#163: The NVIDIA Way — 7 Scaling Lessons from Jensen Huang’s Playbook

Most founders obsess over products. Jensen Huang built a $3 trillion company by obsessing over inevitabilities. 

This episode unpacks The NVIDIA Way by Tae Kim—the definitive account of how NVIDIA went from near-death startup to the world’s most valuable chipmaker. More than a history, it’s a manual for founders and VCs navigating the messy, high-stakes stretch between Series A and IPO. 

But this isn’t just about NVIDIA. 

It’s about you—if you’re scaling in deep tech, where survival depends less on genius inventions and more on how you engineer resilience, culture, and urgency into your system. 

I walk you through 7 scaling lessons that matter now—from why pain is a founder’s greatest teacher to how vision and culture become moats no competitor can copy. Each principle is grounded in NVIDIA’s story, translated into today’s market reality, and wrapped with coaching prompts you can act on this week. 

Key Takeaways: 

• Pain Builds Resilience: Intelligence helps, but scars compound faster.
• Reputation Is Currency: Your first product isn’t a chip or an app—it’s trust.
• Defy the Innovator’s Dilemma: Don’t chase quarters—build inevitabilities.
• Lead with Context: Replace bottlenecks with clarity and extreme ownership.
• Sell the Vision: Markets follow narratives, not features.
• Culture Outruns Capital: Execution habits compound longer than cash.
• Urgency Wins: Complacency kills more companies than competition.

Timestamps:
(00:00) Why This Episode Matters
(02:18) The Big Idea of The NVIDIA Way by Tae Kim
(04:36) Who is Tae Kim?
(08:15) Lesson #1: Pain and Suffering Are the Recipe for Greatness
(12:35) Lesson #2: Your Reputation Is Your Currency
(17:05) Lesson #3: The Innovator’s Dilemma Will Come for You
(21:45) Lesson #4: Lead With Context, Not Control
(25:18) Lesson #5: Don’t Just Sell the Product—Sell the Vision
(30:00) Lesson #6: Culture Outruns Capital—and the Competition
(34:32) Lesson #7: Build Urgency Into the System
(38:30) Key Takeaways—3x Reading + 25 Years in Public Markets, VC, and Scaling Deep Tech
(41:24) Reflection

Why Listen:

• Learn how NVIDIA survived near-death and built inevitabilities that defined AI.
• Get 7 leadership and culture principles designed for Series A–IPO scale-ups.
• See how to evaluate companies not by products, but by the systems that endure.
• Upgrade your founder or investor lens with actionable coaching questions.

Found this valuable? Like, share, and follow.
 Every signal grows the show—and helps bring you more playbooks from the world’s most resilient companies.
 
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Join Christian Soschner for expert coaching.
50% Off - With 35+ years in deep tech, startups/scaleups, and public companies, Christian offers power video sessions. Elevate strategy, execution, and leadership. Book Now.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:09:19

Christian Soschner

Most people believe billion dollar companies start with brilliant ideas and flawless execution. But here is the shocking truth.

00:00:09:19 - 00:00:33:22

Christian Soschner

Most of the companies that changed the world looked like bad ideas at first. Think about it. Amazon lost money for years as a bookstore. Tesla. They nearly went bankrupt more than once. And then Nvidia today worth over $4 trillion. Almost died in its very first decade.

00:00:33:24 - 00:00:35:13

Christian Soschner

So what's the lesson here?

00:00:35:13 - 00:00:51:15

Christian Soschner

Success in deep tech is not about perfection. It's about turning what looks like madness into inevitability. And that's why, for today's Folk Review, I have chosen this book, The Nvidia Way by Ty Kim.

00:00:51:15 - 00:01:07:08

Christian Soschner

Kim doesn't just recount a business story. He unpacks how Jensen Huang built one of the most important companies of our time, not just by designing chips, but by designing culture, vision and resilience

00:01:07:08 - 00:01:11:01

Christian Soschner

for founders, board members and venture capitalists.

00:01:11:01 - 00:01:44:13

Christian Soschner

Between series and IPO. This book is a playbook. And in this episode, I will share seven lessons that matter most. The first one by Payne is your greatest teacher. While your reputation is your first product, how do I avoid the Innovator's dilemma? How to do it with context and not control? Why vision matters more than features. How culture outruns capital.

00:01:44:16 - 00:01:49:22

Christian Soschner

And finally, how agency keeps you alive.

00:01:49:22 - 00:02:14:12

Christian Soschner

Each lesson comes with a real Nvidia story from the book. Insights from today's market and coaching questions. You can apply immediately because this show is not just about learning what others did. It's about helping you think, act, and scale differently. Starting today. So let's dive in. What's the big idea of the book?

00:02:14:16 - 00:02:16:02

Christian Soschner

The end video. It.

00:02:16:15 - 00:02:30:18

Christian Soschner

If you remember just one thing from the end. Video that it be this Nvidia didn't just build chips. They built inevitabilities. And that's the heartbeat of Ty Kim's book.

00:02:30:18 - 00:02:45:17

Christian Soschner

Success in deep tech is not about chasing trends or staking features. It's about designing a future that must exist and surviving long enough to meet it. Think about Nvidia's story arc.

00:02:46:03 - 00:03:08:12

Christian Soschner

They were not the first graphics card company. They were not the best storytellers. The first two products nearly killed them. But instead of copying what was fashionable, they made painful long term bets that looked crazy in the moment. Like pouring resources into Cuda when almost nobody cared.

00:03:08:12 - 00:03:17:03

Christian Soschner

But those irrational bets became inevitabilities. And that's the lesson for anyone scaling from series eight to IPO.

00:03:17:05 - 00:03:41:21

Christian Soschner

For founders, it is your first product loan to make your grade, your culture, your resilience, and your willingness to play the long game. When. And for investors, don't trust back clever ideas back. Leaders who built inevitabilities leaders paranoid enough to survive and patient enough to create categories no one sees yet.

00:03:41:21 - 00:03:48:12

Christian Soschner

And Nvidia's story is a mirror. You don't need to be in semiconductors to see yourself in it.

00:03:48:14 - 00:04:03:13

Christian Soschner

Every founder, every port faces the same dilemmas capital pressure, intensity, product failures, and cultural discipline. So if the intro was about why this book matters. This section is about the lens.

