Recently, the American AI chip giant Nvidia has garnered a lot of attention due to its soaring stock price, briefly becoming the world’s most valuable company. Many people may wonder, how should the company’s English name be pronounced and what is its origin and meaning?
According to Fortune magazine, Nvidia’s official website states that Nvidia should be pronounced as “en-VID-eeyah”, rather than the commonly mispronounced “NUH-vid-eeyah”.
Nvidia was co-founded in 1993 by current CEO Jensen Huang along with his friends Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. Before the company was established, they had nearly finalized all the details for the new company except for the name.
Initially, they used the temporary name “NV”, which stood for the next version. When it came time to officially register the company, they wanted to name it “NVision” but found out that name was already registered by a toilet paper company.
So, the three co-founders had to come up with a new name for the company. After searching extensively for words with “NV”, Jensen Huang suggested the name Nvidia, which was eventually agreed upon by others. The term Nvidia is derived from the Latin word “Invidia”, meaning envy. In Roman mythology, it refers to the goddess of envy.
Curtis Priem had previously told The New Yorker that they wanted the graphics processing unit (GPU) designed by the company to be so powerful that it would make competitors “green with envy”.
Most companies typically do not draw inspiration from Roman mythology for their brand names. However, the theme of envy seems to be present in Nvidia’s products. The slogan for the company’s 8th generation GPU is “green with envy”.
Nowadays, many companies may have reasons to envy Nvidia as their stock price continues to rise. As of June 18th, in the United States, the company’s market value reached $3.34 trillion, surpassing Microsoft for the first time to become the world’s largest company by market capitalization. This has also significantly increased Jensen Huang’s wealth, temporarily ranking him 11th on the world’s richest list, his highest position to date.
Perhaps Jensen Huang foresaw this, deliberately placing envy at the forefront to remind people that his competitors are targeting him.
The New Yorker reported that over the years, Jensen Huang would always start every employee meeting by saying, “Our company is going bankrupt in 30 days.”
Clearly, even with all the success Nvidia has achieved, this statement remains the unofficial motto of the company.