Key Points
- Silicon Valley tech company Nvidia was founded in the 1990s and has experienced explosive growth in recent years.
- The company’s value increased from $1 trillion in May of 2023 to $2 trillion in February and $3 trillion in June.
- It’s an American business but has connections to Taiwan through its CEO and its manufacturing base.
With a value of more than $3 trillion, the tech company de-throned Microsoft, after having overtaken Apple’s value earlier in June.
So where did the company start out, how does it make its money and who is its charismatic leader?
While Apple founder Steve Jobs was known for his turtle necks, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang often makes presentations wearing a leather jacket. Source: Getty / Justin Sullivan
From roadside diner to trillion-dollar company
Broadly speaking, the value of Nvidia shares has soared by more than 3,000 per cent since the company was floated in 1999.
At the start of June, the company’s share price surged once more, bringing its total valuation to $3 trillion — putting it ahead of Apple and second only to Microsoft.
The company was formed in 1993, and it has been widely reported that it began during a meeting in a booth at an American roadside diner called Denny’s.
Making it big from microchips
Virtually all artificial intelligence applications, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, rely on Nvidia’s high-end chips, which are manufactured in Taiwan.
Nvidia technology is part of many of the devices people around the world use regularly. Source: Getty / troyek
However, Nvidia does not make the chips in-house; their production is outsourced to another company in Tawain.
“They have been able to perfectly match innovation with demand and that equals explosive growth,” he said.
Charismatic chief executive
Huang, who is often photographed wearing a leather jacket, has led the company for three decades and is one of the 20 richest people in the world, according to Forbes magazine.
The leadership style of Jensen Huang has earned him praise from his workforce. Source: Getty / Gene Wang
In 2023, he was voted the most popular CEO in the US and he has also become popular in his homeland of Taiwan.
Huang was the subject of wall-to-wall coverage on Taiwanese television when he visited Taipei for a tech trade fair recently.
With additional reporting by Reuters.