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Nvidia is amazing at changing course quickly. I joined 17 years ago to work for "a startup within the company". We were ramping up our group fast to design a p

Nvidia is amazing at changing course quickly. I joined 17 years ago to work for "a startup within the company". We were ramping up our group fast to design a product for an new market. 4 months later, Jensen sees that product at CES. Ours would be only be ready 2 years after that. The next Monday, he joined our weekly meeting and announced that our group was cancelled immediately and we'd be spread to existing BUs the next day. His words at that meeting: "Every morning when I wake up, I look in the mirror and check if the core assumptions on which I based my decisions are still valid. If not, I make the change immediately." So refreshing when you've come from a company where everyone knew a project was doomed, but nobody had the guts to pull the plug for months. Same thing happened a year later: we had a chip that was ready to tape out. That project was canceled on January 10th, 2007, because something happened the day before.

Sebguer 3y ago
The announcement of the iPhone, presumably, to save people a google.
- m463 3y ago
  I thought nvidia did release phones?
  - tverbeure 3y ago
    Before the iPhone, multi-media phones had the modem as main chip with a companion chip that did GPU, video decoding etc. With the iPhone, an SOC took center stage and the modem became secondary.
    - ayewo 3y ago
      This is an interesting take. Is there some place I could read more about this shift? Thanks in advance!
      - fho 3y ago
        The chance is high that you are reading this on a phone via a wifi connection right now. No (GSM) modem involved here.
    - lostmsu 3y ago
      Huh? I don't think that's true for Windows Mobile 5 and earlier devices.
      - tverbeure 3y ago
        Windows 5 phones were a tiny niche. I don’t know what kind of architecture they used. But the general multimedia phone was still based on modem chip plus companion chip. After the iPhone announcement, everybody realized that this model was a thing of the past. iPhone like phones were the future. The companion chip market died that day, and the whole industry switched to developing only SOC models.
datavirtue 3y ago
Evidence based management. Nearly every bit published in the last twenty to thirty years about company culture and management has been harping on this. Ignored.
mathisfun123 3y ago
> Every morning when I wake up, I look in the mirror and check if the core assumptions on which I based my decisions are still valid is it that mirror from snow white or does he base his decisions on whether he was sunburnt or not the previous day?
marcinzm 3y ago
>So refreshing when you've come from a company where everyone knew a project was doomed, but nobody had the guts to pull the plug for months. And then the person who pulls the plug is blamed for it somehow.
_hypx 3y ago
Nvidia might be going too far with that. They abandon good ideas too quickly and pursue stupid new things too often. Cryptocurrency were an example of that. I fear their obsession with AI might be the next one. They should focus more of their energies towards the consumer GPU market. I believe that graphics are still their bread and butter, and not taking that market seriously will cost them in the long run.
- senttoschool 3y ago
  You're kidding right? Nvidia never went into cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies went into Nvidia. Nvidia actively tried to sell GPUs to gamers instead of crypto people because crypto people will flood the used GPU market when the bubble inevitably pops every single time. Nvidia isn't abandoning the consumer GPU market. They're still the leader by far. The consumer GPU market has actually been declining for nearly 20 years now.[0] They should not invest more into a declining market. AI is the correct market to put their eggs in. [0]https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/osFsEsoUthvCrzKiF5aoLn-1200-80.png.webp https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/osFsEsoUthvCrzKiF5aoLn-120...
  - _hypx 3y ago
    Nvidia sold dedicated crypto mining cards. It definitely did went into crypto. They are charging non-competitive prices for their consumer GPU market. This is opening the door to more competition. The desktop discrete video market is not the same thing as the consumer GPU market. You are ignoring a huge sector of integrated GPUs and mobile GPUs.
    - senttoschool 3y ago
      >Nvidia sold dedicated crypto mining cards. It definitely did went into crypto. They crippled normal GPUs and sold them to miners. They did this because once the crypto bubble pops, the used GPU market won't be flooded. >They are charging non-competitive prices for their consumer GPU market. This is opening the door to more competition. Ok, so what? All companies do this when they're the leader. >The desktop discrete video market is not the same thing as the consumer GPU market. You are ignoring a huge sector of integrated GPUs and mobile GPUs. Nvidia does focus on laptop GPUs. It's much bigger than desktop discrete GPUs. Nvidia doesn't have a way to get into phone GPUs because they're tightly controlled by Apple, Qualcomm, and Mediatek. That's why they tried to buy ARM.

