Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Dan’s Biz Bookshelf: ‘The 'NVIDIA Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant’

I just finished The NVIDIA Way by Tae Kim, and let me tell you, this isn’t just a book about a semiconductor company. It’s a book about conviction, stubborn vision, and, most of all, what happens when a leader refuses to think small.

At the center of it all is Jensen Huang. Kim does a masterful job showing us that NVIDIA’s rise wasn’t luck, timing, or some Silicon Valley fairy dust. It was discipline and obsession. It was long-term thinking in a world addicted to quarterly results.

One of the most powerful themes in the book is Huang’s insistence on building for the future, even when the market didn’t yet understand what NVIDIA was building. When the company bet heavily on GPUs for parallel processing, most of the world still thought graphics chips were just for gamers. Huang saw something bigger: accelerated computing. He saw AI before it became cocktail-party conversation.

The lesson that hit me hardest was that NVIDIA didn’t pivot to AI. They prepared for it.

Kim walks us through the CUDA decision, creating a software ecosystem around the hardware. It was bold, risky, and meant years of investment before the payoff was obvious. But that move turned NVIDIA from a chip supplier into a platform company. That was empire thinking.

Another example that stands out is how NVIDIA survived near-death experiences in the early days. Missed product cycles. Brutal competition. Massive risk. Huang pushed the company to operate with what he calls “intellectual honesty.” If something wasn’t working, they said so. If a product failed, they learned from it fast. No ego. Just progress—and leadership.

Kim also shows us how culture became NVIDIA’s secret weapon. High standards, direct feedback, and long hours when necessary. He put a relentless focus on excellence. The company wasn’t built on comfort.

Now let’s talk about conviction. When Wall Street questioned NVIDIA’s R&D spending, Huang doubled down. When competitors dismissed GPUs for AI training, he kept building. When others chased short-term wins, NVIDIA stayed focused on the long game. That kind of discipline is rare, and patience like that is powerful.

What I appreciate most about Kim’s writing is that he doesn’t turn this into a fairy tale. He shows the tension, pressure, internal battles, and even doubt. But through it all, there’s a through-line: Clarity of vision beats reactive management every time.

Who should read this book? I recommend this for entrepreneurs or anyone who leads a company. If you’re building anything that requires patience, courage, and belief in something others don’t yet see, read this book.

The NVIDIA Way isn’t just a story about technology. It’s a case study in what happens when leadership refuses to blink. In business, that’s the whole game.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.

Title: ‘The NVIDIA Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant’
Author: Tae Kim
Publisher: Copyright 2025 W.W. Norton Company
Pages: 269 with notes
Price: $12.73 Amazon Kindle