Jensen Huang on Evan Carmichael - Believe: Unlocking Your True Potential
How to Take Risks and Still Succeed | Jensen Huang's Guidance in 25 Minutes
Worth a targeted listen for the concrete account of CUDA crushing margins and the discussion of defending the bet to NVIDIA’s board. The broader lessons about first principles, conviction, and focusing on the present substantially repeat material elsewhere in the corpus, so casual listeners can skim rather than commit to the full episode.
Yeah, because it was a $0 billion we went after. But it cost so much to go after that $0 billion market. It actually crushed the 1 billion dollar market we were enjoying. And the reason for that is because CUDA added a ton of cost into our chips. But there were no applications and there are no applications. Customers don't value the product and they won't pay you a premium for it. And if people aren't willing to pay you for it, but your cost went up, then your gross margins get crushed. And we got. Our market cap was low and then went down to really low. It was like.
Jensen Huang discusses how to distinguish conviction from stubbornness, tolerate calculated failure, and change direction when evidence demands it. He also reflects on CUDA's long path from financial disaster to a foundational computing technology, and recommends focusing on current work, continuous learning, and purposeful effort.