don't think
- 00:27:57it's something special about Nvidia I
- 00:27:58think that we had the courage to build a
- 00:28:00system like this Nvidia is not built
- 00:28:03like a military it's not built like a
- 00:28:05like the Armed Forces where you have you
- 00:28:08know generals and Colonels you we just
- 00:28:10we're not set up like that we're not set
- 00:28:12up in a command and control and
- 00:28:15information distribution system from the
- 00:28:17top down we're really built much more
- 00:28:20like a Computing
- 00:28:22stack and a Computing stack the lowest
- 00:28:25layer is our architecture and then
- 00:28:27there's our chip and then there's our
- 00:28:29software and and on top of it there are
- 00:28:31all these different modules and each one
- 00:28:33of these layers of modules are people
- 00:28:35and so the architecture of the company
- 00:28:37to me is a computer with a Computing
- 00:28:41stack with um uh people managing
- 00:28:43different parts of the system and who
- 00:28:47reports to whom your title is not
- 00:28:50related to anywhere you are in the stack
- 00:28:52it just happens to be who is the best at
- 00:28:54running that module on that function on
- 00:28:57that layer it is in charge and that
- 00:28:59person is the pilot in command and so
- 00:29:02that's one characteristic and have you
- 00:29:04always thought about the company this
- 00:29:05way even from the earliest days yeah
- 00:29:07pretty much yeah and the reason for that
- 00:29:09is because your organization should be
- 00:29:11the architecture of the Machinery of
- 00:29:14building the
- 00:29:15product right that's what a company is
- 00:29:18yep and yet everybody's company look
- 00:29:20exactly the same but they all build
- 00:29:22different things how does that make any
- 00:29:24sense do you see what I'm saying yeah
- 00:29:26you know how you make fried chicken
- 00:29:28versus how you flip burgers versus how
- 00:29:29you make you know Chinese fried rice
- 00:29:31it's different and so why would the
- 00:29:33Machinery why would the process be
- 00:29:34exactly the same and so it's not
- 00:29:36sensible to me that if you look at the
- 00:29:38or charts of most companies it all kind
- 00:29:40of looks like this and then that you
- 00:29:43have one group that's for a business and
- 00:29:44you have another for another business
- 00:29:46you have another for another business
- 00:29:47and they're all kind of supposedly
- 00:29:49autonomous and so none of that stuff
- 00:29:51makes any sense to me it just depends on
- 00:29:53what is it that we're trying to build
- 00:29:55and what is the architecture of the
- 00:29:57company that best suit suits to go build
- 00:29:58it that's so that's number one in terms
- 00:30:00of information system and how do you
- 00:30:02enable collaboration we kind of wire it
- 00:30:04up like a neural network and the way
- 00:30:06that we say is that there's a phrase in
- 00:30:08the company called mission is the boss
- 00:30:10and so we figure out what is the mission
- 00:30:12of what is the mission and we go wire up
- 00:30:15the best skills and the best teams and
- 00:30:17the best resources to achieve that
- 00:30:19mission and it cuts across the entire
- 00:30:21organization in a way that doesn't make
- 00:30:24any sense but it's looks like a little
- 00:30:26bit like a neuron Network you know when
- 00:30:28you say mission do you mean Mission like
- 00:30:30nvidia's mission is yeah okay so it's
- 00:30:33not like further accelerated Computing
- 00:30:36it's like we're shipping djx Cloud uh
- 00:30:38build Hopper or somebody else has build
- 00:30:40a system for Hopper somebody has uh buil
- 00:30:42Cuda for Hopper somebody's job is build
- 00:30:45cou andn for Cuda for Hopper somebody's
- 00:30:47job is the mission right is is so you
- 00:30:50know your mission is to do something
- 00:30:52what are the tradeoffs associated with
- 00:30:54that versus the traditional structure
- 00:30:56the downside is the pressure on the
- 00:30:58leaders is fairly High and the reason
- 00:31:01for that is because in a command and
- 00:31:03control system the person who you
- 00:31:05reports to has more power than you and
- 00:31:08the reason why they have more power than
- 00:31:09you is because they're closer to the
- 00:31:11source of information than you are in
- 00:31:13our company the information is
- 00:31:16disseminated fairly quickly to a lot of
- 00:31:19different people and usually at A Team
- 00:31:21level so for example just now I was I
- 00:31:22was in our robotics meeting and we're
- 00:31:25talking about certain things and we're
- 00:31:26making some decisions and there are new
- 00:31:28College grads in a room there's three
- 00:31:30vice presidents in a room there's two e
- 00:31:32staffs in a room and at the moment that
- 00:31:34we decided together we reason through
- 00:31:35some stuff we made a decision everybody
- 00:31:37heard at ex exactly the same time so
- 00:31:40nobody has more power than anybody else
- 00:31:43does that make sense the new college
- 00:31:44grad learned at exactly the same time as
- 00:31:46the eaff and so the executive staff and
- 00:31:49and the leaders that that work for me
- 00:31:52and myself you earned the right to have
- 00:31:55your job based on your ability to reason
- 00:31:57through s and helping other people
- 00:31:59succeed and and it's not because you
- 00:32:01have some privilege information that I
- 00:32:03knew the answer was 3.7 and only I knew
- 00:32:06you know everybody knew when we did our
- 00:32:08most recent episode inidia part three
- 00:32:10that we we just
- 00:32:12released we sort of did this thought
- 00:32:14exercise um especially over the last
- 00:32:16couple years your product shipping cycle
- 00:32:20has been very impressive especially
- 00:32:22given the level of technology that you
- 00:32:24are working with and the difficulty of
- 00:32:25this all we sort of said like could
- 00:32:28you imagine Apple shipping two iPhones a
- 00:32:32year and we said that for illustrative
- 00:32:34purposes for illustrative purposes not
- 00:32:35pick on Apple or what a large tech
- 00:32:37company two Flagship products or their
- 00:32:39Flagship product twice per year yeah or
- 00:32:41you know two ww DC's a year yeah there
- 00:32:44seems to be something like you can't
- 00:32:45really imagine that whereas that happens
- 00:32:48here are there other companies either
- 00:32:52current or historically that you look up
- 00:32:56to admire maybe took some of this
- 00:32:58inspiration from in the last 30 years
- 00:33:00I've read my fair share of business
- 00:33:03books and as in everything you read you
- 00:33:05you're supposed to you're supposed to to
- 00:33:08first of all enjoy it right enjoy it be
- 00:33:10inspired by it but not to adopt it
- 00:33:14that's not the whole point of these
- 00:33:15books the whole point of these books is
- 00:33:17to share their
- 00:33:18experiences and and you you're supposed
- 00:33:20to ask you know what does it mean to me
- 00:33:23in my world and what does it mean to me
- 00:33:25in the context of what I'm going through
- 00:33:27what does this mean to me and the
- 00:33:28environment that I'm in and what does
- 00:33:29this mean to me and what I'm trying to
- 00:33:31achieve and what does this mean to
- 00:33:32Invidia in the age of our company and
- 00:33:34the capability of our company and so
- 00:33:36you're supposed to ask yourself what
- 00:33:37does it mean to you and then from that
- 00:33:39point being informed by all these
- 00:33:41different things that we're learning uh
- 00:33:42we're supposed to come up with their own
- 00:33:44strategies you know what I just
- 00:33:45described is kind of how I go about
- 00:33:48everything you're supposed to be
- 00:33:49inspired and learn from every everybody
- 00:33:51else and and the education's free you
- 00:33:53know when somebody talks about a new
- 00:33:55product you're supposed to go listen to
- 00:33:57it you're not supposed to ignore it
- 00:33:58you're supposed to go learn from it and
- 00:34:00it could be a competitor it could be
- 00:34:02adjacent industry it could be nothing to
- 00:34:04do with us the more we we learn from uh
- 00:34:07what's happening out in the world uh the
- 00:34:09better but then you're you're supposed
- 00:34:11to come back and ask yourself you know
- 00:34:13what does this mean to us yeah you don't
- 00:34:14just want to imitate them that's right
- 00:34:16yeah yeah I love this teup of learning
- 00:34:19but not imitating and learning from a
- 00:34:22wide array of sources there's this sort
- 00:34:24of um unbelievable third third element I
- 00:34:29think to what Nvidia has become today
- 00:34:31and that's the data center it's
- 00:34:33certainly not obvious I can't reason
- 00:34:35from alexnet and your engagement with
- 00:34:38the research Community uh and and you
- 00:34:41know social media feeders to you
- 00:34:44deciding and the company deciding we're
- 00:34:46going to go on a 5year Allin Journey on
- 00:34:48the data center yeah how did that happen
