This is incredible.  Jensen went from being the poorest person I’ve ever heard of, to the richest man I’d never heard of.

There are people who grew up in worse conditions, but they had a dysfunctional family or incredible bad luck.  When he was 10 years old, Jensen came to America with his 12 year old brother.  He and his brother lived at a reform school for troubled youth in Kentucky for two years, until the parents could immigrate.  Nobody did anything wrong, it was just a tough situation.

Today, Jensen is worth $190 billion, and is the founder and CEO of the most valuable company in the world.  Nvidia has a market capitalization of over $4 trillion.  That is about equal to the GDP of Germany, and is only exceeded by the US, China, and Japan.

Amongst other things, Nvidia makes the video graphics cards necessary to play video games on a computer.  They also supply hardware and software for artificial intelligence and a lot of other stuff that makes us feel like we are living in the future.

I appreciate that podcasts allowed me to listen to Jensen in a real two and a half hour discussion.  Shame on the NYT and others who dismiss Joe Rogan as a ‘brocaster’ who promotes a low-brow ‘manosphere’ culture focused on martial arts, hunting and conspiracy theories. None of the corporate media journalists even attempt interviews with this much depth and authenticity. 

Looking up Nvidia’s market capitalization, I notice that of the 20 most valuable companies in the world, 17 are American companies.  America either produces extraordinary people like Jensen Huang, or America is an environment where they can thrive. 

Anyone who thinks that capitalism stinks and socialism kind of makes sense, should be invited to surrender all modern conveniences and sleep on the dirt in a shallow hole like Sling Blade.