Jensen Huang and his path to success
Jensen Huang is an American businessman of Taiwanese descent. He is best known as the co-founder of NVIDIA Corporation. Thanks to Huang, the company has become a leader in the graphics processor market.
Huang was born into a family of a teacher and an engineer. When he was five years old, his parents temporarily settled in Thailand. Due to the unstable geopolitical situation in the region against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, his parents decided to emigrate to the United States. At the age of nine, Jensen went to live with his uncle in Washington State, along with his brother. Two years later, his parents arrived and enrolled the children in a religious school, where they were bullied.
The family later settled in Portland, Oregon. There, Jensen graduated from high school and received a scholarship for table tennis. In 1981, he enrolled at Oregon State University (OSU). He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering in 1984.
In search of career opportunities, Jensen moved to Silicon Valley, where he subsequently lived for many years. His first job was at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), but he did not stay there long.
A year later, he joined LSI Logic, where he quickly progressed in his career. He became the director of one of the divisions. Alongside his professional activities, Jensen received a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Owning his own business
In 1993, he joined forces with two colleagues, Chris Malachowski and Curtis Priem. They decided to start their own company, and Jensen became its CEO. The new business’s main task was to develop graphics processors for the video game industry. This is how NVIDIA came into being:
1. The business’s initial capital was US$40,000.
2. The company later received investments totalling 20 million dollars from venture capital firms.
3. In 1999, NVIDIA floated on the stock market.
When the company’s stock price exceeded US$100, Huang got a tattoo of the company logo.
Jensen played a key role in developing the business, which gained worldwide recognition. NVIDIA now focuses on cutting-edge areas such as AI, mobile computing and cloud technologies. Its GPUs are used around the world to train artificial intelligence models. Huang owns a 3.5% stake in the company, making him a billionaire.
As well as running NVIDIA, Jensen is actively involved in charity work. In 2007, he and his wife established a foundation that supports various educational institutions.