- 00:34:51yeah our journey to the data center
- 00:34:53happened I would say almost 17 years ago
- 00:34:56I'm always being asked and what are the
- 00:34:58challenges that the company could see
- 00:34:59someday and and I've always felt that
- 00:35:03the fact that nvidia's technology is
- 00:35:07plugged into a computer and that
- 00:35:10computer has to sit next to you because
- 00:35:13it has to be connected to a monitor that
- 00:35:15will limit our opportunity someday
- 00:35:18because there are only so many desktop
- 00:35:19PCS that plug a GPU
- 00:35:22into and uh there's only so many CRTs
- 00:35:25and and in the time LCDs that we could
- 00:35:27possibly drive so the question is
- 00:35:30wouldn't it be amazing if our computer
- 00:35:32doesn't have to be connected to the
- 00:35:35viewing device that that the separation
- 00:35:37of it um made it possible for us to
- 00:35:40compute somewhere else and one of our
- 00:35:42Engineers came and show it to me one day
- 00:35:44and it was really capturing the frame
- 00:35:46buffer encoding it into video and
- 00:35:49streaming it um to a AER device
- 00:35:53separating Computing from the viewing in
- 00:35:55many ways that's cloud gaming
- 00:35:59in in fact that was when we started gfn
- 00:36:01we knew that gfn was going to be um a
- 00:36:04journey that would take a long time
- 00:36:06because you you're fighting you're
- 00:36:07fighting all kinds of problems including
- 00:36:10including the speed of light and latency
- 00:36:12everywhere you look that's right for
- 00:36:14listening gfn GeForce now gForce now
- 00:36:16yeah GeForce now and and we've been
- 00:36:18working on your first Cloud product
- 00:36:20that's right and and look at look at
- 00:36:22gForce now was nvidia's First Data
- 00:36:24Center product and our second data
- 00:36:26center product was REM Graphics putting
- 00:36:28our gpus in in the world's Enterprise
- 00:36:31data centers which then led us to our
- 00:36:33third product which combined Cuda plus
- 00:36:36our GPU which became a supercomputer
- 00:36:38which then worked towards you know more
- 00:36:40and more and more and the reason why
- 00:36:42it's so important is because the
- 00:36:44disconnection between where nvidia's uh
- 00:36:48Computing is done versus where it's
- 00:36:49enjoyed if you can separate that your
- 00:36:52Market opportunity explodes yeah yeah
- 00:36:54and it was completely true and so we're
- 00:36:56no longer limited by the physical
- 00:36:58constraints of the desktop PC sitting by
- 00:37:01your desk um you know and we're not
- 00:37:04limited by one GPU per person and so it
- 00:37:07doesn't matter where it is anymore and
- 00:37:09so that was really the great observation
- 00:37:11it's a good reminder I you know the data
- 00:37:13center segment of nvidia's business to
- 00:37:15me has become synonymous with how's AI
- 00:37:18going and that's a false equivalence and
- 00:37:21it's interesting that you were only this
- 00:37:23ready to sort of explode in Ai and the
- 00:37:26data center because you had three plus
- 00:37:29previous products where you learned how
- 00:37:31to build data center computers even
- 00:37:33though those markets weren't these like
- 00:37:35gigantic world changing technology
- 00:37:38shifts the way that AI is that's how you
- 00:37:40learned yeah that's right you want to
- 00:37:42pave the way to Future
- 00:37:45opportunities you can't wait until the
- 00:37:47opportunity is sitting in front of you
- 00:37:49for you to reach out for it and so you
- 00:37:50have to anticipate you know our job as
- 00:37:52CEO is to look around corners and and
- 00:37:55anticipate where will opportunity be
- 00:37:57someday and even if I'm not exactly sure
- 00:38:01what and when how do I position the
- 00:38:03company to be near it to be just
- 00:38:06standing kind of near under the tree and
- 00:38:08we can do a diving catch when the Apple
- 00:38:10Falls you guys know what I'm saying yeah
- 00:38:12but you got to be close enough to do the
- 00:38:13diving couch rewinded 2015 in open AI if
- 00:38:18you hadn't been laying this groundwork
- 00:38:19in the data center yeah you wouldn't be
- 00:38:23powering open AI right now yeah but the
- 00:38:25idea that Computing would be mostly done
- 00:38:28away from the viewing
- 00:38:30device that the vast majority of
- 00:38:32computing will be done away from the
- 00:38:34computer itself that Insight was good in
- 00:38:37fact cloud computing everything about
- 00:38:39today's Computing is about separation of
- 00:38:41that and by putting it in a data center
- 00:38:43we can overcome this latency problem
- 00:38:46meaning you're not going to overcome
- 00:38:47speed of light speed of light end to end
- 00:38:49is only 120 milliseconds or something
- 00:38:51like that it's not that long from a data
- 00:38:53center to a internet anywhere on the
- 00:38:54planet yeah and so we I see literally
- 00:38:57across the planet yeah right so if you
- 00:38:59could solve that problem approximately
- 00:39:00something like that I forget the number
- 00:39:02but 70 milliseconds 100 milliseconds but
- 00:39:05it's not that long and so my point is if
- 00:39:08you could remove the obstacles
- 00:39:09everywhere
- 00:39:10else then speed of light should be you
- 00:39:14know perfectly fine and you could build
- 00:39:16data centers as as large you like and
- 00:39:18you could do amazing things and and this
- 00:39:20little tiny device that we use as a
- 00:39:22computer or you know your TV as a
- 00:39:24computer whatever computer they all they
- 00:39:26can all instantly become amazing and so
- 00:39:28that Insight you know 15 years ago was a
- 00:39:30good one so speaking of the speed of
- 00:39:32light infiniband yeah like David's like
- 00:39:35begging me to go here the same you
- 00:39:39totally saw that infin band would be way
- 00:39:41more useful way sooner than anyone else
- 00:39:44realized acquiring melanox I think you
- 00:39:47uniquely saw that this was required to
- 00:39:50train large language models and you were
- 00:39:53super aggressive in acquiring that
- 00:39:55company why did you see that when no one
- 00:39:57else saw that well uh there are several
- 00:40:00reasons for that first um if you want to
- 00:40:03be a data center company bu building the
- 00:40:05processing chip isn't the way to do it a
- 00:40:07data center is distinguished from a
- 00:40:10desktop computer versus a cell phone not
- 00:40:12by the processor in it yeah a desktop
- 00:40:15computer and a data center uses the same
- 00:40:17CPUs uses the same gpus apparently right
- 00:40:19very close and so it's not the chip it's
- 00:40:22not the processing ship that describes
- 00:40:24it but it's the networking of it it's
- 00:40:26the infrastructure of of it it's the you
- 00:40:28know how the the the Computing is
- 00:40:30distributed how security is provided how
- 00:40:32networking is done you know so on so
- 00:40:35forth and so so it those characteristics
- 00:40:38are associated with melanox not Nvidia
- 00:40:41and so the day that I concluded that
- 00:40:44really Nvidia wants to be a you know
- 00:40:46build computers of the future and
- 00:40:47computers of the future are going to be
- 00:40:49data centers embodied in data centers
- 00:40:52then then if we want to be data center
- 00:40:53oriented company then then we really
- 00:40:55need to get into networking and so that
- 00:40:56was one the second thing is observation
- 00:40:59that whereas cloud computing started in
- 00:41:02hyperscale which is about taking
- 00:41:04commodity components a lot of users and
- 00:41:07virtualizing many users uh on top of one
- 00:41:10computer AI is really about distributed
- 00:41:13computing where one job one training job
- 00:41:16um is orchestrated across millions of
- 00:41:20processors and so it's the inverse of
- 00:41:22hyperscale almost and the way that you
- 00:41:25design a hyperscale computer with with
- 00:41:27off the-shelf commodity ethernet which
- 00:41:29is just fine for Hadoop it's just fine
- 00:41:31for search queries it's just fine for
- 00:41:33all of those things but now when you're
- 00:41:34sharting a model across you're sharting
- 00:41:36a model across right and so that
- 00:41:39observation says that the type of
- 00:41:41networking you want to do is not exactly
- 00:41:43ethernet and the way that we do
- 00:41:45networking for supercomputing is really
- 00:41:47quite ideal and so the combination of
- 00:41:50those two ideas um uh you know convinced
- 00:41:52me that that melanox is is absolutely
- 00:41:55the right right company because they
- 00:41:56were they're the world's leading high
- 00:41:57performance networking company and and
- 00:42:00we worked with them in so many different
- 00:42:01areas in in uh high performance
- 00:42:03Computing already plus I I really like
- 00:42:05the people um uh the the Israel team is
- 00:42:08world class uh we have some 3,200 people
- 00:42:11there now and it was one of the best
- 00:42:13strategic decisions I'd ever made when
- 00:42:15we were researching particularly part
