Some have called Nvidia’s GTC the Super Bowl of AI. So, it only makes sense to kick things off with a pregame show, featuring top-level industry players, including JPR President Jon Peddie, as they discuss three main phases in Nvidia’s history. The pregame show was hosted by Acquired podcasters.
In case you missed the “Live at Nvidia GTC with Acquired” pregame show just prior to Nvidia Jensen Huang’s keynote, it is definitely something worth watching. It provides an informative overview of Nvidia’s history. While Nvidia and Huang hold an impressive position within the GPU and generative AI arena today, it was not always the case. However, Huang had a vision and the tenacity to achieve that vision—much as he does to this day. After founding the company three decades ago, Huang still serves as its leader.
Interestingly, Huang has bet the company on three different occasions—and won.
The show covered three different periods in Nvidia’s history, each presented by a trio of panelists (including JPR’s Jon Peddie) with considerable knowledge and depth of the company and industry. The show covered Nvidia’s early history, which centered on graphics cards for PC gamers, and then stepped into the accelerated computing era, and finally landing on the modern AI era of today.
As the show’s hosts, David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert, note that while Huang’s keynote is a look into the present and future, the pregame is taking a step backward in time, “an outside in look at the history of Nvidia, how it started, the big bets, the turning points, and the people who made it all happen.”
A surprise, unplanned moment occurred during the discussion with the first group of panelists. Just when the hosts asked what Huang was like in the early days, who walks onto the set but Huang himself to provide a small taste from the early, early days—before Nvidia—when he worked at Denny’s as a teen. Dressed in an apron (along with his signature leather jacket, of course) and carrying takeout boxes, Huang popped in as a surprise guest. What was in the containers? Pancakes and sausage, which he proceeded to roll up corn dog style as he explained that this was one of his favorite foods at the restaurant. He then served one to each panelist—even drizzling syrup on top of the treat—before strongly urging each to eat up. Back in the day, the food rolls were called pigs in a blanket, but as Huang jokingly said, today they are called Nvidia Bites.
As Huang assembled the bites, panelist Rick Tsai, vice chairman and CEO of MediaTek, pointed out that this was what Huang was like 30 years ago.
It was a fun moment, showing a side of Huang few ever get to experience, and fewer still can ever imagine. It was hard to believe that in little over an hour from his pop-in, Huang would be addressing a stadium packed with thousands and thousands of GTC attendees, not to mention the plethora of people who would be tuning in online, to hang on his every word.
You can watch the pregame show here, and Huang’s keynote here.
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