Jackson Hong, always brimming with passion, spoke in an unusually drained voice, saying things were not going well.
Early this year, NVIDIA released its first graphics chipset, the NV1, but it was expensive, underperformed, and hardly sold at all.
Still, it managed to win favor with Sega, which used a similar approach, and NVIDIA was tasked with designing the graphics chip candidate for Sega’s next-generation console, the Dreamcast.
With a customer secured, NVIDIA worked hard on product development, but from the start, the direction was wrong—they poured money and time into misguided technology.
Even if they completed the NV2 like this, it would be meaningless, so the proud Jackson Hong swallowed his shame and humiliation and pleaded with Sega of America’s CEO, Shoichiro Aramachi, to honor the contract but just give them the money anyway.
Whether his sincerity moved them or Sega’s situation aligned perfectly, Aramachi not only reported to headquarters but secured an additional $5 million in support.
“We’re carrying out layoffs, scrapping the existing architecture, and redesigning from scratch, but we’re short on operating funds to complete NV3 development.”
“Sounds like you’re going through a lot. As it happens, a company I invested in just had a successful IPO, so I have some spare capital—I’ll help you out. In exchange, I’d like some NVIDIA shares. I’ve recently gotten interested and studied computing architectures; it’s pretty fascinating.”
Though James hadn’t designed semiconductors himself, running an AI company in his previous life had led him to study high-performance graphics cards in depth.
Back then the technology was too advanced and complex, but at the current level of graphics processing units, James could easily observe and offer advice.
“Alright. The company’s situation is too dire to say no. I’ll discuss it with my co-founders and let you know the funds we need and the shares we can offer.”
“Take your time discussing and get back to me.”
Right now it was just a small graphics card company that had barely been founded, burned through development costs, and generated no revenue—but in James’s previous life, NVIDIA had briefly become the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization.
After several failures, the RIVA 128 released in 1997 became a massive hit, marking their comeback, followed by consecutive successes that surpassed their rival 3dfx, famous for the Voodoo series.
They then acquired most of 3dfx’s patents and assets as the latter prepared for bankruptcy due to financial troubles, sending them to the back alleys of history.
As personal computers and games demanding high-performance graphics cards grew, NVIDIA steadily expanded, then met its savior Bitcoin and reached around $1.6 trillion in market cap by September 2018—comparable to Walt Disney Company and Netflix.
But a crash in cryptocurrency demand caused GPU inventory pile-up and price collapse, compounded by disappointment in the GeForce 20 series, and the stock halved to around $800 billion.
Even SoftBank, the fourth-largest shareholder at the time, sold its stake and cut losses.
I thought it was done for, but the COVID pandemic actually revived it.
Liquidity flooded in during the pandemic, pushing it past $2 trillion in no time, then breaking $3 trillion in just two months.
People called it the peak, but in the second half of 2021, earning surprises, being named a major metaverse beneficiary, and exploding PC demand from the prolonged pandemic drove the market cap past $7 trillion with terrifying growth.
Having bulked up during that boom, NVIDIA announced in September 2020 that it would acquire Arm Holdings from SoftBank.
NVIDIA agreed to pay a $2 billion deposit to acquire the semiconductor design company Arm, plus $10 billion in cash and $21.5 billion in NVIDIA stock to SoftBank, making Son Masayoshi a shareholder again.
But the acquisition did not go as planned—too many intertwined companies and countries refused permission, and antitrust laws made it effectively impossible.
Many companies used Arm’s products, and everyone knew the notoriously vindictive NVIDIA would monopolize and strong-arm if it swallowed Arm.
Ultimately, in 2022 news leaked that the Arm acquisition had failed.
Within hours of the reports, NVIDIA’s stock plunged over 3.5%, effectively ending the semiconductor hegemony battle in defeat.
The pandemic lasted longer than expected, and global slowdown from quantitative easing aftereffects halved gaming revenue, but starting in Q1 2022, surging AI parallel computing chip demand and exploding internet traffic pushed data center revenue past gaming for the first time.
Every time there’s a crisis, the whole world steps in to help.
By year-end 2022, revenue share from Taiwan and China—previously the largest markets—dropped, while U.S. revenue surged.
Unintended expansion of U.S. data centers reduced reliance on China and Taiwan, diversifying risk from the U.S.-China trade war and Taiwan’s geopolitical tensions.
Then in 2023, the generative AI war between Microsoft and Google brought indirect benefits to NVIDIA; the May earnings report forecasted overwhelming Q2 guidance, triggering an earnings surprise and a roughly 25% single-day stock surge.
On May 30, it broke $1 trillion in pre-market market cap, hitting another all-time high.
