3dfx Built Nvidia's Monopoly, Then Died

In 1998, Diamond Multimedia and Creative paid 3dfx 58 cents of every dollar it took in. Two years later, 3dfx wrote in its own annual report that neither company was a customer anymore. Nobody took them. In December 1998, 3dfx bought STB Systems, a card maker in Richardson, Texas, so it could build and sell cards under its own name. Its two largest customers were now its competitors, and they went to NVIDIA. The part that gets left out: 3dfx said it would happen. In the merger document it filed in April 1999, under risk factors, the company wrote that it "expects that sales to Diamond and Creative Labs following the merger will be reduced significantly from prior levels." It signed anyway. Two years and two days after signing for STB, 3dfx sold itself to NVIDIA. What's in this video: Founded August 1994 by three Silicon Graphics engineers with Gordon Campbell, who kept refusing their motherboard plans until somebody proposed an add-in card COMDEX 1995, where 3dfx demonstrated a chip that did not exist yet in a rival's booth, a few steps from an NVIDIA card 1996 customer concentration: Orchid Technology 44%, Diamond 33% 1998: revenue 202.6 million dollars, net income 21.7 million, 247 employees December 13, 1998: the STB merger agreement, 0.65 shares per STB share, about 8.2 million shares STB's own numbers: 63.9% of its 1998 sales, about 170.1 million dollars, came from boards built on NVIDIA chips The 3.9 million dollars in unpaid invoices 3dfx was already disputing with Diamond 1999: Creative ships the 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2, Diamond ships the Viper V770, both on NVIDIA chips Juarez, Mexico: 1,200 workers, 500,000 boards a month, ISO 9002 Fiscal year to January 2000: 360.5 million dollars in revenue, a 63.3 million dollar loss GigaPixel, March 27, 2000, about 15.7 million shares December 15, 2000: NVIDIA buys the assets, 70 million in cash plus one million NVIDIA shares April 18, 2001: the cash that actually arrived was 55 million April 2001: 417 employees left, 31 of them in the United States October 15, 2002: Chapter 11 in San Jose Sources. Every figure is from a filing or a recorded interview. 3dfx Form 10-K405, fiscal 1998: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 3dfx Form S-4, STB merger, April 1999: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 3dfx Form 10-K, fiscal year to January 2000: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 3dfx Form 10-K, fiscal year to January 2001: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 3dfx Form 425, December 15, 2000 press release: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 3dfx Form 8-K, Chapter 11, October 2002: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 3dfx Oral History Panel, Computer History Museum, 2013, with Ross Smith, Scott Sellers, Gary Tarolli and Gordon Campbell: https://www.computerhistory.org/colle... If one of these was in your computer, tell us in the comments which card it was, whose name was on the box, and what year you bought it. Diamond, Creative, STB, or a 3dfx box built in Juarez. And tell us whether it still boots.