We finally sit down with the man himself: Nvidia Cofounder & CEO Jensen Huang. After three parts and seven+ hours of covering the company, we thought we knew everything but — unsurprisingly — Jensen knows more. A couple teasers: we learned that the company’s initial motivation to enter the datacenter business came from perhaps not where you’d think, and the roots of Nvidia’s platform strategy stretch back beyond CUDA all the way to the origin of the company.

We also got a peek into Jensen’s mindset and calculus behind “betting the company” multiple times, and his surprising feelings about whether he’d go on the founder journey again if he could rewind time. We can’t think of any better way to tie a bow on our Nvidia series (for now). Tune in!

Sponsors:

Thanks to our fantastic partners, any member of the Acquired community can now get:

Your product growth powered by Statsig
https://bit.ly/statsigacquired

Scalable, clean and lowcost cloud AI compute from Crusoe, and listen to our recent ACQ2 interview with CEO Chase Lochmiller
https://bit.ly/acquiredcrusoe
https://bit.ly/CrusoeACQ2

Free access to Jensen’s favorite business books on Blinkist, plus our favorites on Ben & David’s Bookshelf
https://bit.ly/BlinkistJensen
https://bit.ly/BlinkistBookshelf

More Acquired!:

Get email updates with hints on next episode and followups from recent episodes
https://www.acquired.fm/email

Join the Slack
http://acquired.fm/slack

Subscribe to ACQ2
https://pod.link/acquiredlp

Become an LP and support the show. Help us pick episodes, Zoom calls and more
https://acquired.fm/lp

ACQ Merch Store!
https://www.acquired.fm/store

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Teaser
00:00:41 Intro
00:02:54 Riva 128
00:17:27 PostAlexNet
00:20:29 OpenAI
00:22:21 Language Models
00:24:56 Statsig
00:27:13 Direct Reports
00:32:07 Product Shipping Cycle
00:34:16 Journey to the Data Center
00:39:31 Mellanox Acquisition
00:43:41 Crusoe
00:45:45 Advice For Company Building
00:55:54 Luck & Skill
00:59:54 Job Displacement
01:06:56 Blinkist
01:08:57 Favorite SciFi
01:09:33 Daily Driver
01:10:28 Favorite Business Book
01:10:55 Don Valentine
01:11:45 40 YearOld Jensen
01:12:42 What are You Afraid of?
01:13:29 Final Job
01:19:44 Starting a Company in 2023
01:23:13 Market Drawdowns
01:27:43 Outro

Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.