Nvidia History: Thirty Days From Going Out of Business

Nvidia history: how Nvidia started in a Denny's booth, nearly went bust twice, and how Nvidia makes money today. Jensen Huang, Nvidia explained from its own annual report. How did a games chip company become the first worth $5 trillion? Last year Nvidia sold $216 billion, and its boss still says it is thirty days from going out of business. Nvidia earnings come on 17 November. In this video: • Nvidia's unofficial motto: "Our company is thirty days from going out of business" • Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem at a Denny's in East San Jose, 1993 • The NV1 flop, Microsoft's triangles, and the $5 million Sega investment that kept Nvidia alive • The RIVA 128: one month of payroll left, and the chip that saved the company • The secret: CUDA, free software that only runs on Nvidia chips • AlexNet: two Nvidia gaming cards in a bedroom, and the AI boom • What most people get wrong: Nvidia does not just sell shovels • The fear in Nvidia's own 10-K: two customers paid 36% of its revenue Chapters 0:00 Thirty days from going out of business 0:37 A booth at Denny's 1:37 The wrong shape 2:53 One month of payroll 3:56 The secret nobody wanted 5:10 Two gaming cards in a bedroom 6:18 Thirty days, still Another story behind a fortune: McDonald's, the $10 billion secret that isn't on the menu:    • McDonald's: The $10 Billion Secret That Is...   Sources NVIDIA, "NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026" (25 Feb 2026): https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nv... NVIDIA Corporation, Form 10-K for fiscal 2026 (CUDA, engineers, customers, risks), SEC EDGAR: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... NVIDIA, "NVIDIA Sets Conference Call for Third-Quarter Financial Results" (28 Oct 2026): https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nv... iPhone in Canada, "Nvidia Blows Past Expectations with $96.2 Billion Revenue in Q2 2027" (27 Aug 2026): https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/2026/08... Webull, "Nvidia Q2 FY2027 Earnings Beats Revenue, EPS Estimates, Guides Q3 to $108B" (Aug 2026): https://www.webull.com/blog/304-Nvidi... ABC News, "Nvidia denies report that its CEO was allegedly targeted in Chinese spy plot" (30 Oct 2026): https://abc7news.com/story/nvidia-den... South China Morning Post, "China dismisses US report of suspected spy targeting Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as 'groundless'" (30 Oct 2026): https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/ar... Wikipedia, Nvidia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia Wikipedia, Jensen Huang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jensen_... Wikipedia, NV1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NV1 Wikipedia, RIVA 128: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIVA_128 Wikipedia, CUDA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA Wikipedia, AlexNet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlexNet Notes on the numbers: revenue ($215.9 billion), net income ($120.1 billion), data center ($193.7 billion) and gaming ($16.0 billion) for fiscal 2026 are from Nvidia's own results. "Fifty-six cents of every dollar", "about ninety percent" and "about seven percent" are my sums from those figures. The CUDA lines, "more than half of our engineers work on software", the two customers at 22% and 14% of revenue, and the China wording are from Nvidia's 10-K. The motto is as reported by The New Yorker (27 Nov 2023). The $5 million Sega investment is as reported by the Wall Street Journal (18 May 2024). The billion-dollar cost of CUDA is from one history. The spy story is a New York Times report; China denies it, and Jensen Huang is not accused of anything. This is not financial advice. The pictures in this film are our own drawings, and no Nvidia logo is shown in it. Subscribe for the stories behind the world's biggest fortunes. #Nvidia #JensenHuang #BusinessDocumentary Thumbnail photo: Jensen Huang at Stanford, 30 April 2026, by Anderseidesvik, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... background removed.