https://www.economist.com/node/21803203?fsrc=rss%7Cbus
“WE’RE ALWAYS 30 days away from going out of business,” is a mantra of Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder of Nvidia. That may be a little hyperbolic coming from the boss of a company whose market value has increased from $31bn to $505bn in five years and which has eclipsed Intel, once the world’s mightiest chipmaker, by selling high-performance semiconductors for gaming and artificial intelligence (AI). But only a little. As Mr Huang observes, Nvidia is surrounded by “giant companies pursuing the same giant opportunity”. To borrow a phrase from Intel’s co-founder, Andy Grove, in this fast-moving market “only the paranoid survive”.
Constant vigilance has served Nvidia well. Between 2016 and 2021 revenues grew by 233%. Operating profit more than doubled in the past five years, to $4.5bn (see chart 1). In the three months to May sales shot up by 84%, year on year; gross margin reached 64%. Although Intel’s revenues are four times as large and it fabricates chips…