00:04:03:13 - 00:04:34:08

Christian Soschner

The Nvidia way is a playbook for turning pain into resilience, reputation into capital culture, into a mode and vision into inevitability. Because if you can internalize that one truth that greatness comes from building inevitabilities not chasing perfection, then every lesson in the rest of this episode becomes a tool to help you get there.

00:04:34:15 - 00:04:47:11

Christian Soschner

Before we dive into the lessons, let's pause and ask why should you trust this book? Who is Ty Kim and why is the Nvidia way worth your time?

00:04:47:11 - 00:05:06:12

Christian Soschner

Let's start with the first question who is taking. He is not your typical business book author. He's a veteran technology journalist and former equity analyst, a remix that gives him both the storytelling craft of a journalist and the financial landscape of Wall Street.

00:05:06:18 - 00:05:31:09

Christian Soschner

He has written as a senior technology writer at parents and as a US tech columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Before that, he worked as an equity analyst at hedge funds and in management consulting. This tool background means he can break down Nvidia's rise, not only as a story of engineering, but as a case study in markets, strategy and execution.

00:05:31:12 - 00:05:35:02

Christian Soschner

So why is he the right person to tell this story?

00:05:35:02 - 00:05:55:03

Christian Soschner

What sets him apart is access and depth. He spent more than a year researching Nvidia, conducting over 100 interviews, including with Jensen Huang, co-founders Chris Markowski and Curtis Gray. Early employees, senior executives and venture capitalists who backed the company.

00:05:55:03 - 00:06:01:12

Christian Soschner

Former insider said they were thrilled someone finally told the story in full length.

00:06:01:14 - 00:06:06:12

Christian Soschner

Kim pieced together oral histories, validated them with archival material,

00:06:06:12 - 00:06:23:15

Christian Soschner

and captured boardroom conversations, product decisions and cultural insights you won't find anywhere else. And the recognition Schultz. Chris Miller, author of Cheap War, calls the book Rewriting History.

00:06:23:15 - 00:06:35:15

Christian Soschner

Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, describes it as the definitive look at one of the most remarkable business stories of this era.

00:06:35:17 - 00:06:43:16

Christian Soschner

Even former Nvidia leaders have praised it for capturing the company's culture and strategy better than any prior account.

00:06:43:16 - 00:07:05:19

Christian Soschner

So why does his perspective matter for you, for founders and investors? Kim's perspective is valuable because he doesn't just write about strategy at 30,000ft high, he zooms in on the habits, decisions, and cultural patterns that made Nvidia resilient.

00:07:05:21 - 00:07:47:09

Christian Soschner

How they survived near-death failures, structured their teams, kept urgency alive, and created inevitabilities like Cuda. He's not writing like an academic. He's not spinning public relations. He's dissecting Nvidia from both sides as a storyteller and as an analyst. So when you hear the Nvidia way, you're not just reading and not a tech biography, you're hearing deeply reported, cross-checked insights that's tied directly to the challenges of scaling from series A to IPO to, what's a $4 trillion market cap goal?

00:07:47:09 - 00:08:03:00

Christian Soschner

So imagine sitting across from someone who's covered Nvidia for years, who knows its failures as well as its triumphs and who can connect those lessons straight into your boardroom. And that's Ty Kim.

00:08:03:00 - 00:08:15:11

Christian Soschner

Now that you know why this book and this offer to serve your attention. Let's move into the first of seven lessons where Nvidia's story becomes a practical playbook for scaling.

00:08:15:11 - 00:08:19:06

Christian Soschner

Pain and suffering are the recipe for greatness.

00:08:19:17 - 00:08:35:05

Christian Soschner

We have all heard the stories. The prodigy who gets everything right. The founder with the silver spoon for sales to success. Thanks to his family's money. But what if that narrative is simply a lie?

00:08:35:05 - 00:08:47:21

Christian Soschner

What if the real secret to greatness is not IQ or privilege, but resilience? Resilience forged through pain. And that's the first lesson of the Nvidia way.

00:08:48:02 - 00:09:18:06

Christian Soschner

In his 2017 commencement address, Jensen Huang told graduates, I wish upon you ember doses of pain and suffering. To find the reference in the book perpetuating. It's not exactly the motivational post line you would expect. But his point was clear. Greatness is not intelligence. Greatness comes from character and character can only be the result of overcoming setbacks and adversity.

00:09:18:06 - 00:09:49:04

Christian Soschner

And his life proves it. As a teenager, he was sent to a vocational boarding school in Kentucky, essentially a reform school, where he went to what bullying and hardship. Later, he washed dishes and waited tables to pay his way. Out of those experiences came what he calls a street fighter mentality. And it didn't stop there. In business. Nvidia's first two chips, the V1 and V2, were flops.

00:09:49:06 - 00:10:04:06

Christian Soschner

Huang admitted, you didn't build everyone because you were great. You didn't build and V2 because you were great. We survived ourselves. We were our own worst enemy. Your failures on page four.

00:10:04:06 - 00:10:16:24

Christian Soschner

But most companies would have died right there. Founders would have simply given up. Nvidia didn't. They endured. They learned, and they came back stronger.

00:10:16:24 - 00:10:25:19

Christian Soschner

Too many founders today tell themselves my life was too tough and that's why I could not succeed.

00:10:25:21 - 00:10:49:00

Christian Soschner

But the truth is, adversity is normal and it is an advantage if you persist. Investors should not just look for IQ, they should look for battle scars because those cards prove resilience. They prove you can take a hit and keep moving forward.

00:10:49:00 - 00:11:03:19

Christian Soschner

Amazon lost money for years before AWS became an empire. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple before he came back and reshaped it into the world's most valuable company.

00:11:03:21 - 00:11:32:19

Christian Soschner

Nvidia nearly died twice before Cuda made it indispensable. So if you're scaling from series eight to IPO, resilience is not optional. It's your moat. And I've seen this pattern again and again. The founders who impressed me most aren't the ones with flawless resumes. They're the ones who can point to a scar, tell the story behind it, and show how it made them sharper.

00:11:32:21 - 00:11:54:12

Christian Soschner

And the Nvidia way reminds us pain endured and transformed compounds into greatness. So here are my coaching questions. The first one. How do you respond to setbacks? Do they harden you or weaken you?

