Hanging with Huang
In a semi-informal but cheesily named ‘fireside chat', Nvidia CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, sat down with graphics analyst Jon Peddie at GTC to discuss the past year of economic crisis, investment in R&D and new directions for the firm.
Lowering his usual bravado by a notch, Huang admitted that the tough economic climate had caused him to have to re-prioritise, but not to stop investing in R&D or hiring more staff for areas Nvidia sees as critical.
But even whilst confessing to the fact the past year had taken its toll on the firm's balance sheet, Huang said he had no regrets about the strategy, noting "We did exactly the right thing for exactly the right reasons." Sounding more like a football coach than a CEO, Jen-Hsun reminded his audience to "separate the game from the score," and to do their best and to work on important things the world needed.
"Nvidia wants to be perfect and do exquisite work," said Huang, reeling off a list of achievements and initiatives the firm had chalked up in the past year. 3D Vision, Cuda, OpenCL, DirectCompute and PhysX were just a few of the things Jen-Hsun took credit for, boasting that Nvidia knew where technology was heading and was making all the right investments.
"When you know what the answer is, when you feel it in your gut, and you have the wherewithal to do it, you don't want to look back in ten years and regret that you did not," he said, going on to explain how Nvidia decided which businesses to pursue.
