Iran is poised to ‘quite dramatically’ increase stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium, official saysDirectors of this ASX 200 stock just sold $65 million of shares - The Motley Fool Australia
There are two reasons to write a business book, according to Brad Stone , author of “The Everything Store.” You’re either writing a thriller or a how-to-manual. In “The Nvidia Way,” veteran technology journalist Tae Kim manages to do both. Kim charts the improbable rise of Nvidia from a fledgling three-person ‘90s era graphics chip startup, one of countless others in a crowded and cutthroat field, to the largest and most influential computer company in the world. Kim also lays out the reasons for Nvidia’s success. It wasn’t just that they had talented leaders, good timing, or industry-leading technology. Nvidia succeeded because it cultivates a unique culture of excellence which he dubs “The Nvidia Way.” At the center of this story is CEO Jensen Huang, described by one employee in the book as an “extremely persuasive and extremely hard working” leader, who has been leading the firm and shaping this culture since its founding in 1993. Huang is one of the longest-tenured CEO in the technology industry and one of the few lone founders still running the show. As Kim readily acknowledges, the Nvidia Way is really the Jensen Way. He sets the culture. What is the Nvidia Way? First, hire the best people. When in doubt, go for raw talent over experience. Second, reward performance and compensate your best people very well. Third, demand excellence and accountability from everyone all the time, starting at the top. Huang is a Taiwanese immigrant of humble origin who excelled in math and table tennis and graduated high school at 16. He later befriended Nvidia’s other co-founders, Curtis Priem, who also began programming computers in high school, and Chris Malachowsky, who realized midway through his MCAT exam he didn’t want to be a doctor, in Silicon Valley’s tight-knit community. Over countless coffees at a neighborhood Denny’s, they convinced each other to quit their jobs and start a new company. From day one, Huang was CEO. Priem and Malachowsky are interesting figures, and we get to know them a little, but if the Nvidia story was the Avengers, Huang is Iron Man, the star of the show. Nvidia launched at “the perfect time,” says Kim. By 1993, the demand for graphics chips powering video games like “Doom” was exploding. But despite the favorable market conditions, Nvidia’s first chip, the NV1, was a flop. “Nobody goes to the store to buy a Swiss Army knife. It’s something you get for Christmas” Huang later recounted about the product, which was fatally overengineered. “When we were younger, we sucked at a lot of things, ” says Huang,” adding that Nvidia might have done better if he simply was not around in the first five years. A new chip, the RIVA 128, saved the company. Nvidia even turned a modest profit in its first year. This success would be short-lived. The next half-decade was characterized by both big wins, and large setbacks. “Building a company is a new skill,” Huang admits. Nvidia often found itself on the back foot early on. Designing and launching a graphics card took more than a year, but chip buyers were refreshing their lineup of PCs every six months, meaning no one company could ever stay on top. Huang’s solution: “We’re going to fundamentally restructure the engineering department to line up with the refresh cycles.” This decision changed the chip industry as every other competitor was forced to keep pace or die. Huang calls this “moving at the Speed of Light,” the theoretical limit of how fast anything can travel, to win. A “Star Trek” fan, he was talked out of dubbing this culture of quickness the much geekier “Mycelium Spore Drive.” After a few years, Nvidia began to hit its stride, going public in 1999 and then winning the contract for the first Xbox from Microsoft. Later, Nvidia grabbed 85% of Apple’s entire computer lineup. As the company grew more successful, Huang became obsessed with “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” a concept coined by professor Clayton Christensen, which describes how incumbents are often disrupted by more nimble upstarts. Huang’s fear of getting disrupted drives him. “The only thing that lasts longer than our products is sushi,” he likes to joke. It’s why he’s partial to erasable whiteboards, which “represent the belief that a successful idea, no matter how brilliant, must eventually be erased, and a new one must take its pace.” Nvidia’s first true killer product was the graphical processor unit, or GPU, launched in 2003. The GPU changed the market perception by putting the GPU (the graphics engine) on par with a better-known CPU, or central processing unit. This was more than marketing hyperbole. The new class of chips was programmable, which meant they could be used for a myriad of use cases. At first, Nvidia had no clue just how versatile the GPU truly was. “Really the modern GPU, we kind of stumbled onto,” said Nvidia scientist David Kirk. As it turned out, super powerful graphics engines were great for other kinds of computation, including the nascent field of AI research. In fact, academics credit Nvidia’s GPU with leveling the playing field in research by democratizing computing power. Recognizing the AI opportunity early, Huang declared in 2012, “We need to consider this work as our highest priority.” To make the GPUs easy for non-graphics users to program, Nvidia created a software interface known as CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). Over time, CUDA became the company’s greatest asset. Once you get used to programming chips in one environment, you never want to leave. Nvidia also began aggressively cultivating AI researchers through grants, joint ventures, and partnerships with academia. This decades-long effort helped to effectively create a market for its GPUs. As Nvidia grew, they remained vigilant against the corporate bloat and inertia that kills companies. Huang hates corporate hierarchy. “You want a company that’s as large as necessary to do the job well, but to be as small as possible.” For him, the goal is to have a Vulcan mind meld (another “Star Trek” reference) with his people, where people can share and anticipate each other’s thoughts. Kim’s book leaves readers with the impression the AI age is just getting started. Nvidia, for their part, thinks the entire data center market, made up mostly of CPUs, will need to switch to GPUs, representing more than a trillion dollars in chip purchases. The “big bang” for Nvidia came in 2023, shortly after the release of ChatGPT, when the company beat its revenue estimates by a staggering $4 billion. For some, Nvidia’s rapid ascent to being the world’s largest company was a shock. For anyone paying attention, Kim argues, their eventual success should have been obvious. “It is Jensen’s personal will that has shaped Nvidia,” says Kim, asking what happens when he and the company part ways. That question goes unanswered. For now, Nvidia sits unassailable atop the mountain, surrounded by a cultural moat few can traverse. Alex Tapscott is the author of “Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier” and managing director of the Digital Asset Group, a division of Ninepoint Partners LPFixing the College Football Playoff & Bowl game sponsor trivia | College Football EnquirerSimon Harris swaps politics for dad duties as he gets in Christmas spirit