00:11:54:14 - 00:12:31:14

Christian Soschner

The second one. Where in your company are you letting fear of failure slow down? Progress. And the third one are you surrounding yourself with leaders who have been tested under fire, or only those who look good on paper? Greatness is not about avoiding pain. It's about taking it and transforming it into something better. So if your journey feels unfair, if it feels properly hard, don't see it as a reason to quit.

00:12:31:16 - 00:12:36:21

Christian Soschner

See it as a proof you're in training for something much bigger.

00:12:37:06 - 00:13:08:19

Christian Soschner

And here we are. Lesson number two. Your reputation is your currency. Most founders obsess over perfecting the pitch deck. But here is the uncomfortable truth. Your pitch will almost certainly suck. The very first step. Even Nvidia. Today's $4 trillion try it nearly bombed its very first meeting with Sequoia Capital. This was the funds that backed them in the early days.

00:13:08:21 - 00:13:48:05

Christian Soschner

What saved them was not the brilliance of the slides. It was simply their reputation. Here is the full story. In the early 90s, Jensen Huang and his co-founders pitched Don Valentine, one of Silicon Valley's toughest and most respected venture capitalists. And the result? A disaster. By Jensen's own admission. I did a horrible job with the pitch. I had a hard time explaining what I was building, who I was building it for, and why I was going to be successful.

00:13:48:07 - 00:14:20:19

Christian Soschner

To find the full story on page 48, in the book Valentine. He hated product demos and grilled them instead. Their answers were incoherent, sometimes even contradicting each other by all logic and video should have been dead on arrival. But then came the card. Wilf Corrigan, a respected semiconductor veteran and former CEO of LSI logic, vouched for Jensen personally.

00:14:20:21 - 00:14:34:23

Christian Soschner

He did not pitch the idea of Nvidia. He pitched the CEO, Jensen Huang. Corrigan staked his entire reputation on Huang. And Valentine relented,

00:14:34:23 - 00:14:48:24

Christian Soschner

which says to give you money against my better judgment, based on what you just told me. I'm going to give you money. But if you lose my money, I will come and kill you.

00:14:48:24 - 00:14:55:00

Christian Soschner

And that credibility turned disaster into a $2 million series investment.

00:14:55:02 - 00:15:03:00

Christian Soschner

And as the book puts it, your reputation will precede you even if your business plan writing skills are inadequate.

00:15:03:00 - 00:15:21:11

Christian Soschner

The lesson is planned in the earliest days. Your reputation is your first product long before your technology works or your market exists. People are betting on you, on your integrity, on your resilience, and the people willing to vouch for you.

00:15:21:20 - 00:15:57:00

Christian Soschner

For venture capitalists, this is the filter. Don't just touch the deck. Ask whose credibility is standing behind the founder. Pedigree and polish don't always predict winners, but a network willing to go to bat for someone that starts at once said in a pitch meeting where the slides were shaky. The story was rough, but one of the investors in the room leaned over and whispered, I would peg this founder any day.

00:15:57:02 - 00:16:11:17

Christian Soschner

And that's the power of reputation. It's slow to build, it's fast to lose. And in deep tech, especially where cycles are long and capital intensive, it may be the single most valuable currency you have.

00:16:11:17 - 00:16:28:19

Christian Soschner

Here are my coaching questions for you. The first one is your personal reputation today an asset or a liability? Who in your circle would confidently stake their reputation on you?

00:16:28:21 - 00:16:31:24

Christian Soschner

And why?

00:16:32:01 - 00:17:01:06

Christian Soschner

What are you doing daily to expand and protect that credibility beyond polishing a pitch deck? Nvidia didn't raise its first millions because of a perfect pitch they raised, because someone trusted Jensen enough to put their own reputation on the line. You have technology will change, your pitch will evolve, but your reputation, that's the one product you carry with you into every room.

00:17:01:08 - 00:17:03:19

Christian Soschner

So build it wisely.

00:17:03:19 - 00:17:23:11

Christian Soschner

Lesson number three. The innovator's dilemma will come for you. The paradox in business is this. The very success that makes you strong can also make you blind. Blockbuster ignored streaming. Kodak. They missed digital.

00:17:23:11 - 00:17:26:09

Speaker 2

Entirely. And Intel.

00:17:26:11 - 00:17:39:19

Christian Soschner

Dismissed GPUs. And this is the innovator's dilemma. And it nearly claimed Nvidia to. But instead of doubling down on what worked. Jensen Huang forced.

00:17:39:19 - 00:17:40:20

Speaker 2

The company into.

00:17:40:20 - 00:17:45:09

Christian Soschner

A bad so radically so costly that many thought it would kill them.

00:17:45:11 - 00:17:49:18

Speaker 2

And in reality, it saved them. And created this.

00:17:49:18 - 00:17:51:14

Christian Soschner

Tremendous success story.

00:17:51:14 - 00:17:53:12

Christian Soschner

But what's the story behind it?

00:17:53:12 - 00:17:57:23

Christian Soschner

By the early 2000, Nvidia was a rising graphics company.

00:17:57:24 - 00:17:59:22

Speaker 2

Riding the PC gaming wave with.

00:17:59:22 - 00:18:01:08

Christian Soschner

Hits like the revived one.

00:18:01:08 - 00:18:02:19

Speaker 2

Hundred and 28.

00:18:02:21 - 00:18:22:08

Christian Soschner

You find more in the book on page 73. But one new graphics alone couldn't secure the future. So in 2006, he launched Cuda, a proprietary software ecosystem that let scientists and developers program GPUs for parallel computing.

00:18:22:08 - 00:18:23:21

Christian Soschner

On paper, it looked.

00:18:23:21 - 00:18:25:24

Speaker 2

Like a terrible idea.

00:18:26:01 - 00:18:35:09

Christian Soschner

The market was tiny. Researchers, labs, niche scientific applications analysts. They mocked it.

00:18:35:09 - 00:18:36:18

Speaker 2

Even inside Nvidia.

00:18:36:18 - 00:18:42:14

Christian Soschner

Employees questioned why they were pouring money into what looked like a science project.

00:18:42:20 - 00:18:44:22

Speaker 2

You can read it on page 43.

00:18:44:24 - 00:19:06:05

Christian Soschner

The cost was brutal. Cuda added a ton of cost into our chips and dragged gross margins from 45% to 35%. And then came the 2008 financial crisis. Nvidia's stock collapsed by more than 80%. Investors back too long to cut Cuda.