- 00:42:18three of our Nvidia series we talked to
- 00:42:19a lot of people and many people told us
- 00:42:22the melanox acquisition is one of if not
- 00:42:25the best of all time
- 00:42:27any technology I think so too yeah and
- 00:42:30it's so disconnected from the work that
- 00:42:32we normally do it was surprising to
- 00:42:34everybody but frame this way you were
- 00:42:36you were standing near where the action
- 00:42:38was so you could figure out as soon as
- 00:42:41that Apple sort of becomes available to
- 00:42:43purchase like oh llms are about to blow
- 00:42:46up I'm going to need that everyone's
- 00:42:47going to need that I think I know that
- 00:42:48before anyone else does yeah you want to
- 00:42:50position yourself near opportunities you
- 00:42:54don't have to be that perfect you know
- 00:42:57you want to position yourself near the
- 00:42:59tree and even if you don't catch the the
- 00:43:02the Apple before it hits the ground so
- 00:43:04long as you're the first one to pick it
- 00:43:09up you want to position yourself close
- 00:43:12to the opportunities now and so that's
- 00:43:14kind of a lot of my work is positioning
- 00:43:16the company near opportunities and and
- 00:43:19um having the the uh the company having
- 00:43:23the skills to to um monetize each one of
- 00:43:26the steps along the way so that we can
- 00:43:28be sustainable what you just said
- 00:43:30reminds me of a great uh aphorism from
- 00:43:32Buffett and Munger which is it's better
- 00:43:34to be approximately right than exactly
- 00:43:36wrong yeah there you go yeah that's a
- 00:43:39good one a good one yeah all right
- 00:43:42listeners we are here to tell you about
- 00:43:44a company that literally couldn't be
- 00:43:46more perfect for this episode cruso yes
- 00:43:48cruso as you know by now is a cloud
- 00:43:50provider built specifically for AI
- 00:43:53workloads and powered by Clean energy
- 00:43:55and Nvidia is a major part partner of
- 00:43:57cuso their data centers are filled with
- 00:43:59A1 100s and h100s and as you probably
- 00:44:03know with the rising demand for AI
- 00:44:05there's been a huge surge in the need
- 00:44:07for high- performing gpus leading to a
- 00:44:10noticeable scarcity of Nvidia gpus in
- 00:44:12the market cruso has been ahead of the
- 00:44:14curve and is among the first Cloud
- 00:44:16providers to offer nvidia's h100s at
- 00:44:19scale they have a very straightforward
- 00:44:21strategy create the best AI Cloud
- 00:44:23solution for customers using the very
- 00:44:25best GPU Hardware on the market the
- 00:44:27customers ask for like Nvidia and invest
- 00:44:30heavily in an optimized Cloud software
- 00:44:32stack yep to illustrate they already
- 00:44:35have several customers already running
- 00:44:37large scale generative AI workloads on
- 00:44:39clusters of Nvidia h100 gpus which are
- 00:44:41interconnected with 3200 gbit infiniband
- 00:44:45and leveraging kuso's network attached
- 00:44:47block storage solution and because their
- 00:44:50cloud is run on wasted stranded or clean
- 00:44:52energy they can provide significantly
- 00:44:54better performance per dollar than
- 00:44:56traditional Cloud providers yep
- 00:44:58ultimately this results in a huge
- 00:45:00win-win they take what is otherwise a
- 00:45:02huge amount of energy waste that causes
- 00:45:04environmental harm and use it to power
- 00:45:07massive Ai workloads and it's worth
- 00:45:09noting that through their operations
- 00:45:11cruso is actually reducing more
- 00:45:13emissions than they would generate in
- 00:45:15fact in 2022 cruso captured over 4
- 00:45:18billion cubic feet of gas which led to
- 00:45:21the avoidance of approximately 500,000
- 00:45:24metric tons of CO2 emissions that's
- 00:45:27equivalent to taking about 160,000 cars
- 00:45:29off the road amazing if you your company
- 00:45:32or your portfolio companies could use
- 00:45:34lower cost and more performing
- 00:45:35infrastructure for your AI workloads go
- 00:45:38to cruso cloud.com acquired that's cruso
- 00:45:42cloud.com acquired or click the link in
- 00:45:44the show notes I want to move away from
- 00:45:47Nvidia if you're okay with it and ask
- 00:45:49you some questions since we have a lot
- 00:45:50of Founders that listen to this show
- 00:45:52sort of advice for company building the
- 00:45:55first one is when you're starting a
- 00:45:57startup in the earliest days your
- 00:45:59biggest competitor is uh you don't make
- 00:46:02anything people want like your company's
- 00:46:04likely to diep just because people don't
- 00:46:07actually care as much as you do about
- 00:46:08what you're building in the later days
- 00:46:10you actually have to be very thoughtful
- 00:46:11about competitive strategy and I'm
- 00:46:13curious what would be your advice to
- 00:46:16companies that you know have product
- 00:46:18Market fit that are starting to grow
- 00:46:19they're in interesting growing markets
- 00:46:22um where should they look for
- 00:46:24competition and how should they handle
- 00:46:26it well there are all kinds of ways to
- 00:46:28think about competition we prefer to
- 00:46:32position ourselves in a way that serves
- 00:46:36a need that usually hasn't emerged I've
- 00:46:40heard uh you are others in video I think
- 00:46:41Ed the phrase zero billion Doll Market
- 00:46:43that's exactly right yeah it's our way
- 00:46:45of saying there's no market yet but we
- 00:46:47believe there will be one and and
- 00:46:50usually when you're positioned there
- 00:46:52everybody everybody's trying to figure
- 00:46:54out why are you here
- 00:46:57right because when we first got into
- 00:46:58Automotive because we believe that in
- 00:47:00the future the car is going to be
- 00:47:01largely software and if it's going to be
- 00:47:03largely software um a really incredible
- 00:47:06computer is necessary and so so when we
- 00:47:09positioned ourselves there most people I
- 00:47:12I still remember one one of the one of
- 00:47:13the CTO told me you know what cars
- 00:47:15cannot tolerate the blue screen of death
- 00:47:18I I don't think anybody can tolerate
- 00:47:20that but it doesn't change the fact that
- 00:47:23someday every car will be a software
- 00:47:25defined car and I I think you know uh 15
- 00:47:27years later were were were largely right
- 00:47:29and so often times there's non-c
- 00:47:32consumption and we like to navigate our
- 00:47:35company there and by doing that um by
- 00:47:39the time that you uh that the market
- 00:47:42emerges it's very it's very likely there
- 00:47:44aren't that many competitors shaped that
- 00:47:46way and so we were early in PC gaming
- 00:47:49and today uh infid is very large in PC
- 00:47:52gaming uh we uh reimagined what a what a
- 00:47:57design workstation would be like and
- 00:47:58today just about every workstation on
- 00:48:00the planet uses nvidia's technology we
- 00:48:03re reimagine um how supercomputing ought
- 00:48:05to be done and who should who should
- 00:48:07benefit from supercomputing that we
- 00:48:08would democratize it and look today NV
- 00:48:10videas and and accelerated Computing is
- 00:48:12is um quite large and we reimagined how
- 00:48:15software would be done and today it's
- 00:48:18called machine learning and how
- 00:48:19Computing would be done we call it Ai
- 00:48:21and so we reimagine these kind of things
- 00:48:24uh try to try to do that about a decade
- 00:48:27in advance and so we spent about a
- 00:48:29decade in Z billion doll markets and
- 00:48:32today I spent a lot of time on Omniverse
- 00:48:34and Omniverse is a you know classic
- 00:48:36example of a Zer billion dollar business
- 00:48:38and there's like 40 customers now
- 00:48:40something like that hey Amazon BMW no
- 00:48:43it's cool it's cool so let's say you do
- 00:48:46get this great 10year lead but then
- 00:48:47other people figure it out and you got
- 00:48:48people nipping at your heels what are
- 00:48:50some structural things that someone
- 00:48:53who's building a business can do to sort
- 00:48:54of stay ahead and you can just keep your
- 00:48:57pedal to the metal and say we're going
- 00:48:58to outwork them and we're going to be
- 00:48:59smarter and like that works to some
- 00:49:01extent but those are tactics what
- 00:49:03strategically can you do to sort of make
- 00:49:05sure that you can maintain that lead
- 00:49:07often times if you created the market
- 00:49:10you ended up having you know what what
- 00:49:12people describe as Moes because if you
- 00:49:15build your product right and it's
- 00:49:17enabled uh an entire ecosystem around
- 00:49:20you to help serve that end Market you've
- 00:49:24essentially created a platform sometimes
- 00:49:26it's a it's a product based platform
- 00:49:29sometimes it's a service based platform
- 00:49:31sometimes a Technology based platform
- 00:49:33but if you you were early there and you
- 00:49:35you you were mindful about helping the
- 00:49:38ecosystem um succeed with you you ended
- 00:49:41up having this network of networks and
