Transcription
People with very high expectations have very low resilience. And unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don't know how to teach it to you except for I hope suffering happens to you. Learn to embrace failure. We've been taught all of our lives to not be a failure. So why am I standing here wishing you embrace failing? Avoiding failure is not the same as achieving success. In fact, finding failure is a discovery of sorts. It's a discovery of yet another way how not to do something. Failure is often on the path to success.
It was for Nvidia. Nvidia failed, failed from the very beginning. We found fame early on as a failed startup that was surely to go out of business. And the fundamental technology we founded the company on was a rendering technology called forward texture mapping. It doesn't matter what it stands for. It doesn't matter what it means. Well, our approach was flawed. Inversed, which is the exact opposite, rather than forward was the better solution. We were just wrong. After 2 million, uh, two years and millions of dollars later, we had to change our course. We failed.
Now, how could anything good come from being completely wrong, from being a complete failure? Well, it turns out because we were so different and didn't work with standards, we had to evangelize our unique architecture directly to software developers and game developers. And in working with the game creators, we adopted their sensibility. The tech, that technology matters, but it's really about fun and beautiful imageries. We learned that we were not just a chip or a technology company, and Nvidia was really a company at the intersection of technology and art. So even after we changed course and became the world's last among many 3D companies all using inverse texture mapping, we retained that sensibility that games is an art form and that we need to create technologies that allow the game, game developers to artistically express their imagination and that purpose wasn't just to build a chip, but to create an experience that was magical and delightful. This perspective led to fundamental differences in how we approached our work and led to many inventions that changed the computer industry altogether. It all started because we chose the wrong technology, because we failed. So my second wish to you is embrace failure.
If up to all the customers, industry analysts, other companies in the computer industry, Nvidia shouldn't even be here today. We were already dead last among many. The world surely didn't need yet another PC graphics company, and the space was littered with tens of competitors leapfrogging each other every month. All of the conventional wisdom was true historically, but we believed completely irrelevant to the future that we saw. We were young, naive, idealistic. We didn't know what we didn't know about building the industry and about building our company. We didn't know that it was impossible. Our fresh and innocent perspective, unencumbered by conventional wisdom, allows allowed us to see what 30, 40, 50 other companies could not and did not. We wanted to integrate GPUs into every computer. And so we started to combine our GPUs with motherboard chips and we launched a fabulous integrated graphics chip at the time for AMD CPUs. Our chipset was an instant success. But then all of a sudden AMD wanted to control all of the technology in the PC and we wanted to stay independent. So they purchased ATI and no longer needed us. We turned to Intel. That probably wasn't a great idea, but we turned to Intel and negotiated a license to connect to Intel CPUs. Apple was excited about what we were building and asked us to work on a new computer with them, which became the first MacBook Air. Well, Intel saw what happened and decided they didn't want us to do that anymore. And so, they terminated our agreement. Well, we pivoted again and this time we went and licensed ARM and we built a low power SOC, a mobile SOC, the world's first SOC that was essentially a computer, a full operating computer and it was incredible. Our chip excited Google and they asked us to work on a new device which turned out to have been the Android mobile device. Well, Qualcomm decided they didn't want us to do that and so they didn't want us to connect to their modems and it's hard to build a modem, a mobile device without being connected to a mo modem and there were no other LTE modem companies. So, we had to exit the mobile device market.
Well, this happened practically on a year rhythm and we would build something, it would be incredibly successful, generate enormous amounts of excitement and then one year later we were kicked out of those markets. Well, with no more markets to turn to, we decided to build something where we are sure there are no customers. Because one of the things you can definitely guarantee is where there are no customers, there are also no competitors and nobody cares about you. And so we chose a market with no customers, a 0 billion dollar market, and it was robotics. More importantly, we developed agility and a culture of resilience. One setback after another, we shook it off and skated to the next opportunity. Each time we gained skills and strengthened our character. We strengthened our corporate character. Our company is really hard to distract and really hard to discourage. And no setback, no setback that comes our way doesn't look like an opportunity these days. The world is uncertain as Richard Feynman would say and the world can be unfair and deal with, deal you with tough cards. Swiftly shake it off. I hope you will see setbacks as new opportunities. Your pain and suffering will strengthen your character, your resilience, and agility. And they are the ultimate superpowers. Of all of the things that I value most about my abilities, intelligence is not top of that list. My ability to endure pain and suffering. My abil, my ability to work on something for a very, very long period of time. My ability to handle setbacks and see the opportunity just around the corner. I consider to be my superpowers and I hope they're yours.
I think one of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations and, and I mean that. Most of the Stanford graduates have very high expectations. You, you, and you deserve to have, have high expectations because you came from a great school. You were very successful. You're top of your class. Obviously, you were able to pay for tuition and, and then you're graduating from one of the finest institutions on the planet. You're surrounded by other kids that are just incredible. You should have very, you naturally have very high expectations. People with very high expectations have very low resilience. And unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don't know how to teach it to you except for I hope suffering happens to you. And I was fortunate that I grew up with a, with, with my parents providing a condition for us to be successful on the one hand, but there were plenty of opportunities for setbacks and suffering and, and to, to this day I use the word, the phrase pain and suffering inside our company with great glee. And the reason, and I mean that, boy, this is going to cause a lot of pain and suffering, and I mean that in a happy way because you want to train, you want to refine the character of your company. You want the, you want greatness out of them and greatness is not intelligence. Greatness comes from character and character isn't formed out of smart people. It's formed out of people who suffered. And so that's a, and so if I could wish upon you, I don't know how to do it for all of you Stanford students. I, I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering. [Music]