00:19:06:05 - 00:19:10:12

Christian Soschner

But he refused. We had very few customers for Cuda, but we made.

00:19:10:13 - 00:19:13:04

Speaker 2

Every chip Cuda compatible.

00:19:13:04 - 00:19:14:11

Christian Soschner

And that conviction.

00:19:14:11 - 00:19:15:07

Speaker 2

Became Nvidia's.

00:19:15:07 - 00:19:16:16

Christian Soschner

Moat a decade.

00:19:16:16 - 00:19:17:23

Speaker 2

Later when deep learning.

00:19:17:23 - 00:19:34:15

Christian Soschner

Exploded, Cuda was the only access stamp already ready. Google, OpenAI, universities, biotech lips all turned to Nvidia. What once looked like a reckless gamer became the foundation of a $4 trillion company.

00:19:34:16 - 00:19:36:11

Speaker 2

And meanwhile, that intro.

00:19:36:14 - 00:19:37:13

Christian Soschner

Laser focused on.

00:19:37:13 - 00:19:37:24

Speaker 2

Quarterly.

00:19:37:24 - 00:19:41:15

Christian Soschner

Performance. They missed the wave entirely.

00:19:41:15 - 00:19:54:22

Christian Soschner

And this is the real innovator's dilemma. Do you optimize for the next quarter or the next decade? Nvidia's early chips kept the lights on, but Cuda, the long shot margin.

00:19:54:22 - 00:19:59:20

Speaker 2

Killing bet created inevitability. You see the same.

00:19:59:20 - 00:20:01:18

Christian Soschner

Patterns in other trends.

00:20:01:18 - 00:20:09:20

Christian Soschner

Amazon went from being an online bookstore to AWS, the backbone of cloud computing.

00:20:09:20 - 00:20:21:22

Christian Soschner

Microsoft went from the office suit to Azure and artificial intelligence. Great companies don't just ship features.

00:20:21:24 - 00:20:22:21

Speaker 2

They create.

00:20:22:21 - 00:20:40:03

Christian Soschner

Categories. They disrupt themselves before someone else does. So when is it we found the self mask? What's your Cuda? What's your most in the future? In the next ten years? What's the crazy long term bet you're making?

00:20:40:07 - 00:20:45:18

Speaker 2

The one only you believe in. Because if all I hear.

00:20:45:18 - 00:20:48:16

Christian Soschner

Are incremental features and wired, they are.

00:20:48:16 - 00:20:54:18

Speaker 2

Slightly better than what their competitors are doing. And the big incumbents.

00:20:54:18 - 00:20:59:21

Christian Soschner

I already know how the story ends. The company will start. The moment.

00:20:59:23 - 00:21:00:15

Speaker 2

Competition.

00:21:00:15 - 00:21:05:14

Christian Soschner

Catches up. So here are my three coaching questions for you.

00:21:05:16 - 00:21:07:16

Speaker 2

Are you building Inevitabilities.

00:21:07:16 - 00:21:08:14

Christian Soschner

Or just.

00:21:08:14 - 00:21:13:04

Speaker 2

Shipping features? Do you ship good enough.

00:21:13:04 - 00:21:21:14

Christian Soschner

Products to learn fast or are you paralyzed chasing perfection like 3D effects?

00:21:21:16 - 00:21:37:01

Christian Soschner

And the third one? What's your Cuda? The long term bet. Only you are crazy enough to make. The innovator's dilemma will come for you for sure. The only question is whether you will fall into it.

00:21:37:01 - 00:21:40:01

Speaker 2

Like into or build the future.

00:21:40:02 - 00:21:42:19

Christian Soschner

No one else is brave enough to chase.

00:21:42:23 - 00:21:44:01

Christian Soschner

Lesson number four I.

00:21:44:01 - 00:21:44:12

Speaker 2

Lead.

00:21:44:12 - 00:21:47:00

Christian Soschner

With context and not control.

00:21:47:00 - 00:22:09:18

Christian Soschner

As companies scale, most CEOs fall into the same trap. They try to control everything. Every decision runs through them. Every approver needs to stamp. And the result? Speed dies and innovation starts. Jensen Huang flipped the script. Instead of control.

00:22:09:18 - 00:22:10:02

Speaker 2

He built.

00:22:10:02 - 00:22:13:07

Christian Soschner

Systems of context, turning thousands.

00:22:13:07 - 00:22:15:16

Speaker 2

Of Nvidia employees into decisive.

00:22:15:16 - 00:22:16:19

Christian Soschner

Operators.

00:22:16:21 - 00:22:18:19

Speaker 2

Each acting like the CEO.

00:22:18:19 - 00:22:21:21

Christian Soschner

Of their own account. And that's how Nvidia.

00:22:21:21 - 00:22:23:15

Speaker 2

Scaled its startup speed by.

00:22:23:15 - 00:22:26:24

Christian Soschner

Growing into a $4 trillion company.

00:22:27:02 - 00:22:46:22

Christian Soschner

Two management practices captured this perfectly. First, the top five email system every week, from executives down to engineers and Nvidia employees, send a short note listing their top five priorities and market observations. Read more about it on.

00:22:46:22 - 00:22:49:20

Speaker 2

Page 168. In the book.

00:22:49:22 - 00:22:56:06

Christian Soschner

And Jensen reads all of those emails. This creates what he calls a mind.

00:22:56:06 - 00:22:57:12

Speaker 2

Meld with the company.

00:22:57:18 - 00:22:58:03

Christian Soschner

Real.

00:22:58:03 - 00:22:59:15

Speaker 2

Time visibility into what.

00:22:59:15 - 00:23:01:22

Christian Soschner

Matters. Without endless layers of.

00:23:01:22 - 00:23:04:01

Speaker 2

Reporting or meetings.

00:23:04:01 - 00:23:10:22

Christian Soschner

And the second is the pilot in command model borrowed from aviation. It makes one person explicitly.

00:23:10:22 - 00:23:11:11

Speaker 2

Accountable.

00:23:11:11 - 00:23:15:04

Christian Soschner

For each project. No diffusion of.

00:23:15:04 - 00:23:17:24

Speaker 2

Responsibility, no hiding behind teams.

00:23:18:01 - 00:23:23:12

Christian Soschner

The pilot in command owns the outcome. Just as a captain owns a flat.

00:23:23:14 - 00:23:24:11

Speaker 2

No matter how many.