- 00:49:44all these developers and all these
- 00:49:46customers who are who are built around
- 00:49:48you y and that network is essentially
- 00:49:50your moat and so you know I I don't love
- 00:49:53thinking about it in the context of a
- 00:49:55moat um and the reason for that is
- 00:49:58because you're now focused on building
- 00:49:59stuff around your Castle I tend to like
- 00:50:02thinking about things in the context of
- 00:50:04building a network and that network is
- 00:50:07about enabling other people to enjoy the
- 00:50:12success of the final Market you know
- 00:50:14that you're not the only company that
- 00:50:16enjoys it but you're enjoying it with a
- 00:50:17whole bunch of other people including
- 00:50:19you I'm so glad you brought this up
- 00:50:20because I wanted to ask you um in my
- 00:50:22mind at least and sounds like in yours
- 00:50:24too Nvidia is absolutely a platform
- 00:50:27company of which there are very few
- 00:50:31meaningful platform companies in the
- 00:50:32world I think it's also fair to say that
- 00:50:35when you started for the first few years
- 00:50:37you were a technology company and not a
- 00:50:39platform company every example I can
- 00:50:42think of of a company that tried to
- 00:50:43start as a platform company fails you
- 00:50:45got to start as a technology first when
- 00:50:48did you think about making that
- 00:50:49transition to being a platform like your
- 00:50:50first graphics cards were technology
- 00:50:52they weren't there was no Cuda there was
- 00:50:54no platform yeah what you observed is
- 00:50:56not wrong however inside our company we
- 00:50:59were always a platform company and the
- 00:51:01reason for that is because from the very
- 00:51:03first day of our company we had this
- 00:51:06architecture called UDA it's the UDA of
- 00:51:09Cuda Cuda is compute unified device
- 00:51:12architecture that's right and the reason
- 00:51:13for that is because what we've done what
- 00:51:16we what we essentially did in the
- 00:51:17beginning even though Reva 128 only had
- 00:51:20computer
- 00:51:21Graphics the architecture described
- 00:51:24accelerators of all kinds h
- 00:51:27and we would take that architecture and
- 00:51:30developers would program to it in fact
- 00:51:33nvidia's first strategy business
- 00:51:35strategy was we were going to be a game
- 00:51:38console inside the
- 00:51:40PC and a game conso needs developers
- 00:51:43which is the reason why Nvidia a long
- 00:51:45time ago one of our first employees was
- 00:51:48a developer relations person and so it's
- 00:51:51the reason why we knew all the game
- 00:51:52developers and all the 3D developers and
- 00:51:54we knew we knew so was the original
- 00:51:56business plan to like sort of like to
- 00:51:58build direct X yeah compete with
- 00:52:01Nintendo and Sega as like PCS original
- 00:52:04Nvidia architecture was called direct
- 00:52:07Envy direct Nvidia yeah and direct X was
- 00:52:11an API that made it possible for
- 00:52:13operating system to directly address
- 00:52:17Hardware yeah but DirectX didn't exist
- 00:52:19when you started Nvidia right and that's
- 00:52:20what made your strategy wrong for the
- 00:52:22first c93 we had Direct Nvidia yeah huh
- 00:52:26and which in
- 00:52:271995 became you know well direct X came
- 00:52:30out so this is an important lesson you
- 00:52:33we were always always a developer
- 00:52:34oriented company the initial attempt was
- 00:52:37we will get the developers to build on
- 00:52:39Direct EnV and then they'll build for
- 00:52:41our chips and then we'll have a platform
- 00:52:44and exactly what played out is Microsoft
- 00:52:46already had all these developer
- 00:52:48relationships so you learned the lesson
- 00:52:49the hard way of like Yik we just got
- 00:52:51that's what Microsoft did back in the
- 00:52:53day they're like oh that could be a
- 00:52:54developer platform we'll take that thank
- 00:52:56you you no but they had a lot they did
- 00:52:58it very differently and and they did a
- 00:52:59lot of things right we did a lot of
- 00:53:01things wrong but but having you were
- 00:53:03competing against Microsoft in the '90s
- 00:53:04I mean that's uh like trying to against
- 00:53:06Nvidia today no it's a lot different but
- 00:53:09I appreciate that but but we were we
- 00:53:11were nowhere near near competing with
- 00:53:13them if you look now when Cuda came
- 00:53:16along there was openg G there was direct
- 00:53:18X um but there's there's still another
- 00:53:21uh extension if you will and that
- 00:53:22extension is Cuda and that Cuda
- 00:53:24extension allows a chip that got paid
- 00:53:28for running direct X and
- 00:53:30openg to create an install base for Cuda
- 00:53:34yeah and so that's the why you were so
- 00:53:38militant and I think from our research
- 00:53:39it really was you being militant that
- 00:53:42every Nvidia chip will run Cuda yeah if
- 00:53:45you're a Computing platform everything's
- 00:53:47got to be
- 00:53:48compatible we are the only accelerator
- 00:53:51on the planet where every single
- 00:53:52accelerator is AR architecturally
- 00:53:54compatible with the others none has ever
- 00:53:57existed there are literally a couple of
- 00:53:59hundred million right 250 million 300
- 00:54:02million installed base of active Cuda
- 00:54:05gpus being used in the world today and
- 00:54:08they're all architecturally compatible
- 00:54:10how would you have a Computing platform
- 00:54:12if if you know mv3 and mv35 and 39 and
- 00:54:17MV 40 they're all different right at 30
- 00:54:21years it's all completely compatible and
- 00:54:23so that's the only unnegotiable rule in
- 00:54:26our company everything else is
- 00:54:28negotiable I mean I guess uh Kudo was a
- 00:54:32rebirth of UDA but understanding this
- 00:54:34now UDA going all the way back yeah it
- 00:54:36really is all the way back to all the
- 00:54:37chips you've ever had yeah yeah yeah in
- 00:54:39fact it UDA goes all the way back to all
- 00:54:41of our chips today wow for the record I
- 00:54:44didn't help any of the the founding CEOs
- 00:54:46that that are listening I got to tell
- 00:54:48you you know while you were asking that
- 00:54:49question what what lessons would I
- 00:54:51impart um I I don't know I mean there
- 00:54:54the characteristics of successful
- 00:54:56companies and successful CEOs I think
- 00:54:58are are fairly well described there are
- 00:55:00a whole bunch of them I just think
- 00:55:02starting successful companies are
- 00:55:04insanely hard it's just insanely hard
- 00:55:07and when I see these amazing companies
- 00:55:09getting built uh I I have nothing but
- 00:55:12admiration and respect because I I just
- 00:55:14know that it's insanely hard and I think
- 00:55:17that everybody did many similar things
- 00:55:20there are some good smart things that
- 00:55:22people do there are some dumb things
- 00:55:23that you can do um but but you could do
- 00:55:26all the right smart things and still
- 00:55:28fail you could do a whole bunch of dumb
- 00:55:30things and I did many of them and still
- 00:55:32succeed so obviously that's not exactly
- 00:55:35right you know just I think skills are
- 00:55:37are the things that you can learn along
- 00:55:39the way but at important moment certain
- 00:55:42circumstances have to come together and
- 00:55:44and I do think that that the market has
- 00:55:46to you know be one of the agents yeah to
- 00:55:50help you succeed uh it's not enough
- 00:55:52obviously because a lot of people still
- 00:55:54fail do you remember any moments
- 00:55:56nvidia's history where you're like oh we
- 00:55:58made a bunch of wrong decisions but
- 00:56:00somehow we got saved because you know it
- 00:56:03takes the sum of all the luck and all
- 00:56:05the skill in order to succeed do you
- 00:56:07remember any moments where I just
- 00:56:08thought that you starting with re Revo
- 00:56:10120 was spot on uh Revo 128 as I
- 00:56:13mentioned the number of smart decisions
- 00:56:16we made which are smart to this day how
- 00:56:20we designed ships is exactly the same to
- 00:56:22this day because gosh you know nobody's
- 00:56:25ever done it back then
- 00:56:26and we pulled every trick in the book in
- 00:56:30a desperation because we had no other
- 00:56:32choice well guess what that's the way
- 00:56:34things ought to be
- 00:56:35done and now everybody does it that way
- 00:56:38right everybody does it because why
- 00:56:41should you do things twice if you can do
- 00:56:42it once why tape out a chip seven times
- 00:56:44if you could tape it out one time right
- 00:56:46and so the most efficient the most coste
- 00:56:49effective the most competitive um uh
- 00:56:52speed is technology right speed is
- 00:56:54performance time to Market is
- 00:56:55performance
- 00:56:56all of those things apply so why do
- 00:56:58things twice if you could do it once Y
- 00:57:01and so Revo 128 made a lot of great
- 00:57:03decisions and how we spec products um
- 00:57:06how we how we think about Market needs
- 00:57:08and and lack of and how do we judge
