Jensen Huang had dreamed up Nvidia in a Denny’s booth, and now he could be ousted as the CEO. This comes amid a probe of Huang’s relationship with Megaspeed executive Alice Huang (no relation), who is allegedly a Chinese spy. Beijing has denied Alice being a spy for them, even as Huang admitted to his affair.
A fresh New York Times report alleged that Huang also had an extramarital affair with Kimberly Powell, a vice president at Nvidia who reported directly to the CEO. However, Huang or Powell are yet to comment on this development.
As Huang could stand to lose control of the company he built into the industry leader it is today, here’s a look at how the idea for Nvidia was formed in a humble Denny’s booth.
How Jensen Huang dreamed up Nvidia in a Denny’s booth
Huang launched the idea of Nvidia from a booth at a Denny’s in San Jose, California. A plaque above the red booth at the outlet reads, “THE BOOTH THAT LAUNCHED A $2 TRILLION COMPANY.”
In 1993, Huang dreamed up the idea of Nvidia with co-founders and electrical engineers Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky. Notably, Huang’s first job had been washing dishes at a Denny’s in Oregon, when he was 15.
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By 30, Huang was married to Lori Mills and had two children. This is when he found himself in the San Jose Denny’s, sketching a plan for Nvidia. The company is now worth more than $4 trillion in market value, a CNN report noted.
In 2023, Denny’s CEO Kelli Valade was joined by Huang to hang the plaque in the Silicon Valley outlet. “This is a place where we fuel ideas. Your story is so inspiring it will continue to inspire people at Denny’s,” Valade had said, while Huang had added, “Denny’s has taught me so many lessons.”
Huang had said at the time that the Denny’s in Silicon Valley was the perfect place to start a business, noting that he lived nearby at the time with his family.
“It had all the coffee you could drink and no one could chase you out,” the Nvidia CEO had told the Denny’s head. Huang had also recounted how he and his family moved to the US from Taiwan as a child and had his first hamburger and milkshake at Denny’s.
“We make the best pancakes here,” the Nvidia CEO had said. He had added that Denny’s could be a great launching pad for great ideas and careers. “Start your first job in the restaurant business. It teaches you humility, it teaches you hard work, it teaches you hospitality,” Huang had said.
How Nvidia grew from a Denny’s booth to where it is today
Huang, Priem, and Malachowsky wanted to design semiconductor chips which could create more realistic graphics for video games. They signed a deal with Japanese game developer Sega at the time.
However, the trio had made a strategic blunder in the first decade that almost tanked Nvidia. The unconventional 3D chip they designed could be used only be a few developers. Nvidia had hurtled towards bankruptcy then, but a $5 million investment from Sega at the last minute helped Nvidia get a crucial lifeline.
The company spent the next decade in gaming but Huang soon realized that some of his chips contained processing units that could perform many calculations in tandem and could include applications beyond gaming.
It also developed CUDA, a software which allowed computer programmers to use chips more generally. In 2016, Huang was filmed giving Nvidia’s first AI supercomputer to Elon Musk, the co-founder of what was then a little-known research lab – OpenAI.