If we look at the current market, NVIDIA is the absolute engine of artificial intelligence, a financial colossus that exceeds the GDP of some countries. However, their story was almost over before it even began.
A fragment of an interview with Jensen Huang, which has gone viral on the social network X, has revealed one of the great stories in the technology industry.
Sega, the legendary video game company, was the guardian angel that prevented the closure of NVIDIA in the early 2000sbut he also starred in a financial miscalculation that will be remembered for decades.
And in the 90s, NVIDIA was not the hardware benchmark that we know today; It was a company with bad decisions and a practically empty cash register. They were on the verge of bankruptcy and their future hung by a thread.
In this critical scenario, the agreement to develop the graphics chip for the Dreamcast console appeared. Although Huang’s company did not end up manufacturing the final component due to compatibility issues, something unusual happened.
The CEO of Sega decided to invest $5 million in NVIDIA, even though the joint project had not come to fruition as expected. The notable thing here is that it was not a decision based on metrics, but on intuition and values.
From 5 million to 300… and then nothing
In exchange for this injection of capital, Sega received a package of shares, where the move seemed masterful when, shortly after, they decided to sell their participation for about 300 million dollars.
And it is to convert An investment of 5 million in 300 is a resounding success in a market as volatile as the technological one. No one has a crystal ball, and at the time, that liquidity was critical to their own operations.
It seemed like the perfect business, making enormous profits in record time and ensuring immediate profits. However, a short time later came the blow of reality that hurts when looking at the current price.
If Sega had been patient enough to keep those shares—or even just a significant portion of them—in its portfolio, Today that share would be worth a billion dollars (one trillion on the American scale).
The company today would not just be a game developer with a great legacy; It would have enough capital to buy its former rivals, such as Sony or Nintendo, if it wanted to.
Market volatility
Far from showing arrogance or mockery for the mistake of his former partners, Jensen Huang’s attitude when remembering the anecdote is one of absolute gratitude. He openly acknowledges that without that initial money and the trust placed in him when no one else did, NVIDIA would not exist today.
This leaves us with a fundamental lesson about patience in the world of investment and business. Sega won the battle by making quick money, but lost the strategic war for technological dominance. Sometimes, the best investments are those that are allowed to mature, trusting in the talent and vision that was invested in at the beginning.
Today NVIDIA is a key player in AIits GPUs are present in large data centers and in many machine learning projects, and its market capitalization is among the highest in the technology sector, it is, in general, one of the most important companies in the world.