- 00:57:11markets and all of this man we made some
- 00:57:13amazing amazingly good decisions yeah we
- 00:57:16were you know Back Against The Wall we
- 00:57:18only had one more shot to do it but once
- 00:57:21you pull out all the stops and you see
- 00:57:22what you're capable of why would you put
- 00:57:23stops in next time pops out all the time
- 00:57:27that's right every time that's right is
- 00:57:28it fair to say though maybe on the luck
- 00:57:30side of the equation thinking back to
- 00:57:321997 that that was the moment where
- 00:57:36consumers tip to really really valuing
- 00:57:393D graphical performance in games oh
- 00:57:41yeah so for example luck let's let's
- 00:57:42talk about luck um if if carac had had
- 00:57:47um decided to use acceleration because
- 00:57:50remember Doom was completely software
- 00:57:52rendered and the Nvidia philosophy was
- 00:57:55that although general purpose Computing
- 00:57:57is is a fabulous thing and it's going to
- 00:57:58enable software and it and everything um
- 00:58:01we felt that there were there were
- 00:58:02applications that wouldn't be possible
- 00:58:05or it would be costly if it wasn't
- 00:58:07accelerated it should be accelerated and
- 00:58:093D Graphics was one of them but it
- 00:58:10wasn't the only one and it was just
- 00:58:12happens to be the first one and a really
- 00:58:14great one and I still remember the first
- 00:58:16times we met John he was quite emphatic
- 00:58:19about using CPUs and and the software
- 00:58:21render was really good I mean quite
- 00:58:23frankly if you look at look at Doom uh
- 00:58:25the performance of Doom was really hard
- 00:58:27to achieve even with accelerators at the
- 00:58:29time you know if you didn't filter if
- 00:58:31you didn't have to do bilinear filtering
- 00:58:34um it did a pretty good job the problem
- 00:58:37with doom though was you needed carac to
- 00:58:39program it yeah you needed carac to
- 00:58:40program it exactly it was it was a
- 00:58:42genius piece of code and um but
- 00:58:44nonetheless software renderers did a
- 00:58:45really good job and but and if he hadn't
- 00:58:48decided to go to opengl and accelerate
- 00:58:51accelerate for Quake uh frankly you know
- 00:58:53what would be the killer app that put us
- 00:58:55here right right and so carac and Sweeny
- 00:58:58both between unreal and Quake created
- 00:59:01the first two killer applications for
- 00:59:04for Consumer 3D yeah and so I ow owe
- 00:59:08them a great deal I want to come back
- 00:59:10real quick to you know you said you told
- 00:59:12these stories and you're like well I
- 00:59:14don't know what Founders can take from
- 00:59:15that I I actually do think um you know
- 00:59:17if you look at all the big tech
- 00:59:18companies today perhaps with the
- 00:59:20exception of Google they did all start
- 00:59:22and understanding this now about you by
- 00:59:25addressing Developers
- 00:59:26planning to build a platform and tools
- 00:59:28for developers um you know all of them
- 00:59:32Apple not well I guess with AWS that's
- 00:59:35how AWS started so I think that actually
- 00:59:38is a lesson to your point of like that
- 00:59:39won't guarantee success by any means but
- 00:59:41that'll get you hanging around a tree if
- 00:59:43the Apple Falls yeah as many good ideas
- 00:59:45as we have um you don't have all the
- 00:59:48world's good ideas and and the benefit
- 00:59:50of having developers is you get to see a
- 00:59:52lot of good ideas yep yeah well as we we
- 00:59:56start to drift toward the end here we
- 00:59:58spent a lot of time on the past and I
- 01:00:00want to think about the future a little
- 01:00:01bit I'm sure you spend a lot of time on
- 01:00:03this being on The Cutting Edge of AI you
- 01:00:06know we're moving into an era where the
- 01:00:08productivity that software can
- 01:00:10accomplish when a person is using
- 01:00:12software can massively amplify the
- 01:00:14impact and the value that they're
- 01:00:15creating which has to be amazing for
- 01:00:18Humanity in the long run in the short
- 01:00:20term it's going to be inevitably bumpy
- 01:00:21as we sort of figure out what that means
- 01:00:23what do you think some of the solutions
- 01:00:25are as AI gets more and more powerful
- 01:00:28and better at accelerating productivity
- 01:00:31uh for all the displaced jobs that are
- 01:00:34going to come from it well first of all
- 01:00:36we have to keep AI safe and there's a
- 01:00:38couple of different areas of AI safety
- 01:00:41um that's really important obviously uh
- 01:00:44in robotics and self-driving car there's
- 01:00:47a whole field of AI safety and we've
- 01:00:49dedicated ourselves to functional safety
- 01:00:50and active safety and all kinds of
- 01:00:52different different areas of safety um
- 01:00:54when to apply human Loop when is it okay
- 01:00:56for human not to be in the loop uh you
- 01:00:59know how do you get to a point where
- 01:01:01where um increasingly human doesn't have
- 01:01:03to be in the loop but human largely in
- 01:01:05the loop yeah in the case of information
- 01:01:07safety obviously bias false information
- 01:01:10and appreciating the the rights of
- 01:01:12artists and and creators um that that
- 01:01:14whole area uh deserves a lot of
- 01:01:16attention and and you've seen some of
- 01:01:19the work that we've done instead of
- 01:01:20scraping the internet um we we partnered
- 01:01:23with Getty and Shutterstock to create
- 01:01:26commercially Fairway of applying
- 01:01:28artificial intelligence gen to AI yep in
- 01:01:30the area of large language models and
- 01:01:33the in the future of increasingly
- 01:01:35greater agency AI clearly the answer is
- 01:01:40for as long as it's sensible and I think
- 01:01:42it's going to be sensible for a long
- 01:01:43time is human in the loop the ability
- 01:01:45for an AI to self-learn and improve and
- 01:01:49change uh out in the wild uh in a
- 01:01:53digital form uh should be avoided and
- 01:01:56and um we should collect data we should
- 01:01:58carry the data we should train the model
- 01:01:59we should you know test the model
- 01:02:01validate the model before we release it
- 01:02:03on the wild again so human is in the
- 01:02:04loop yep there are a lot of different
- 01:02:07industries that have already
- 01:02:08demonstrated how to build systems that
- 01:02:10are safe and good for Humanity and
- 01:02:13obviously the way uh autopilot works for
- 01:02:16for a plane and and two pilot system and
- 01:02:19then air traffic control and um know
- 01:02:22redundancy and diversity and and all of
- 01:02:24the basic philosophies of design Safe
- 01:02:26Systems um apply uh as well in
- 01:02:29self-driving cars and and so on so forth
- 01:02:31and and so I I think there's a lot of
- 01:02:33models of of creating safe Ai and and I
- 01:02:36think we need to apply them with respect
- 01:02:39to automation my feeling is that and
- 01:02:42we'll see but it is more likely that AI
- 01:02:45is going to create more jobs and in the
- 01:02:47near term the question is what's the
- 01:02:49definition of near term and the reason
- 01:02:50for that is is um uh the first thing
- 01:02:53that that happens with productivity is
- 01:02:55prosperity
- 01:02:56and prosperity when the companies get
- 01:02:58get more successful they hire more
- 01:03:00people because they want to expand into
- 01:03:01more areas and so the question is if you
- 01:03:04think about a company and say okay if we
- 01:03:07improve the productivity then they need
- 01:03:09they need fewer people well that's
- 01:03:11because the company has no more ideas
- 01:03:13but that's not true for most companies
- 01:03:15um if you become more productive and the
- 01:03:18company becomes more profitable usually
- 01:03:20they hire more people to expand into new
- 01:03:22areas and so long as we believe that
- 01:03:25they're more areas to expand into that
- 01:03:27the the the there are more ideas in
- 01:03:30drugs drug Discovery there are more
- 01:03:31ideas in transportation there are more
- 01:03:33ideas in retail there more ideas in
- 01:03:35entertainment that there's more ideas in
- 01:03:37technology so long as we believe that
- 01:03:39there are more ideas the prosperity of
- 01:03:42the industry which comes from improved
- 01:03:44productivity results in hiring more
- 01:03:46people more ideas now you go back in
- 01:03:49history we can fairly say that today's
- 01:03:52industry is larger than the industry
- 01:03:54what the the world's industry is a
- 01:03:55thousand years ago and the reason for
- 01:03:57that is because obviously humans have a
- 01:03:59lot of ideas and I think that there's
- 01:04:02plenty of ideas yet for prosperity and
- 01:04:06plenty of ideas that can be be get from
- 01:04:09productivity improvements but that my
- 01:04:10sense is that it's likely to generate
- 01:04:12jobs now
- 01:04:14obviously net generation of jobs doesn't
- 01:04:17guarantee that any one human doesn't get
- 01:04:19fired okay I mean that's obviously true
- 01:04:22and and it's more likely that someone
