The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant

The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant by Tae Kim

There were many times in the early days where Nvidia almost went belly-up. They had some strategic decisions that didn't pan out. They bet on new, better technology, but had slow software translation to the old technology. The company would strive to excel technically, while not disgarding the lower levels of the market. The organization structure is extremely flat with the CEO having a large staff. Employees from the CEO down put in crazy amounts of hours of work. They always viewed themselves as being one bad mistake away from oblivion.

Things really started to boom for Nvidia after the company received an XBox contract. Later the company coined the term GPU to describe their programmable graphics chips, but let the term be used generally. They released programming tools and were able to dominate the GPU market. Nvidia saw the potential for GPUs to be used in artificial intelligence work and have been able to ride the AI boom to record valuations. They also got a nice lift from Bitcoin mining and they are still popular with gamers. Nvidia has been able to become the world's highest valued company thanks toa confluence of hard work and being in the right place at the right time.

Samsung Rising: The Inside Story of the South Korean Giant That Set Out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech

Samsung Rising: The Inside Story of the South Korean Giant That Set Out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech by Geoffrey Cain

Samsung is not one company, but a group of affiliated companies that span multiple industries. They all trace their history to the single founder and remain controlled by the same family. It is the largest of the Korean chaebols and is "too big to fail." Leaders of Samsung have been convicted of crimes, such as bribery, but are often pardoned "in the interest of the country". Organizations such as a pension fund will vote out of their best interests to support Samsung. (In one case, they took a big loss in order to help support a complicated succession plan.) The company has been around for less than a century, being founded shortly before World War II. It has been involved in more mundane activities such as groceries. With support of Korean government it grew and expanded to other fields. It saw opportunities in electronics and microchips and took the plunge. Initially the products were low quality imitations, but gradually it grew to improve quality and marketing. It has a huge share of the market for certain chips and cell phones.

Despite its position, Samsung remains firmly controlled by family. (Though people have been sued for comparing the leader of Samsung to the leader of North Korea.) When things go wrong, the tendency is to deflect blame. The company quickly launched a recall, but focussed on blaming a certain supplier. When replacement ones failed, they were left with a big problem that they did not handle well.

Samsung has also had trouble with acquisitions. They tend to implement their top down control even if that causes problems with the acquired company. The Samsung culture is very hard working. However, it does have difficulty responding to external criticism. Samsung is tries to stay out of media which it cannot fully control.