LinkedIn·Wednesday, 12 August 2026·15d ago

📚 My holiday reading: The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt. How does a graphics card manufacturer grow into one of the most important…

Laurens Van Reijen

Managing Director of LCL

📚 My holiday reading: The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt. How does a graphics card manufacturer grow into one of the most important infrastructure providers for AI? The Thinking Machine tells the story of NVIDIA and Jensen Huang. And it sometimes reads like a thriller. The book offers a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at NVIDIA and into Jensen Huang’s entrepreneurship. One concept that stayed with me is the “zero-billion-dollar-market”: looking for markets that do not yet exist. A great illustration of just how difficult true innovation is and how much vision and perseverance it requires. What also stands out is Jensen Huang’s management style. Shouting and angry outbursts towards employees appear to be part of his way of creating pressure and motivation. At the same time, he reportedly rarely fires anyone. That constant sense of pressure is deeply embedded in the culture. A well-known saying within NVIDIA is: “We Are 30 Days From Going Out of Business”, even when the company is performing extremely well. The idea is simple: never become complacent and keep the organisation constantly on its toes. Huang is also a committed workaholic. He manages 55 direct reports, allowing him to remain deeply involved throughout the organisation. As NVIDIA grew, employees were regularly asked to share their “Top 5 Things” by email. It allows him to keep his finger on the pulse of what is really happening across the company. He personally reads around 100 of these emails every day. Speed is another recurring theme. NVIDIA continuously tries to accelerate the development cycles of both hardware and software. This combination of speed, technology and execution has helped create the company’s unique competitive position. Another plus: concepts such as parallel computing, CUDA architecture and neural networks are explained clearly and accessibly. You certainly do not need to be an engineer to follow the technology story. Then, in the final two chapters, the book takes an unexpected turn. The author reflects extensively on the potential dangers of AI and raises some more philosophical questions about where this technology might take us. A remarkable ending to a very engaging and fast-paced book. Recommended for anyone who wants to understand how NVIDIA grew to become one of the defining companies of the AI era.