00:23:24:11 - 00:23:27:02

Christian Soschner

Copilots are on board.

00:23:27:04 - 00:23:31:05

Speaker 2

Together, these systems create clarity without micromanagement.

00:23:31:07 - 00:23:35:03

Christian Soschner

People know what matters and they know who owns it.

00:23:35:03 - 00:23:35:21

Christian Soschner

This is code.

00:23:35:21 - 00:23:36:22

Speaker 2

For any company.

00:23:36:22 - 00:23:42:04

Christian Soschner

Moving from Syriza toward IPO. Growth means complexity.

00:23:42:06 - 00:23:44:04

Speaker 2

More people, more meetings.

00:23:44:06 - 00:23:46:00

Christian Soschner

More politics.

00:23:46:02 - 00:23:49:14

Speaker 2

If you don't build systems for clarity, you drown.

00:23:49:15 - 00:23:54:23

Christian Soschner

Temporary accuracy. Huang's method shows the alternative.

00:23:55:00 - 00:23:55:21

Speaker 2

Hire key.

00:23:55:22 - 00:23:57:04

Christian Soschner

Players and train.

00:23:57:04 - 00:23:58:02

Speaker 2

Your players.

00:23:58:02 - 00:23:59:10

Christian Soschner

In two ways.

00:23:59:12 - 00:23:59:24

Speaker 2

Give them.

00:23:59:24 - 00:24:03:10

Christian Soschner

Context, not constant instructions.

00:24:03:12 - 00:24:04:22

Speaker 2

Demand accountability.

00:24:05:02 - 00:24:22:00

Christian Soschner

But pair it with trust. It's how special forces operate. Small allied teams empowered by mission clarity. Huang assigned to Nvidia's organization to work the same way. So we now work. We found the self mask. Would your team.

00:24:22:00 - 00:24:23:19

Speaker 2

Still act decisively?

00:24:23:19 - 00:24:32:06

Christian Soschner

If you disappeared for a month? If the answer is no, then you're over. Controlling your company.

00:24:32:06 - 00:24:32:17

Speaker 2

Depends.

00:24:32:17 - 00:24:47:13

Christian Soschner

On you instead of its operating system. Context replaces control, and that's how you scale without losing speak. So here are my three coaching questions for you. What's your top five system? How do.

00:24:47:13 - 00:24:49:04

Speaker 2

You create clarity without.

00:24:49:04 - 00:24:59:02

Christian Soschner

Bottlenecks? Where are you over controlling instead of setting context with your team, act decisively.

00:24:59:03 - 00:25:02:24

Speaker 2

If you disappeared for a month.

00:25:03:01 - 00:25:05:24

Christian Soschner

Jensen Huang doesn't try to be everywhere.

00:25:06:01 - 00:25:09:14

Speaker 2

He built systems that scale his leadership. He leads with.

00:25:09:14 - 00:25:11:17

Christian Soschner

Context, not control. Instead. Why?

00:25:11:17 - 00:25:12:19

Speaker 2

Nvidia keeps moving.

00:25:12:19 - 00:25:18:14

Christian Soschner

Like a startup. Even as one of the most valuable companies on planet Earth.

00:25:18:18 - 00:25:25:17

Christian Soschner

Here is lesson number five don't just sell the product. Sell division. A product.

00:25:25:17 - 00:25:26:13

Speaker 2

Can be a.

00:25:26:13 - 00:25:27:04

Christian Soschner

Marvel.

00:25:27:04 - 00:25:28:04

Speaker 2

Of engineering.

00:25:28:06 - 00:25:30:13

Christian Soschner

And still fail.

00:25:30:13 - 00:25:41:13

Christian Soschner

Why does that happen? Because a market doesn't buy features. It buys a story. The greatest innovations aren't just built.

00:25:41:14 - 00:25:44:16

Speaker 2

They are branded into existence.

00:25:44:18 - 00:25:46:09

Christian Soschner

This is the fifth lesson from.

00:25:46:09 - 00:25:47:06

Speaker 2

The Nvidia way.

00:25:47:09 - 00:26:00:00

Christian Soschner

And it's a masterclass in market creation. In the late 90s, the graphics card market was a mess of confusing and competing terms. Jensen Huang knew that technical.

00:26:00:00 - 00:26:00:23

Speaker 2

Specifications.

00:26:00:23 - 00:26:02:24

Christian Soschner

Alone would not sell a chip.

00:26:02:24 - 00:26:08:04

Christian Soschner

He needed a simple, powerful message to stand out. His marketing.

00:26:08:04 - 00:26:08:16

Speaker 2

Team came.

00:26:08:16 - 00:26:11:12

Christian Soschner

Up with a bold new term.

00:26:11:14 - 00:26:12:24

Speaker 2

The graphic.

00:26:13:01 - 00:26:20:17

Christian Soschner

Processing Unit, or short GPU. At the time, the hardware.

00:26:20:17 - 00:26:23:02

Speaker 2

Didn't fully meet the technical definition of.

00:26:23:02 - 00:26:24:08

Christian Soschner

The term.

00:26:24:10 - 00:26:30:08

Speaker 2

The engineers at Nvidia were skeptical. But marketing executive Dan we've already pushed the name.

00:26:30:08 - 00:26:30:23

Christian Soschner

Forward.

00:26:30:24 - 00:26:31:22

Speaker 2

Saying.

00:26:31:24 - 00:26:32:15

Christian Soschner

We decided.

00:26:32:15 - 00:26:33:15

Speaker 2

To take a leap.

00:26:33:15 - 00:26:36:05

Christian Soschner

Make it stretch that this is.

00:26:36:05 - 00:26:38:01

Speaker 2

A GPU.

00:26:38:01 - 00:26:40:00

Christian Soschner

He also made a standing decision.

00:26:40:05 - 00:26:41:06

Speaker 2

He did not.

00:26:41:06 - 00:26:45:07

Christian Soschner

Trademark the term. He wanted other companies to use it to.

00:26:45:07 - 00:26:49:22

Speaker 2

Turn the GPU from a product name into a new category.

00:26:49:22 - 00:26:54:04

Christian Soschner

Entirely, and the game worked.

00:26:54:06 - 00:27:01:08

Speaker 2

The GPU became an industry standard, with Nvidia positioned as its creator and leader.

00:27:01:10 - 00:27:05:07

Christian Soschner

And as the book notes, Hyper Ball would become reality.