- 01:04:26uh will lose a job to someone else some
- 01:04:29other human that uses an AI you know and
- 01:04:32not not likely to an AI but there some
- 01:04:34other human that uses an AI and so I
- 01:04:35think the the first thing that everybody
- 01:04:37should do is learn how to use AI so that
- 01:04:39they can augment their own productivity
- 01:04:41and every company should augment their
- 01:04:43own productivity to be more productive
- 01:04:45so that they could have more Prosperity
- 01:04:46hire more people and so I think jobs
- 01:04:49will change my guess is that we'll
- 01:04:51actually have higher employment will
- 01:04:54create more jobs
- 01:04:56I think Industries will be more more
- 01:04:58productive um and many of the industries
- 01:05:00that are currently suffering from lack
- 01:05:02of lack of uh labor workforce is likely
- 01:05:05to uh use AI to get themselves off the
- 01:05:08feet and and get back to growth and
- 01:05:11prosperity so I see it a little bit
- 01:05:14differently but I do think that jobs
- 01:05:16will be affected um and I I'd encourage
- 01:05:18everybody just to learn AI this is
- 01:05:21appropriate this a version of um
- 01:05:23something we talk about a lot on
- 01:05:24acquired we call it the uh Moritz
- 01:05:26corollary to Mo's law after Mike Moritz
- 01:05:29from
- 01:05:30seoa seoa was first investor in our
- 01:05:33company yeah of course yeah the great
- 01:05:35story behind it is that uh when Mike was
- 01:05:38taking over for Don Valentine with with
- 01:05:40Doug he was sitting and looking at sequ
- 01:05:41returns and he was looking at fund three
- 01:05:43or four I think it was four maybe that
- 01:05:45had Cisco in it he was like how are we
- 01:05:47ever going to top that you know I can't
- 01:05:49I can't you know Don's going to have us
- 01:05:50beat we're never going to beat that they
- 01:05:51thought about it and he realized that
- 01:05:53well as compute gets cheaper
- 01:05:56and it can access more areas of the
- 01:05:59economy because it gets cheaper and can
- 01:06:01get adopted more widely well then the
- 01:06:04markets that we can address should get
- 01:06:06bigger yeah and AI your argument is
- 01:06:08basically AI will do the same thing I
- 01:06:11just gave you exactly the same example
- 01:06:14that in fact productivity doesn't result
- 01:06:17in us doing less productivity usually
- 01:06:20results in us doing
- 01:06:22more everything we do will be easier but
- 01:06:25we'll end up doing more y because we
- 01:06:27have infinite ambition you know the the
- 01:06:29world has infinite ambition and so so if
- 01:06:32a company is more profitable they tend
- 01:06:34to hire more people to do more Yep yeah
- 01:06:36that's true technology is a lever and
- 01:06:38the the place where the idea kind of
- 01:06:41falls down is that like that we would be
- 01:06:43satisfied like uh humans have never
- 01:06:46ending ambition no humans will always
- 01:06:48expand and consume more energy and uh
- 01:06:51attempt to pursue more ideas that has
- 01:06:52always been true of every version of our
- 01:06:54species yeah over time now is a great
- 01:06:57time to share something new from our
- 01:06:59friends at blinkist and go one that is
- 01:07:01very appropriate to this episode yes so
- 01:07:05personal story time I a few weeks ago
- 01:07:07was scouring the web to find Jensen's
- 01:07:09favorite business books which was
- 01:07:10proving to be difficult I really wanted
- 01:07:12blink to make blinks of each of those
- 01:07:14books so you could all access them and I
- 01:07:16think I found one or two in random
- 01:07:18articles but that just wasn't enough so
- 01:07:21finally before I gave up as a last
- 01:07:23resort I asked an AI chatbot
- 01:07:25specifically Bard to provide me a list
- 01:07:28and cite the sources of Jensen's
- 01:07:30favorite business books and miraculously
- 01:07:32it worked Bard found books that Jensen
- 01:07:34had called out in public forums over the
- 01:07:36past several decades so if you click the
- 01:07:38link in the show notes or go to
- 01:07:39blinkist.com Jensen you can get the
- 01:07:41blinks of all five of those books plus a
- 01:07:44few more that Jensen specifically told
- 01:07:46us about later in the episode yes and we
- 01:07:49also have an offer from blinkist and
- 01:07:51Goan that goes beyond personal learning
- 01:07:53blinkist has handpicked a collection of
- 01:07:56books related to the themes of this
- 01:07:58episode so Tech Innovation leadership
- 01:08:00the Dynamics of Acquisitions these books
- 01:08:02offer the mental models to adapt to a
- 01:08:04rapidly changing technology environment
- 01:08:06and just like all other episodes
- 01:08:08blinkist is giving acquired listeners an
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- 01:08:21lead or an L&D manager blinkist also
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- 01:08:52thanks to them and seriously this offer
- 01:08:55is pretty awesome go take them up on it
- 01:08:57we have a few leting round questions we
- 01:09:00want to ask you and then we have a and
- 01:09:02then we have a very fun think that fast
- 01:09:04we'll open an easy one based on all
- 01:09:06these uh conference rooms we see named
- 01:09:08around here favorite sci-fi
- 01:09:11book I've never read a Sci-Fi book
- 01:09:13before no oh come on yeah yeah what's
- 01:09:16with the obsession with Star Trek and
- 01:09:19just you know watch the TV show you know
- 01:09:21favorite TV series uh Star Trek is my
- 01:09:26favorite yeah Star Trek's my favorite I
- 01:09:28saw verer out there on the way in it's a
- 01:09:30good it's a good conference room name
- 01:09:31verer is an excellent one yeah yeah what
- 01:09:34car is your daily driver these days and
- 01:09:36related question do you still have the
- 01:09:38Supra oh I is one of my favorite cars um
- 01:09:41and also favorite memories you guys
- 01:09:43might not know this but but uh uh Lori
- 01:09:46and I got engaged um uh Christmas one
- 01:09:50year and we drove back in my my brand
- 01:09:53new Supra and we totaled it
- 01:09:56we were this close to the end thank God
- 01:09:58you didn't but but nonetheless it wasn't
- 01:09:59my fault it wasn't wasn't the su's fault
- 01:10:02but but it's aark I love the one time
- 01:10:05when it wasn't the supra's fault yeah I
- 01:10:07love that car I'm driven these days for
- 01:10:10for security reasons and others but um
- 01:10:12uh uh I'm driven in the uh Mercedes eqs
- 01:10:15it's a great car ah nice yeah great car
- 01:10:18nice y using Nvidia technology yeah it
- 01:10:21has yeah we're we're in the in the uh uh
- 01:10:24the the U where a Central Computer y
- 01:10:27sweet I know we already talked a little
- 01:10:29bit about business books but one or two
- 01:10:32favorites that you've taken something
- 01:10:34from Klay Christensen I think has the
- 01:10:36the series is the best I mean there's
- 01:10:38just no no two ways about it and and the
- 01:10:41reason for that is is because it's so
- 01:10:43intuitive and so sensible it's it it's
- 01:10:46approachable but uh I read a whole bunch
- 01:10:48of them and I read just about all of
- 01:10:50them I really enjoyed and Andy Grove's
- 01:10:52books they're all really good awesome
- 01:10:55favorite characteristic of Don
- 01:10:59Valentine grumpy but endearing and uh
- 01:11:04what he said to me the last time as he
- 01:11:06uh decided to invest in our company he
- 01:11:08says if you lose my money I'll kill you
- 01:11:11of course he did uh and then uh over the
- 01:11:14course of of the Decades uh uh the years
- 01:11:17that followed uh when something is nice
- 01:11:20written about us in Mercury News um it
- 01:11:23seems like he wrote it in a crayon he
- 01:11:25you know he'll say he'll say good job
- 01:11:27done you know just write right over the
- 01:11:29newspaper and just good job done he
- 01:11:31mails it to me and and uh I hope I've
- 01:11:35kept them but anyways you could tell
- 01:11:37he's a he's a real sweetheart and and um
- 01:11:40but but he cares about the companies
- 01:11:43he's a special character yeah he's
- 01:11:44incredible what is something that you
- 01:11:46believe today that 40 yearold Jensen
- 01:11:50would have pushed back on and said no I
- 01:11:53disagree um there's plenty of
- 01:11:56time yeah there's plenty of time if you
- 01:12:00prioritize yourself uh properly and and
- 01:12:02you make sure that you you uh you don't
- 01:12:05let Outlook be the controller of your
- 01:12:07time there's plenty of time plenty of
- 01:12:09time in the day plenty of time to
- 01:12:12achieve thing like just don't do
- 01:12:15everything prioritize your life make
- 01:12:18sacrifices don't let Outlook control
- 01:12:21what you do every day notice I was late
- 01:12:23to our meeting and the reason for that
- 01:12:25by the time I looked up I oh my gosh you
- 01:12:29know Ben and Dave are waiting you know
- 01:12:31that's already we have time yeah exactly
- 01:12:33and so didn't stop this from being a
