On a chilly, overcast day in February 1993, three men huddled around a booth in a Denny’s restaurant in San Jose, California. It was Jensen Huang’s 30th birthday. As he and his fellow co-founders, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, signed the founding documents for their new company, they ordered Super Bird sandwiches and bottomless coffee. They chose to call their new company Nvidia, after the Latin word for envy, and decided the corporate colours would be green.
The trio of electrical engineers had every reason to be confident. Each had a stellar reputation within the electronics industry, and with $2 million in seed funding secured, they were primed for success. But the journey ahead would be far more treacherous than any of them anticipated.
