Who founded Nvidia? In 1993, three engineers got together at America's iconic Denny's diner and changed the course of tech history

Nvidia was established on April 5, 1993, by three engineers: Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. At the outset, their plan was to create graphics processors that would enhance the computer's capacity to show high-quality 3D graphics in games and multimedia, more than three decades after which, their venture has transformed into a major player in artificial intelligence. This is also stated in the corporate history of Nvidia.

Huang turned out to be the most prominent figure among the founding members of Nvidia, holding the post of CEO right from the start of the company.

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However, now, due to the news of Jensen Huang leaving his job, the tale of the other co-founders is gaining new interest.

The Jensen Huang departure incident has also made one wonder how Nvidia would perform without its key figure for 33 years.

Who are the three founders of Nvidia?

Each founder brought a distinctive yet complementary background to the venture.

Jensen Huang was employed by the LSI Logic semiconductor company before founding Nvidia.

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He previously worked at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and had education in electrical engineering in Oregon State University and Stanford University. Huang became the CEO when the company was founded.

Chris Malachowsky was an engineer at Sun Microsystems.

His background includes graphics technologies and computer engineering. According to the official Nvidia biography, Chris is referred to as a founder of Nvidia and Nvidia Fellow with many years of experience in core technologies of the company.

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Curtis Priem was an employee of Sun Microsystems prior to founding Nvidia.

Priem became the first chief technology officer at Nvidia and occupied the post from 1993 to 2003. His alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, refers to him for his many contributions in the field of graphics hardware and more than 200 patents.

Did Jensen Huang really start Nvidia at Denny's?

One of the unique things about Nvidia’s history is an American diner.

The three co-founders, Huang, Malachowsky, and Priem met up at a Denny’s restaurant in San Jose, California, in 1993 to plan their graphics-chip startup company. The personal computers would require better hardware capabilities to cope with increasingly complex visuals, they thought.

This location was special to Huang as he used to work there during his teenage years.

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Huang washed dishes there when he was younger, but then he had to do other jobs in the restaurant. Nvidia once again told about this meeting on its corporate blog, which is devoted to the celebration of the anniversary of this event.

This is the story of Nvidia's meeting at Denny's restaurant, as told by Nvidia. Initially, the business was focused much more narrowly than the current AI business.

What did Nvidia originally make?

NVIDIA came into existence concentrating on graphics and multimedia chips.

Their early products faced both technical and commercial problems, but the company continued to develop the technology for ever-growing computing demands.

One of the most significant moments for the company was the release of the graphics processing unit in 1999.

This technology contributed greatly to the field of computer graphics and then became helpful in scientific computing and artificial intelligence.

One more achievement mentioned in NVIDIA's corporate timeline is the release of CUDA in 2006.

This development became the reason why the company started working on GPU applications that were not connected with graphics anymore.

Who is leading Nvidia after Jensen Huang resigns?

Nvidia issued a statement on Thursday stating that Huang has resigned as the president, CEO, and member of the board of Nvidia immediately.

The board has appointed the long-serving chief financial officer, Colette Kress, as interim CEO of Nvidia while searching for the next permanent CEO.

Colette Kress became an Nvidia employee in September 2013, and since then she has been serving as executive vice president and CFO of Nvidia. The board will take into account both external and internal candidates for the position of permanent CEO. The official CEO succession statement of Nvidia is provided above.

Hence, the process of appointing the new Nvidia CEO is an important event for a company that has been associated with one person – Jensen Huang.

However, as we know, the founder's history of Nvidia indicates that initially it was a three-man engineering project rather than a one-man company.

Jensen Huang was the head of Nvidia, but he did not create Nvidia single-handedly. Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem created the technical base of a company that changed the entire computing industry.