00:27:05:07 - 00:27:06:20

Speaker 2

The GPU moniker became an.

00:27:06:20 - 00:27:08:06

Christian Soschner

Industry standard and helped.

00:27:08:06 - 00:27:09:09

Speaker 2

Nvidia sell.

00:27:09:10 - 00:27:10:10

Christian Soschner

Hundreds of.

00:27:10:10 - 00:27:11:04

Speaker 2

Millions of.

00:27:11:04 - 00:27:13:21

Christian Soschner

Cards in the ensuing decades

00:27:13:21 - 00:27:14:13

Christian Soschner

by branding a.

00:27:14:13 - 00:27:18:15

Speaker 2

New category. Nvidia didn't have to compete with anyone else.

00:27:18:17 - 00:27:21:18

Christian Soschner

They were creating a market of their own.

00:27:21:18 - 00:27:25:15

Christian Soschner

And this is one of the most overlooked founders kids. Markets don't.

00:27:25:15 - 00:27:27:19

Speaker 2

Follow features. They follow.

00:27:27:19 - 00:27:30:16

Christian Soschner

Narratives. A founder's job is to.

00:27:30:16 - 00:27:32:00

Speaker 2

Brand inevitability.

00:27:32:00 - 00:27:36:24

Christian Soschner

Not just specifications. When you define a category.

00:27:37:03 - 00:27:38:16

Speaker 2

You are not just building a.

00:27:38:16 - 00:27:39:05

Christian Soschner

Product.

00:27:39:07 - 00:27:41:08

Speaker 2

You are teaching a market to think.

00:27:41:08 - 00:27:42:23

Christian Soschner

In your terms.

00:27:42:23 - 00:27:43:18

Christian Soschner

And this is what.

00:27:43:18 - 00:27:44:23

Speaker 2

Amazon did with.

00:27:45:00 - 00:27:45:24

Christian Soschner

AWS.

00:27:46:01 - 00:27:46:21

Speaker 2

They did not.

00:27:46:21 - 00:27:48:23

Christian Soschner

Just sell servers.

00:27:49:00 - 00:27:51:21

Speaker 2

They branded the inevitability of the cloud.

00:27:51:23 - 00:27:52:12

Christian Soschner

It's what.

00:27:52:12 - 00:27:54:10

Speaker 2

Tesla did with its mission.

00:27:54:10 - 00:27:59:02

Christian Soschner

To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. And it's.

00:27:59:02 - 00:28:01:00

Speaker 2

What Nvidia did by selling the chip.

00:28:01:00 - 00:28:01:12

Christian Soschner

Us the.

00:28:01:12 - 00:28:02:13

Speaker 2

Brain of.

00:28:02:13 - 00:28:03:08

Christian Soschner

The future.

00:28:03:08 - 00:28:03:22

Christian Soschner

Founders who.

00:28:03:22 - 00:28:04:08

Speaker 2

Defined.

00:28:04:08 - 00:28:06:17

Christian Soschner

Categories play a different game.

00:28:06:19 - 00:28:07:21

Speaker 2

They don't compete.

00:28:07:24 - 00:28:16:10

Christian Soschner

For shelf space. They expand the shelf itself for investors. This is the lens. Look for founders who sell.

00:28:16:10 - 00:28:17:10

Speaker 2

Inevitability.

00:28:17:10 - 00:28:25:05

Christian Soschner

Not just incremental products. I have learned that the power of a single word or phrase is immeasurable.

00:28:25:05 - 00:28:27:12

Speaker 2

The narrative you create for your company will.

00:28:27:12 - 00:28:28:18

Christian Soschner

Determine whether you are.

00:28:28:18 - 00:28:29:24

Speaker 2

Seen as a commodity.

00:28:30:04 - 00:28:33:13

Christian Soschner

Or a category creator. Too many founders are.

00:28:33:13 - 00:28:36:09

Speaker 2

Afraid to make a bold claim, or to be too.

00:28:36:09 - 00:28:37:23

Christian Soschner

Far ahead of the market.

00:28:37:23 - 00:28:39:01

Speaker 2

But the Nvidia way.

00:28:39:01 - 00:28:40:13

Christian Soschner

Reminds me that a little bit of.

00:28:40:13 - 00:28:41:03

Speaker 2

Marketing.

00:28:41:03 - 00:28:42:10

Christian Soschner

Embellishment, backed.

00:28:42:10 - 00:28:43:18

Speaker 2

By a strong vision.

00:28:43:20 - 00:28:44:20

Christian Soschner

Can transform a.

00:28:44:20 - 00:28:45:13

Speaker 2

Company from.

00:28:45:13 - 00:28:48:23

Christian Soschner

A competitor into a pioneer. I remember.

00:28:48:23 - 00:28:49:23

Speaker 2

Sitting with a group of.

00:28:49:23 - 00:28:54:12

Christian Soschner

Investors once watching two startups pitch back to back.

00:28:54:14 - 00:28:56:11

Speaker 2

One show the details.

00:28:56:11 - 00:29:02:16

Christian Soschner

Slide deck with benchmarks, performance graphs, and comparisons to competitors. The ad spent.

00:29:02:16 - 00:29:02:24

Speaker 2

50.

00:29:02:24 - 00:29:22:20

Christian Soschner

Minutes describing a future world that couldn't exist without that technology. And guess which one we kept talking about over dinner? It was not the product with the specifications. It was the big bold vision. Specs. Fade. Story stick. So let's turn.

00:29:23:01 - 00:29:23:16

Speaker 2

This.

00:29:23:16 - 00:29:27:12

Christian Soschner

Insight from lesson five into action. Ask yourself and.

00:29:27:12 - 00:29:28:15

Speaker 2

Your team these three.

00:29:28:15 - 00:29:30:02

Christian Soschner

Questions.

00:29:30:04 - 00:29:35:18

Speaker 2

Are you defining a category or are you just competing in one?

00:29:35:20 - 00:29:39:13

Christian Soschner

What one word or phrase should the market associate.

00:29:39:13 - 00:29:43:05

Speaker 2

With your company?

00:29:43:07 - 00:29:44:11

Speaker 2

How are you teaching.

00:29:44:11 - 00:29:49:05

Christian Soschner

Investors and customers to think in your terms?

00:29:49:07 - 00:29:50:08

Speaker 2

Nvidia didn't just.

