Jensen Huang reveals how a single phone call saved Nvidia from bankruptcy
Nvidia nearly went bankrupt in the late 1990s before finding a manufacturer.
The short version
- CEO Jensen Huang called Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. repeatedly with no reply.
- He finally sent a letter to founder Morris Chang.
- Chang answered and launched a 30-year partnership.
In the late 1990s, Nvidia Corp., the massive computer chip designer, faced severe financial pressure and nearly went bankrupt. Jensen Huang, the head of Nvidia, needed a manufacturer for his graphics chips but found foundry capacity strictly limited. Huang located the U.S. office of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the giant chip manufacturing foundry, in the Yellow Pages and called repeatedly without getting an answer.
"Nobody called me back," Huang said on a vlog in Taiwan with podcaster Lex Fridman. Desperate to keep the business alive, Huang finally sent a lengthy letter to Morris Chang, the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Chang contacted Huang and invited him to Taiwan, which prompted Huang to say, "Maybe we won't have to die."
Chang assured Huang that his company would go to great lengths to support the partnership. For the past 30 years, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has built chips that powered Nvidia through its growth into an AI leader. The partnership ultimately saved Nvidia from financial collapse, turning a struggling startup into one of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s top customers.
When you look at the chips powering the technology used across businesses today, that single unanswered phone call changed the entire tech world.