Board of Regents gives go-ahead for UM college restructure
PHOENIX (AP) — Donald Trump suggested Sunday that his new administration could try to regain control of the Panama Canal that the United States "foolishly" ceded to its Central American ally, contending that shippers are charged "ridiculous" fees to pass through the vital transportation channel linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Panama's conservative president José Raúl Mulino, who was elected in May on a pro-business platform, roundly rejected that notion as an affront to his country's sovereignty. The Republican president-elect's comment came during his first major rally since winning the White House on Nov. 5. He also basked in his return to power as a large audience of conservatives cheered along. It was a display of party unity at odds with a just-concluded budget fight on Capitol Hill, where some GOP lawmakers openly defied their leader's demands. Addressing supporters at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Arizona, Trump pledged that his "dream team Cabinet" would deliver a booming economy, seal U.S. borders and quickly settle wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. "I can proudly proclaim that the Golden Age of America is upon us," Trump said. "There's a spirit that we have now that we didn't have just a short while ago." His appearance capped a four-day pep rally that drew more than 20,000 activists and projected an image of Republican cohesion despite the past week's turbulence in Washington with Trump pulling strings from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as Congress worked to avoid a government shutdown heading into the holidays. House Republicans spiked a bipartisan deal after Trump and Elon Musk, his billionaire ally, expressed their opposition on social media. Budget hawks flouted Trump's demand that they raise the nation's debt ceiling, which would have spared some new rounds of the same fight after he takes office on Jan. 20, with Republicans holding narrow control of the House and Senate. The final agreement did not address the issue and there was no shutdown. Trump, in his remarks in Phoenix, did not mention the congressional drama, though he did reference Musk's growing power. To suggestions that "President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon," Trump made clear, "No, no. That's not happening." "He's not gonna be president," Trump said. The president-elect opened the speech by saying that "we want to try to bring everybody together. We're going to try. We're going to really give it a shot." Then he suggested Democrats have "lost their confidence" and are "befuddled" after the election but eventually will "come over to our side because we want to have them." Atop a list of grievances — some old, some new — was the Panama Canal. "We're being ripped off at the Panama Canal," he said, bemoaning that his country "foolishly gave it away." The United States built the canal in the early 1900s as it looked for ways to facilitate the transit of commercial and military vessels between its coasts. Washington relinquished control of the waterway to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. The canal depends on reservoirs to operate its locks and was heavily affected by 2023 Central American droughts that forced it to substantially reduce the number of daily slots for crossing ships. With fewer ships using the canal each day, administrators also increased the fees that are charged all shippers for reserving a slot. With weather returning to normal in the later months of this year, transit on the canal has normalized. But price increases are still expected for next year. Mulino, Panama's president, has been described as a conservative populist who aligns with Trump on many issues. Panama is a strong U.S. ally and the canal is crucial for its economy, generating about one-fifth of that government's annual revenue. Still, Trump said, that, once his second term is underway, "If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question." "I'm not going to stand for it," Trump said. "So to the officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly." He did not explain how that would be possible. Shortly after Trump's speech, Mulino released a video declaring that "every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong" to his country. Without mentioning Trump by name, Mulino addressed Trump's complaints over rising fees for ships crossing the canal, saying they are set by experts who take into account operational costs, and supply and demand factors. "The tariffs are not set on a whim" Mulino said. He noted that Panama has expanded the canal over the years to increase ship traffic "on its own initiative," and added that shipping fee increases help pay for improvements. "Panamanians may have different views on many issues" Mulino said. "But when it comes to our canal, and our sovereignty, we will all unite under our Panamanian flag." Trump then took to his social media site to offer in response, "We'll see about that!" He also posted a picture of a U.S. flag planted in the canal zone under the phrase, "Welcome to the United States Canal!" The canal aside, Trump's appearance at Turning Point's annual gathering affirmed the growing influence the group and its founder, Charlie Kirk, have had in the conservative movement. Kirk's group hired thousands of field organizers across presidential battlegrounds, helping Trump make key gains among infrequent voters and other groups of people that have trended more Democratic in recent decades, including younger voters, Black men and Latino men. "You had Turning Point's grassroots armies," Trump said. "It's not my victory, it's your victory." Trump on Sunday also announced several new members of his incoming administration, most notably: -Stephen Miran, who worked at the Treasury Department in Trump's first term, to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, an executive branch agency charged with providing objective economic advice to the president. —Callista Gingrich to be the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland. Gingrich was U.S. ambassador to the Holy See in Trump's first term. She is married to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Separately, Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt announced he was donating $1.1 million to Trump's inaugural fund to complement the $14 million that he said he already had given to the Make America Great Again Inc. super political action committee — making him one of the president-elect's top donors. Pratt is chairman of Pratt Industries, which uses recycled paper and boxes as a raw material in a process that produces new cardboard. ___ This story has been corrected to reflect that Panama's president Mulino was elected in May, not April. ___ Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Associated Press writer Manuel Rueda in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.Oklahoma State's 3-point accuracy sends Miami to defeat