00:29:50:08 - 00:29:52:20

Christian Soschner

Sell a chip. They sold the story.

00:29:52:20 - 00:29:59:11

Speaker 2

Of what the chip could be. Your product may be great, but your vision is what will make you a leader.

00:29:59:11 - 00:30:37:20

Christian Soschner

Here is lesson number six. Culture outruns capital and the competition. Money buys you time, but culture decides whether you waste it. And this is where most founders fool themselves. They raise millions, sometimes billions, and assume the capital itself is game out. But the truth is brutal. Capital without culture only prolongs the climb. Culture without capital that can turn even a small startup into a check.

00:30:37:21 - 00:30:38:10

Christian Soschner

Or not.

00:30:38:10 - 00:31:10:00

Christian Soschner

And Nvidia proved it time and time again. So in the late 90s, Nvidia's fiercest competitor was a company called 3D effects. On paper, 3D effects should text one. They hit cash. Early market leadership and engineering brilliance. But instead, the company politics, endless debates, perfectionism, and what style Kim calls feature creep. What it is you find on page 138.

00:31:10:00 - 00:31:34:21

Christian Soschner

In their book, they aimed for flawless products but missed deadlines. The market simply moved on. Nvidia, by contrast, built for Jensen Huang called a speed of light culture. The rules were clear. Move fast. Give and receive blunt feedback. Kill politics. Reward performance with equity, not just salary.

00:31:34:21 - 00:31:38:19

Christian Soschner

Every employee was expected to act like a no no.

00:31:38:19 - 00:31:45:21

Christian Soschner

Those who excelled got real equity stakes shares that could change their lives if the company succeeded.

00:31:45:23 - 00:31:51:12

Christian Soschner

Those who underperformed couldn't hide behind titles or in teams.

00:31:51:12 - 00:32:19:07

Christian Soschner

As one executive recalled at Nvidia, accountability was total. You could fail, but you could not be political. And the outcome? Nvidia out executed three DFCs, acquired them for scraps in 2000 and never looked back. Culture, not capital, decided to race. And this is why culture is the true operating system of a company.

00:32:19:09 - 00:32:43:07

Christian Soschner

Money buys runway, but only culture creates velocity. It's culture that determines whether decisions happen in a week or drag on for months. Whether employees share information or hoard it better, people stay late because they are inspired and willing, or because they are afraid.

00:32:43:07 - 00:32:55:12

Christian Soschner

Look at the greats. ML since day one, urgency. Netflix. Freedom and responsibility. Tesla's maniac focus on mission.

00:32:55:14 - 00:33:08:14

Christian Soschner

The cultures, not their bank accounts. Build empires for founders between series and IPO. This is the critical shift. You are not just building products. You're building habits to scale.

00:33:08:14 - 00:33:15:06

Christian Soschner

For VCs, the lesson is simple did it change the culture, not just the capital?

00:33:15:06 - 00:33:18:21

Christian Soschner

When I walk into a company, I can feel the culture before I see the numbers.

00:33:18:22 - 00:33:29:24

Christian Soschner

It's in how people talk to each other, how quickly they make decisions, whether they solve problems or store them, and especially what they say about other people when they are not in the room.

00:33:29:24 - 00:33:46:18

Christian Soschner

And here is the litmus test of meals. If I interviewed your ex-employees, what would they say about your culture? That answer is more predictive of your future than any spreadsheet, because people don't remember your pitch deck.

00:33:46:19 - 00:34:11:24

Christian Soschner

They remember whether your culture made them better or burned them out. And eventually the market reflects that truth. So here are my three coaching questions for you to close out this chapter. Do we reward ownership with equity or just salaries? Where does politics still slow down decisions in your company?

00:34:11:24 - 00:34:17:24

Christian Soschner

Is your culture designed to produce excellence or comfort?

00:34:18:01 - 00:34:31:20

Christian Soschner

Capital gets you a chance. Culture decides the outcome. Nvidia didn't just outspend its rivals, it out executed them. And in the long run, culture, it runs everything.

00:34:31:23 - 00:35:05:17

Christian Soschner

Lesson number seven build urgency into the system. Success is dangerous. The moment you feel safe is the moment you are already in decline. And that's why Jensen Huang has spent three decades repeating the same mantra to his team. We are only 30 days away from going out of business. Even when Nvidia was soaring, he spoke as if they were on the brink of collapse because complacency, not competition, is what kills great companies.

00:35:05:19 - 00:35:39:19

Christian Soschner

Huang's paranoia was paranoia at all. It was strategy, he told employees. We are just one bad decision away from obsolescence. In this mindset shaped how Nvidia reinvest it. When analysts backed him to focus on short term profit, he doubled down on Kuda. Knowing full well it was dragging margins from 45% to 35%. The bet nearly broke the company, but it forced reinvention.

00:35:39:21 - 00:35:53:18

Christian Soschner

And that's the pattern. And video never rests. There are early failures with envy one and envy two nearly kills them. Ten year collapse during the 2008 financial crisis crashed their stock 80%.

00:35:53:18 - 00:36:02:24

Christian Soschner

But each time, they acted as if survival was on the line and reinvented themselves before the market forced them to end the result.

00:36:03:22 - 00:36:12:22

Christian Soschner

When I exploded, Nvidia wasn't scrambling. They were already there because urgency was baked into the operating system.

00:36:13:02 - 00:36:40:14

Christian Soschner

And here is the brutal truth for series A to IPO leaders. Your mode is not permanent. Your product is not safe, and your biggest threat is not the competitor. It's your own complacency, especially when you are winning. The companies that fail are the ones that start believing that past wins guarantee their future. Think of Intel stuck stacking quarterly thinking missing GPUs and smartphones.

00:36:40:16 - 00:37:12:14

Christian Soschner

Think IBM losing ground to nimbler software giants. Nvidia stayed paranoid. They reinvested before validation, bled before the payoff, and acted like a startup. Even when they brought the incumbent, that's what moats really are painful, long term investments that competitors are too comfortable to make. I have sat in boardrooms where leaders spoke broadly about the moat, only to lose it within two years.

00:37:12:16 - 00:37:36:16

Christian Soschner

Why? Because they stopped asking the hard questions. They stopped moving with urgency. The Nvidia way is a reminder. Urgency is not about panic. It's about institutionalizing the hangar of a startup. It's about running a $4 trillion company with the discipline of a series, A team that thinks it has 30 days left until they run out of cash.