AI competition intensified beyond expectations, driving over 200% year-over-year revenue growth and absurd profits relative to company size.
The stock kept rising: on February 13, 2024 it surpassed Amazon.com, on the 14th it overtook Google Alphabet to become world’s fourth most valuable, on February 23 it briefly hit $2 trillion intraday (fourth ever), and on March 2 it passed Saudi Aramco.
After repeated ups and downs, on April 19 the stock plunged 10%, evaporating nearly $200 billion—rumors said Jewish capital fled due to Israeli-Iranian airstrikes—but late May earnings showed mind-blowing 262% revenue and 628% net income growth year-over-year.
It finally broke the psychological $1,000 share price barrier, hitting new highs again.
A week later, on June 5, intraday price hit $1,200 and market cap broke $3 trillion, becoming the third company ever (after Apple and Microsoft) to reach that milestone.
Less than two weeks later, on June 18, intraday price surpassed $135 (pre-split $1,350), pushing market cap over $3.3 trillion and overtaking Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable company for the first time.
It traded the top spot a few times after that, but eventually became the first in human history to exceed $4 trillion.
NVIDIA recorded over 6,000 trillion Korean won in market cap, becoming an unprecedented company in human history.
The truly terrifying part was that this massive company had operating margins well over 50%—something absurd.
Supply still couldn’t catch demand, so it seemed poised to maintain its monopolistic position for quite a while.
Allen Musk supposedly begged Jackson Hong every time they met, offering cash upfront if he’d just please sell him GPUs.
Right now it was a failing niche graphics semiconductor design subcontractor, but in the future it would grow into a monster—so no matter how much Jackson asked for, James planned to offer more money and secure more shares.
It would take thirty long years for NVIDIA to become the world’s top company, but thirty years was a wait James could afford for the number-one firm.
Jackson’s stake was 3.6%, right? I need at least 5%.
Vanguard and BlackRock held 8.29% and 7.25%, and among individual shareholders Jackson owned the most.
Naturally money was the main goal for James in securing NVIDIA shares, but with plans for an AI business, smooth GPU supply was also essential.
In the end, James secured 15% of NVIDIA for $7 million.
It would require holding for thirty years, but 15% of 6,000 trillion won was 900 trillion.
The sheer amount made him slightly dizzy just imagining it, but he trusted his future self to spend it well.
While James focused on acquiring shares in the future world’s most valuable company, Steven Jobs’s Pixar successfully completed its stock listing.
“Steven, congratulations on the IPO.”
The IPO, held one week after Toy Story’s release, started at an offering price of $22 and climbed to $49.50.
It closed at $39, but Pixar raised $139.7 billion in capital, becoming the most successful IPO of 1995.
With the public offering, Jobs—who held the largest stake—saw his wealth exceed $1 billion, and James instantly gained over $100 million.
Jobs’s greatness didn’t end there—he would steadily grow Pixar and sign a $7.5 billion merger deal with Disney.
Through the stock-swap agreement, Jobs would become Disney’s largest individual shareholder.
He had bought Pixar for $5 million just ten years earlier and sold it for $7.5 billion—an astonishing result.
“I told you it would succeed, so this is only natural. Thanks to me, you’ve become tremendously rich too.”
James had already earned similar money from Netscape’s IPO but didn’t mention it to Jobs.
In fact, with a larger Netscape stake, he made even more from Netscape than Pixar.
“Thank you. Please keep working hard to grow my small but precious fortune.”
“I’m the one working, yet you’re the one getting rich—it kinda hurts.”
“Then don’t get sick—make sure to get regular checkups. I’ll tell Dad, so come to University of Washington Hospital sometime.”
Feeling oddly outmatched in conversation, Jobs updated him on Toy Story’s continually rising box office numbers and ended the call.
“You’ll be fine this year, but next year taxes will be heavy. Better prepare in advance.”
“I was already worried about taxes since I made quite a bit this year. Any tax-saving tips?”
“There’s no proper way to escape the IRS—they’re scarier than the CIA. Just pay and hire a trustworthy accountant or firm.”
“Then please introduce a good accounting firm.”
“I’m not on friendly terms with the IRS, so better get introduced by someone else.”
Even the my-way-through-life Jobs admitted he couldn’t beat the tax authorities and suddenly cursed the IRS.
James had been thinking he needed someone to manage his growing assets soon, and wanted a good recommendation, but Jobs wasn’t the right person.
The closest option was probably Microsoft’s William Gates in Seattle, who would know excellent accounting firms, but they weren’t personally close enough for James to ask directly.
“There actually is someone perfect for this kind of request. I’m meeting him soon, so I can ask then.”