- 01:12:35great chat no but you have to prioritize
- 01:12:36your time really carefully and don't let
- 01:12:38Outlook determine that love that what
- 01:12:42are you afraid of if
- 01:12:44anything I'm afraid of the same things
- 01:12:47today that I was I was uh in in the very
- 01:12:50beginning of this company which is
- 01:12:51letting the employees
- 01:12:53down you know you have a lot of people
- 01:12:55who joined your company because they
- 01:12:57believe in your hopes and dreams and and
- 01:12:59they've adopted it as their hopes and
- 01:13:01dreams and and uh you you want to be
- 01:13:03right for them you want to be successful
- 01:13:05for them you want them to be able to uh
- 01:13:08build a great life as as well as help
- 01:13:10you build a great company and be able to
- 01:13:12build a great career you want them to
- 01:13:14have to enjoy all of that and these days
- 01:13:17I want them to be able to enjoy the the
- 01:13:18things I've had the benefit of enjoying
- 01:13:20and um all the great success I've
- 01:13:22enjoyed I want them to be able to enjoy
- 01:13:23all of that and so so I think I think
- 01:13:26the uh the greatest fear is that that
- 01:13:28you let them
- 01:13:29down what point did you realize that you
- 01:13:35weren't going to have another job that
- 01:13:37like this was it I just I don't change
- 01:13:41jobs you know if if it wasn't because of
- 01:13:44Chris and Curtis convincing me to do do
- 01:13:47Nvidia I would still be at LS logic
- 01:13:49today I'm certain of
- 01:13:50it wow really yeah yeah I'm certain it I
- 01:13:55would keep doing what I'm doing and at
- 01:13:58the time that I was there I was
- 01:13:59completely dedicated and focused on on
- 01:14:02helping LS logic be the best company
- 01:14:04could be and I was LSI logic's best
- 01:14:07Ambassador I've got great friends that
- 01:14:09to this day uh that I've known from from
- 01:14:11LSI logic it's a company I I loved uh
- 01:14:14then I love dearly today I know exactly
- 01:14:17why I went um uh the Revolutionary
- 01:14:19impact it had on chip design and system
- 01:14:21design and computer design in my
- 01:14:24estimation one the most important
- 01:14:25companies that that ever came to Silicon
- 01:14:27Valley and changed everything about how
- 01:14:29computers were made uh it put me in the
- 01:14:32in the epicenter of some of the most
- 01:14:34important events in computer industry it
- 01:14:36led me to meeting Chris and Curtis and
- 01:14:38Andy beckos and John Rubenstein and you
- 01:14:41know some of the most important people
- 01:14:42in the world and anded Frank that I I
- 01:14:45was with the other day and just I mean
- 01:14:47the list goes on and and so uh LSI logic
- 01:14:51was really important to me and and I
- 01:14:53would still be there I I would you know
- 01:14:55who knows what LSI logic would have
- 01:14:56become if I were still there right and
- 01:14:59and so that's kind of how my my mind
- 01:15:00works um powering the AI of the world
- 01:15:03yeah exactly I mean I might be doing the
- 01:15:05same thing I'm doing today I got the
- 01:15:06sense from remembering back to part one
- 01:15:08of our uh series on Nvidia but until
- 01:15:11until I'm fired I'm this is this is my
- 01:15:14last
- 01:15:15job I got the sense that um LSI logic
- 01:15:18might have also changed your um
- 01:15:21perspective and philosophy about
- 01:15:22Computing too the sense I we got the
- 01:15:25research was that when right out of
- 01:15:27school and when you first went to AMD
- 01:15:30first right yeah you believed that like
- 01:15:33kind of a version of the was it the
- 01:15:35Jerry Sanders real men have Fabs like
- 01:15:37you need to do the whole stack like you
- 01:15:38got to do everything and that LSA logic
- 01:15:41changed you what LSI logic did was was
- 01:15:44um realized that you can
- 01:15:47express um transistors and logical Gates
- 01:15:50and Chi functionality in highle
- 01:15:53languages that by raising the level of
- 01:15:56abstraction in what is now called high
- 01:15:58level design it was coined by uh Harvey
- 01:16:02Jones who's on nvidia's board and I met
- 01:16:04met him uh way back in the early days of
- 01:16:06synopsis but but during that time there
- 01:16:09was disbelief that you can express chip
- 01:16:11design in high level languages and by
- 01:16:14doing so you could take advantage of
- 01:16:16optimizing compilers and optimization
- 01:16:18logic and and and tools um and and be a
- 01:16:22lot more
- 01:16:23productive that
- 01:16:25logic was so sensible to me and I was 21
- 01:16:29years old at the time and I I want to
- 01:16:31pursue that Vision now frankly that that
- 01:16:33idea happened in in um uh machine
- 01:16:37learning it happened in you know
- 01:16:38software programming it I want to see it
- 01:16:40happen in digital biology so that we can
- 01:16:43we can think about uh biology in a much
- 01:16:45higher level language uh probably a
- 01:16:48large language model um would be the the
- 01:16:50way to make it make it representable
- 01:16:53that transition was so revolutionary
- 01:16:55I thought that was the best thing ever
- 01:16:56happened to the industry and I was I was
- 01:16:58really happy to be part of it and I was
- 01:17:00at Ground Zero and so so I I saw one
- 01:17:03industry um change revolutionize another
- 01:17:06industry and if not for LSI logic doing
- 01:17:10the work that it did uh synopsis shortly
- 01:17:13after then why would the computer
- 01:17:16industry be where it is today yeah it
- 01:17:18it's uh really really terrific I was I
- 01:17:20was uh at the right place at the right
- 01:17:22time to see all that that's super cool
- 01:17:24yeah and it sounded like the CEO of LSI
- 01:17:27logic uh put a good word in for you with
- 01:17:30Don Valentine I didn't know how to write
- 01:17:32a business plan and which it turns out
- 01:17:34is not actually important no no no it it
- 01:17:37turns out that making a financial
- 01:17:40forecast that nobody knows uh it's going
- 01:17:43to be right or wrong turns out not to be
- 01:17:45that important but the important things
- 01:17:47that a business plan probably could have
- 01:17:49teased out I I think that the art of
- 01:17:51writing a business plan ought to be much
- 01:17:53much shorter and it forces you to
- 01:17:55condense you know what what is the true
- 01:17:57problem you're trying to solve what is
- 01:17:59the unmet need that you you believe will
- 01:18:01emerge and what is it that you're going
- 01:18:03to do that is sufficiently hard that
- 01:18:06when everybody else finds out is a good
- 01:18:07idea they're they're not going to swarm
- 01:18:09it and you know make you obslete and so
- 01:18:11it has to be sufficiently hard to do um
- 01:18:15there there are a whole bunch of other
- 01:18:16skills that are involved in just you
- 01:18:17know product and positioning and pricing
- 01:18:20and go to market and you know all that
- 01:18:22kind of stuff but those are skills and
- 01:18:24you can learn those things easily the
- 01:18:25stuff that is really really hard is the
- 01:18:27essence what I described and I did that
- 01:18:31okay but I had no idea how to write the
- 01:18:33business plan and um and and I was
- 01:18:35fortunate that W coryan was so pleased
- 01:18:38with me in the work that I did when I
- 01:18:40was at lsic he called up Don Valentine
- 01:18:43and and told Don you know invest in this
- 01:18:45kid and um he's going to come your way
- 01:18:47and and uh uh so so I was you know I was
- 01:18:51I was set up for Success from that
- 01:18:52moment and got it got us something
- 01:18:55yeah as long as he didn't lose the
- 01:18:57money no I think sequa did
- 01:19:01okay good yeah we we I I think we
- 01:19:04probably are one of the best investments
- 01:19:05they've ever made have they held through
- 01:19:07today the VC partner is still on the
- 01:19:10board Mark St Mark Hill yeah yeah yeah
- 01:19:12yeah all these years the two founding
- 01:19:14VCS are still on the board Suter Hill
- 01:19:16and sequa yeah t Cox and Mark Stevens I
- 01:19:18don't think that ever happens yeah we
- 01:19:20are singular in that in that
- 01:19:22circumstance I believe they've added
- 01:19:24Valu this whole time uh been inspiring
- 01:19:26this whole time uh uh uh gave great
- 01:19:29wisdom and and uh great support uh but
- 01:19:32they they also were no not yet but they
- 01:19:36they've been entertained you know by the
- 01:19:38company inspired by the company and and
- 01:19:40enriched by the company and so they
- 01:19:41stayed with it and I I'm really grateful
- 01:19:44well in that being our final question
- 01:19:46for you it's 2023 30 years anniversary
- 01:19:50of the founding of Nvidia if you were
- 01:19:54magically 30 years old again today in
- 01:19:562023 and you were going to Denny's with
- 01:19:59your two best friends who are the two
- 01:20:00smartest people you know and you're
- 01:20:02talking about starting a company what
- 01:20:04are you talking about starting I
- 01:20:06wouldn't do
- 01:20:08it I know and the reason for that is
