Jensen Huang

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Jensen Huang is the president and chief executive of Nvidia, a maker of computer processors used in gaming, data centers and driverless cars. The Santa Clara, California-based business had revenue of $27 billion in the year to Jan. 30, 2023. Huang co-founded the company in 1993 and introduced the first graphics processing unit in 1999.

The majority of Huang’s fortune is derived from his stake in Nvidia, a maker of computer processors used in gaming systems and cars. Huang co-founded the Santa Clara, California-based company with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, according to its website.

Huang owns about 3.5% of the company, in his own name and in family trusts, according to the 2023 proxy statement. Unvested restricted stock units aren’t included in this analysis.

The value of the billionaire’s cash investments is based on an analysis of insider transactions, dividends, taxes and market performance.

Bob Sherbin, a spokesperson for Nvidia, declined to comment on the net worth calculation.

Biography

Education: Oregon State University, Stanford University

Huang was born in Taiwan and spent his early childhood there and in Thailand, where unrest prompted his parents to send him to live with relatives in Washington state. Thinking they were sending Huang to a private school, his relatives accidentally enrolled him in the Oneida Baptists Institute, a reform school in rural Kentucky, according to a 2002 Wired profile of the billionaire.

When he was reunited with his family in Oregon, he attended high school in Beaverton and became a nationally ranked table tennis player, according to a profile of Huang on the website of Oregon State University, where he received an undergraduate electrical engineering degree in 1984. Huang earned a master’s degree in the same subject from Stanford University in 1992.

He held jobs in the technology industry before deciding to start Nvidia with friends Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. The company had early success developing computer processors used to power video games, and created the first so-called graphics processing unit in 1999.

Huang has been president and chief executive of Nvidia since its founding in 1993. The company held its initial public offering in 1999.

Milestones

• 1963 Jen-Hsun Huang is born in Taipei, Taiwan.
• 1973 Huang is sent to live in the U.S. with relatives in Tacoma, Washington.
• 1984 Earns degree from electrical engineering from Oregon State University.
• 1992 Receives his masters degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
• 1993 At age 29, founds Nvidia with two friends after a meal at Denny’s.
• 1999 Nvidia introduces the GPU and holds its IPO.
• 2006 CUDA architecture introduced which expands Nvidia chip market beyond gaming.
• 2016 Nvidia annual revenue surpasses $5 billion.