00:37:36:16 - 00:37:39:07

Christian Soschner

let's turn this insight into action.

00:37:39:13 - 00:37:43:22

Christian Soschner

Ask yourself and your leadership team these three questions

00:37:43:22 - 00:38:17:03

Christian Soschner

do. You run your company as if it has 30 days of life left? What's the one bad decision that could endure tomorrow? Are you building a product or remote that reshapes the industry? Complacency kills. Urgency builds. Nvidia did not win because they was the smartest or the safest. They won because they stayed hungry, paranoid, and willing to reinvent long before anyone else thought it was necessary.

00:38:17:05 - 00:38:30:11

Christian Soschner

If your company feels comfortable today, that's your warning sign. Urgency is not optional. It's the difference between becoming and video or becoming history.

00:38:30:13 - 00:38:53:13

Christian Soschner

So here we are. My key takeaways from the book. We have covered a lot of ground today, from a reform school in Kentucky to a boardroom at Sequoia Capital. We have walked through the key moments that forged the Nvidia way, but now, how do you take these seven lessons and turn them into a playbook you can use tomorrow in your own company?

00:38:53:15 - 00:39:14:07

Christian Soschner

If I could distill this entire book into a three part framework, it would be this. First, build a resilient mindset. Second, create a new category. And third, design a high velocity culture. Let's unpack each one.

00:39:14:07 - 00:39:27:21

Christian Soschner

The first takeaway is to build a resilient mindset. It's the most foundational lesson. And it starts with you. You must embrace the paradox that greatness is not intelligence.

00:39:27:21 - 00:39:52:10

Christian Soschner

It's forged for pain and suffering. Your job is to stop blaming hard beginnings and start seeing them as your advantage. Because when you can take a hit and keep moving. Investors don't just see a good idea. They see a fighter. And the reputation you built for that persistence is your most valuable currency because it will get you in the door when your pitch fades.

00:39:52:10 - 00:40:30:05

Christian Soschner

The second takeaway for me is to create a new category. Don't just ship features, brand and inevitability. The Innovator's Dilemma will come for you, and your only defense is to be building the future. No one else is brave enough to chase. This is what Nvidia did with Cuda. They took a long shot marching killing path that looked like a science project, but it created an entirely new market for parallel computing that they now dominate in 2025.

00:40:30:07 - 00:40:34:18

Christian Soschner

Your product may be great, but your vision is what will make your shadow.

00:40:34:18 - 00:40:57:13

Christian Soschner

And finally, my third takeaway is to design a high velocity culture. Your culture is your company's real operating system. Money buys you time, but culture buys you velocity. You must lead with context and not control and empower your team to act like CEOs of their own accounts.

00:40:57:15 - 00:41:24:01

Christian Soschner

This allows you to scale at startup speed long after you have left the garage. And by rewarding your team with equity and building a culture that ruthlessly kills politics, you can create a mode that outruns any competitor. And these three pillars mindset, market, and culture at a non-obvious level that turned a small chip company into one of the most important businesses on earth.

00:41:24:04 - 00:41:49:06

Christian Soschner

As you know, I review a lot of books on this show. Some are good, some are great, but very few are essential. The Nvidia way is one of those essential reads for any founder or investor. I loved this book from the first page to the last. It is not just a historical walkthrough, it's a masterclass in business insights, showing what to look for in a company.

00:41:49:08 - 00:42:26:24

Christian Soschner

If you want to increase the odds of building a long term success story, what struck me most is the central idea. Resilience is not luck. It's engineered from hiring to culture to compensation. Nvidia designed a system to attract the best rewards. The bold and compound Trust. The seven lessons we have covered today highlight that focus relentless pursuit of talent, a culture of excellence over politics, and the discipline to prioritize time and compete on value, not price.

00:42:27:06 - 00:42:49:18

Christian Soschner

But there is a tension here. This is a culture of extreme commitment. It's a streetfighter mentality, running as if the company has only 30 days left to live. It asks a lot from people and it's definitely not for everyone and that's important. Many great businesses succeed without bland feedback, so viral urgency or 80 hour workweeks and that's fine.

00:42:49:18 - 00:43:10:20

Christian Soschner

But for those who aim to change the world, this book argues that Nvidia's level of intensity may be necessary. Nvidia was venture backed, and it shows what it takes to move from 0 to 4 trillion in market cap to often found the speech to be cease without realizing what investors are really seeking.

00:43:10:22 - 00:43:23:07

Christian Soschner

They are not looking for an ordinary business case with work life balance built in. They are looking for Formula One drivers, teams with the ambition and stamina to race at the very highest. Collaborating entrepreneurship.

00:43:23:07 - 00:43:30:23

Christian Soschner

Kyle Kim captures this with clarity. What it means to build for the podium 30 years out.

00:43:31:00 - 00:43:44:19

Christian Soschner

This book won't tell you to work 80 hours a week, but it will make you reflect on what you are willing to sacrifice and what it really takes to build a generation and company. For that reason alone, it is a must read.

00:43:45:02 - 00:44:10:08

Christian Soschner

So this book is more than a biography. It's a playbook. If you found this lessons valuable and wants to for system with all the context, anecdotes and leadership tools, I can't recommend it enough. You can get the book and support this podcast by using the link in the show notes. I'd also love to hear your personal reflections. What lesson resonated with you the most?

00:44:10:10 - 00:44:19:16

Christian Soschner

What's your Cuda? You can find me on x.com and LinkedIn. Send me a message or share this episode with your key takeaway.

00:44:19:16 - 00:44:36:15

Christian Soschner

And don't forget to tag me so that I can respond to your post. Every signal you sent makes the show stronger and helps me bring on more world class guests to share their real world lessons. And if you're a founder who's serious about applying these lessons to your own company, let's talk.

00:44:36:15 - 00:44:40:07

Christian Soschner

I help teams put this into action one lesson at a time,

00:44:40:09 - 00:44:50:19

Christian Soschner

And next time I will be breaking down a book that will change how you think about innovation by showing why the riskiest ideas are often the safest bets. Stay tuned.

00:44:50:22 - 00:45:06:24

Christian Soschner

And that's a wrap on the Nvidia way. One of the sharpest operating manuals for modern leadership I've ever read. Thank you for listening, reflecting and growing with me