Jensen Huang Almost Lost Nvidia By Demanding CEO in AMD Deal

Jensen Huang Almost Lost Nvidia by Demanding CEO Position in AMD Merger In a surprising turn of events, a former AMD engineer, Hemant Mohapatra, revealed that AMD almost acquired Nvidia in the mid-2000s. However, the deal ultimately fell through because of Jensen Huang, the current CEO of Nvidia. Huang's Demand for Control According to Mohapatra, Huang was adamant about maintaining Nvidia's closed-source approach with its CUDA platform, even in a merger scenario. This ultimately led to his non-negotiable demand: he would only agree to the merger if he became the CEO of the combined company. AMD's Alternative Move Hector Ruiz, AMD's CEO at the time, was unwilling to meet this demand. Instead, AMD shifted its focus and successfully acquired ATI, bringing the Radeon graphics card division under its umbrella. Nvidia's Humble Beginnings Mohapatra recalls that Nvidia was seen as a relatively small player in the GPU market at the time, primarily attracting hardcore gaming ent…