- 01:20:11really quite simple ignoring the company
- 01:20:13that we would start first of all I'm not
- 01:20:16exactly sure the reason why I wouldn't
- 01:20:17do it and it goes back to why it's so
- 01:20:20hard is building a company and building
- 01:20:24aidia turned out to have been a million
- 01:20:26times harder than I expected it to be
- 01:20:28any of us expected it to be and at that
- 01:20:31time if we realize the pain and
- 01:20:33suffering and just how vulnerable you
- 01:20:36you're going to
- 01:20:36feel um and the challenges that you're
- 01:20:39going to endure uh the embarrassment and
- 01:20:42the shame and you know the list of all
- 01:20:43the things that that go wrong I don't
- 01:20:46think anybody would start a company
- 01:20:48nobody in their right mind would do it
- 01:20:50and I think that that's kind of the the
- 01:20:52superpower of a entrepreneur
- 01:20:56they don't know how hard it is and they
- 01:20:59only ask themselves how hard can it be
- 01:21:02and to this day I I trick my brain into
- 01:21:05thinking how hard can it be because you
- 01:21:08have to still when you wake up in the
- 01:21:10morning yep how hard can it be
- 01:21:11everything that we're doing how hard can
- 01:21:13it be Omniverse how hard can it be you
- 01:21:15know I don't get the sense though that
- 01:21:17you're um playing to retire anytime soon
- 01:21:19though you're still young I'm still
- 01:21:21young you could choose to say like whoa
- 01:21:24this is too hard the trick is still
- 01:21:25working you're still the trick is still
- 01:21:26working no I'm still enjoying myself
- 01:21:28immensely and I'm adding a little bit of
- 01:21:30value but but the the U that's that's
- 01:21:33really the trick of an
- 01:21:35entrepreneur you have to get yourself to
- 01:21:37believe that it's not that hard because
- 01:21:40it's way harder than you think and so if
- 01:21:43I go taking all of my knowledge now and
- 01:21:44I go back and I said I'm going to endure
- 01:21:47that whole journey again I think it's
- 01:21:49too much it is just too much do you have
- 01:21:52any suggestions on any kind of support
- 01:21:54system or a way to get through the
- 01:21:56emotional trauma that comes with
- 01:21:58building something like this uh family
- 01:22:00and friends and and all the colleagues
- 01:22:02we have here I'm surrounded by people
- 01:22:04who've been here for 30 years right
- 01:22:07Chris has been here for 30 years and uh
- 01:22:09Jeff Fisher's been here 30 years
- 01:22:11Dwight's been here 30 years and uh Jonah
- 01:22:13and Brian have been here you know 25
- 01:22:15some years and uh probably longer than
- 01:22:17that and you know Joe reo's been here 30
- 01:22:19years I'm surrounded by these people
- 01:22:21that never one time gave up and they
- 01:22:23never one time gave up up on me and
- 01:22:25that's the entire ball of wax you know
- 01:22:27and and to be able to go home and and uh
- 01:22:31uh have your family be fully committed
- 01:22:33to to everything that you're trying to
- 01:22:35do and um uh thick or thin they're
- 01:22:38they're proud of you and proud of the
- 01:22:39company and you kind of need that you
- 01:22:42need the unwavering support of people
- 01:22:44around you you know Jim Gaithers and the
- 01:22:46you know the the tench coxes and Mark
- 01:22:49Stevens and you know Harvey Jones and
- 01:22:51all the the early people of our company
- 01:22:53the Bill Millers they uh not one time
- 01:22:56gave up on the company and us and and
- 01:22:59you kind of you need that not kind of
- 01:23:01need that you need that and I'm pretty
- 01:23:03sure that almost every successful
- 01:23:05company and entrepreneurs that that have
- 01:23:08gone through some difficult challenges
- 01:23:10they they had that support system around
- 01:23:12them I can only imagine how meaningful
- 01:23:15that I mean I know how meaningful that
- 01:23:17is in any company but for you given I
- 01:23:21feel like the Nvidia journey is um
- 01:23:23particular
- 01:23:25on Dimensions right and like you know
- 01:23:27you went through two two if not three
- 01:23:3180% plus draw Downs in the public
- 01:23:33markets to have investors who've stuck
- 01:23:35with you from day one through that must
- 01:23:37be just like so much support yeah yeah
- 01:23:41it is incredible and you hate that any
- 01:23:44of that stuff happened and and most of
- 01:23:46it you you know most of it is is out of
- 01:23:49your control but you know 80% fall it it
- 01:23:55it's an extraordinary thing no no matter
- 01:23:57how you look at it and I forget exactly
- 01:24:00but I mean we traded down at about a
- 01:24:04couple of two three billion dollars in
- 01:24:06market value for a while because of the
- 01:24:09decision we made and going into Duda and
- 01:24:10all that work and your belief system has
- 01:24:13to be really really strong you know you
- 01:24:15have to really really believe it and
- 01:24:18really really want it otherwise it's
- 01:24:21just too much to endure I mean because
- 01:24:23you know every is questioning you and
- 01:24:25employees aren't questioning you but
- 01:24:27employees have questions right um people
- 01:24:29outside are questioning you and uh it's
- 01:24:32a little embarrassing it's like you know
- 01:24:34when your stock price gets hit it's
- 01:24:36embarrassing no matter how you think
- 01:24:37about it and it's hard to explain you
- 01:24:40know and so there there's no good good
- 01:24:42answers to any of that stuff you know
- 01:24:44the CEOs are human and companies are
- 01:24:46buil of humans and and uh these
- 01:24:49challenges are hard to endure Ben had an
- 01:24:51appropriate comment on our uh most
- 01:24:53recent episode on you where uh we were
- 01:24:55talking about you know the current
- 01:24:57situation in Nvidia and I think you said
- 01:24:59for any other company this would be a
- 01:25:01you know precarious spot to be in but
- 01:25:03for NVIDIA this is kind of old hat you
- 01:25:06know you guys are familiar familiar with
- 01:25:08these large swings in amplitude yeah the
- 01:25:10thing that that to keep in mind is at
- 01:25:13all times uh what is the market
- 01:25:16opportunity that that you're engaging
- 01:25:19and that help that informs your size you
- 01:25:21know I was I was told a long time ago
- 01:25:24that video can never be larger than a
- 01:25:25billion dollars obviously it's an
- 01:25:28underestimation under under imagination
- 01:25:31of the size of the opportunity yeah it
- 01:25:33is the case that no chip company can
- 01:25:36ever be so big and so but if you're not
- 01:25:39a chip company then then why is that why
- 01:25:41does that apply to you and this is the
- 01:25:43extraordinary thing about technology
- 01:25:45right now is technology is a tool and
- 01:25:48it's only so large what's what's unique
- 01:25:51about our current circumstance today is
- 01:25:54that we're in the manufacturing of
- 01:25:56intelligence we're in the manufacturing
- 01:25:58of work world that's Ai and the world of
- 01:26:03tasks doing work productive generative
- 01:26:07AI work generative intelligent work that
- 01:26:10market size is enormous it's measured in
- 01:26:13trillions one way to think about that is
- 01:26:16if you build a chip for a car how many
- 01:26:19cars are there and how many chips would
- 01:26:20they consume that's one one way to think
- 01:26:22about that however if you if you built a
- 01:26:26uh A system that uh whenever needed uh
- 01:26:31assisted in the driving of the car um
- 01:26:35and you know what's the value of a
- 01:26:36autonomous chauffeur um every now and
- 01:26:39then and so now the the market obviously
- 01:26:41the problem becomes much larger the
- 01:26:43opportunity becomes larger um you know
- 01:26:46what would it be like if we if we were
- 01:26:48to magically conjure up um a chauffeur
- 01:26:52for everybody uh who has a car and you
- 01:26:54know how big is that market and
- 01:26:56obviously obviously that that that's a
- 01:26:58much much larger market and so the
- 01:27:00technology industry is that the you know
- 01:27:03where what we discovered what Nvidia has
- 01:27:05discovered and what some of the
- 01:27:07discovered is that by separating
- 01:27:08ourselves from being a chip company um
- 01:27:11but but building on top of a chip and
- 01:27:12you're now an the a company the the
- 01:27:14market opportunity has has grown by
- 01:27:17probably a thousand times you know don't
- 01:27:19be surprised if technology companies
- 01:27:21become much larger in the future because
- 01:27:23because uh what you produce uh is
- 01:27:26something very different and and that
- 01:27:28that's the kind of the the uh uh the way
- 01:27:32to think about you know how large can
- 01:27:34your opportunity how large can you be it
- 01:27:36has everything to do with the size of
- 01:27:37the opportunity yep well genton thank
- 01:27:40you so much thank you oh David that was
- 01:27:44awesome so fun well listeners we want to
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