Sebguer 3y ago

The announcement of the iPhone, presumably, to save people a google.

m463 3y ago
I thought nvidia did release phones?
- tverbeure 3y ago
  Before the iPhone, multi-media phones had the modem as main chip with a companion chip that did GPU, video decoding etc. With the iPhone, an SOC took center stage and the modem became secondary.
  - ayewo 3y ago
    This is an interesting take. Is there some place I could read more about this shift? Thanks in advance!
    - fho 3y ago
      The chance is high that you are reading this on a phone via a wifi connection right now. No (GSM) modem involved here.
  - lostmsu 3y ago
    Huh? I don't think that's true for Windows Mobile 5 and earlier devices.
    - tverbeure 3y ago
      Windows 5 phones were a tiny niche. I don’t know what kind of architecture they used. But the general multimedia phone was still based on modem chip plus companion chip. After the iPhone announcement, everybody realized that this model was a thing of the past. iPhone like phones were the future. The companion chip market died that day, and the whole industry switched to developing only SOC models.

datavirtue 3y ago

Evidence based management. Nearly every bit published in the last twenty to thirty years about company culture and management has been harping on this. Ignored.

mathisfun123 3y ago

> Every morning when I wake up, I look in the mirror and check if the core assumptions on which I based my decisions are still valid is it that mirror from snow white or does he base his decisions on whether he was sunburnt or not the previous day?

marcinzm 3y ago

>So refreshing when you've come from a company where everyone knew a project was doomed, but nobody had the guts to pull the plug for months. And then the person who pulls the plug is blamed for it somehow.

_hypx 3y ago

Nvidia might be going too far with that. They abandon good ideas too quickly and pursue stupid new things too often. Cryptocurrency were an example of that. I fear their obsession with AI might be the next one. They should focus more of their energies towards the consumer GPU market. I believe that graphics are still their bread and butter, and not taking that market seriously will cost them in the long run.

senttoschool 3y ago
You're kidding right? Nvidia never went into cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies went into Nvidia. Nvidia actively tried to sell GPUs to gamers instead of crypto people because crypto people will flood the used GPU market when the bubble inevitably pops every single time. Nvidia isn't abandoning the consumer GPU market. They're still the leader by far. The consumer GPU market has actually been declining for nearly 20 years now.[0] They should not invest more into a declining market. AI is the correct market to put their eggs in. [0]https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/osFsEsoUthvCrzKiF5aoLn-1200-80.png.webp https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/osFsEsoUthvCrzKiF5aoLn-120...
- _hypx 3y ago
  Nvidia sold dedicated crypto mining cards. It definitely did went into crypto. They are charging non-competitive prices for their consumer GPU market. This is opening the door to more competition. The desktop discrete video market is not the same thing as the consumer GPU market. You are ignoring a huge sector of integrated GPUs and mobile GPUs.
  - senttoschool 3y ago
    >Nvidia sold dedicated crypto mining cards. It definitely did went into crypto. They crippled normal GPUs and sold them to miners. They did this because once the crypto bubble pops, the used GPU market won't be flooded. >They are charging non-competitive prices for their consumer GPU market. This is opening the door to more competition. Ok, so what? All companies do this when they're the leader. >The desktop discrete video market is not the same thing as the consumer GPU market. You are ignoring a huge sector of integrated GPUs and mobile GPUs. Nvidia does focus on laptop GPUs. It's much bigger than desktop discrete GPUs. Nvidia doesn't have a way to get into phone GPUs because they're tightly controlled by Apple, Qualcomm, and Mediatek. That's why they tried to buy ARM.