#50 - Stephen Witt : How NVIDIA Became The King of AI

Stephen Witt is a Los Angeles–based investigative journalist and author whose work appears regularly in The New Yorker.

His latest book, The Thinking Machine (April 2025), chronicles the extraordinary rise of Nvidia and its CEO Jensen Huang—from immigrant dishwasher to leader of the world’s most valuable company. Stanford’s former computer science chair Bill Dally remarked: “Without Jensen we’d be ten years behind.”

Witt’s previous book, How Music Got Free, explored the digital revolution that transformed the music industry and was later adapted into a TV documentary.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Trailer 01:00 How Stephen Got To Jensen Huang
06:35 Reading In An Age of Social Media
08:15 How NVIDIA Became So Valuable
12:25 Jensen Huang's Early Career and Its Impact13:48 Jensen Huang's Early Career17:15 The Secret of NVIDIA's Success18:06 Jensen Huang's Unique Management Style20:41 How LSI Made Him21:51 Why NVIDIA Didn't Make Financial Sense24:52 How NVIDIA Made The AI Transition30:58 How Jensen Leads
34:35 How Jensen Evolved Into A Business Leader37:38 How Jensen Knew To Double Down on AI43:53 NVIDIA's Competitive Edge47:36 Current AI Bottleneck48:23 AMD vs NVIDIA50:52 NVIDIA in China52:25 Intel's Downfall56:05 Should We Be Worried About AI60:43 Advice for the Next Generation

Full transcripts: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/

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