Putting CUDA on GeForce was an existential strategic decision that crushed NVIDIA's gross margins and market cap, but it was necessary to build the install base that made the computing platform successful.

14:40After we launched CUDA, I recognized that it was going to add so much cost, but it was something we believed in. You know, our market cap went down to like one and a half billion dollars. And so we were down, we were down there for a while and we clawed our way way back slowly, but we carried CUDA on GeForce. I always say that NVIDIA is the house that

15:05GeForce built, because it was GeForce that took CUDA out to everybody. Researchers, scientists, they discovered CUDA on GeForce because they were all, you know... Many of 'em were gamers. Many of them built their own PCs anyways. In a university lab, many of them built clusters themselves, you know, using PC components. And, and so that, you know, that's kind of how we got going. - And then that became the platform and the foundation for the deep learning revolution.

15:35- That was also another great, great observation. Yeah. - That existential moment, do you remember... Like, what were those meetings like? What were those discussions like, deciding as a company, risking everything? - Well I had to make it clear to the board what we're trying to do, and the management team knew our gross margins were gonna get crushed. So you could imagine a world where GeForce would carry

16:04the burden of CUDA and none of the gamers would appreciate it and none of the gamers would pay for it. You know, they only pay certain price and it doesn't matter what your cost is. And so the... You know, we, we increased our cost by 50% and that con- consumed... And we were a 35% gross margin company, and so it, it was a... It was quite a difficult decision to make. But

16:28you could imagine that someday this would go into workstations and it would go into supercomputers and, and in those segments, maybe we can capture more margin. so you could, you could reason your way into being able to afford this, But it still took... It took a decade. - But that, but that's more of, like, conversation with the board convincing them, but you psychologically- ... as NVIDIA's continued to make bold bets