Jensen Huang's name is tied indelibly to Nvidia, but he's not the company's sole founder: Curtis Priem was Nvidia’s first CTO and one of the three co-founders of the iconic PC graphics company -- and he'd be worth around $70 billion today if he'd held onto his Nvidia shares. He is reportedly eccentric, living “off the grid with unreliable cell service,” while writing ambitious and intricate world problem-solving manifestos.
Priem wasprofiled in Forbesthis weekend, and fortunately, the ex-CFO is still comfortably wealthy. He also seems happy to devote much of his time to projects that benefit others, particularly students at his alma mater,Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute(RPI) in Troy, New York
While Priem’s name might be forever tied to his co-founding of Nvidia, his career in computer graphics was successful and well-established long before the green team first got together. The Electrical and Computer Engineering graduate is credited with designing the “first graphics processor for the PC,” the IBM Professional Graphics Adapter. He then spent several years working at Sun Microsystems and was responsible for developing the GX graphics chip there.
About eleven years after graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and having had great success at IBM and Sun, Priem co-founded Nvidia with Jensen Huang and Chris Malachowsky - meeting up at the infamous Denny's Diner. He was the founding CTO of the company. Priem ended up staying on as Nvidia CTO for ten years but sold off his shares relatively early; the first sizable sum was banked shortly after Nvidia’s IPO in 1999, and the rest were disposed of in their entirety by 2006.
According to the financial number crunchers at Forbes, if Priem still held all of his Nvidia shares today, he would be worth a cool $70 billion. The magazine estimates his current net worth to be $30 million. However, it is thought that he has been incredibly supportive of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, publically gifting the educational establishment $275 million, and is rumored to be responsible for an anonymous donation of $360 million.
Of course, with $30 million, Priem isn’t short of cash. The source publication paints him as eccentric, living “off the grid with unreliable cell service,” while writing ambitious and intricate world problem-solving manifestos. He definitely isn’t a hobo, though, as his off-grid residence is a $6 million retreat in Fremont, California, and he has a Gulfstream G450 private jet named Snoopy, which he flies to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute four times a year.
In recent months, you won’t be surprised to learn that Priem is continuing to work for the benefit of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and its students. One of the recent highlights of his supporting works and investments is the initiative to bring an IBM Quantum System One computer to campus in 2024. Apparently, this will make RPI the first university in the world with such a computer on-site, but it required a $95 million pledge to acquire the system and set up a center to host it. Part of the sizable expense is due to IBM's 2,000-pound quantum computer having an operating temperature of around -460 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Mark Tyson
Freelance News Writer
Mark Tyson is a Freelance News Writer at Tom's Hardware US. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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bolweval My Grandfather told me when i was young that a man could be rich with very little if his needs were small. I try to live that way as well.
I bet Mr. Priem is happier than Mr. Huang, the latter is still chasing his tail...
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bit_user People forget that Nvidia's future looked uncertain, at several points in its history. Its share price didn't break $5 until 2015 and was sub-$1, back in 2002. At that time, he was probably glad he unloaded his shares when he did!
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JamesJones44 bit_user said:
People forget that Nvidia's future looked uncertain, at several points in its history. Its share price didn't break $5 until 2015 and was sub-$1, back in 2002. At that time, he was probably glad he unloaded his shares when he did!It actually was never that low in purchase/sale terms. Nvidia has had 3 stock splits since 2002, for a total of 8:1 conversion. in 2002 0.60 cents was really 8x more or $4.80 cents if you were to buy/sell it on that day. In 2015 it was 4x higher as Nvidia did a 4 for 1 stock split in 2021, it would have been $20 a share if you were to buy/sell it on that day.
Still those are big discounts to where it is today.
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husker Huang's net worth is US$38.3 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That's his entire net worth, not just his stock options. It seems unlikely that Priem would be worth double Huang just for sticking it out with him. These kind of "what if" scenarios often lead to unrealistic conclusions.
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bit_user JamesJones44 said:
It actually was never that low in purchase/sale terms. Nvidia has had 3 stock splits since 2002, for a total of 8:1 conversion. in 2002 0.60 cents was really 8x more or $4.80 cents if you were to buy/sell it on that day. In 2015 it was 4x higher as Nvidia did a 4 for 1 stock split in 2021, it would have been $20 a share if you were to buy/sell it on that day.Still those are big discounts to where it is today.
Thanks, I did think to check for the splits, but then forgot.
The other thing I'd point out is that its stock had its ups and downs, for most of their history. The current growth trajectory is fairly recent.
I was using Nvidia cards to do deep learning, start about 2017 or so. If you'd asked me then, I'd have expected one of these AI chip startups would've surpassed them, by now.
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bit_user husker said:
Huang's net worth is US$38.3 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That's his entire net worth, not just his stock options. It seems unlikely that Priem would be worth double Huang just for sticking it out with him. These kind of "what if" scenarios often lead to unrealistic conclusions.First, how do you know how much equity the different founders had? Usually, the amount of equity you get is tied to how much money you front. If he didn't invest much at the time, then his share likely would've been smaller than the other founders.
Second, how much equity did Huang sell, over the years? Top execs usually sell some of their stock at periodic intervals. As I have implied, it would've seemed pretty foolish to hold all of it until some indefinite point in the future.
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husker bit_user said:
First, how do you know how much equity the different founders had? Usually, the amount of equity you get is tied to how much money you front. If he didn't invest much at the time, then his share likely would've been smaller than the other founders.I don't. I never said I did. What I said was, "It seems unlikely that Priem would be worth double Huang just for sticking it out with him."
bit_user said:
Second, how much equity did Huang sell, over the years? Top execs usually sell some of their stock at periodic intervals. As I have implied, it would've seemed pretty foolish to hold all of it until some indefinite point in the future.Yes, that is exactly my point: Priem would not be immune to these types of real-world decisions. That is why I said "These kind of 'what if' scenarios often lead to unrealistic conclusions."
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PEnns "He also seems happy to devote much of his time to projects that benefit others, particularly students at his alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York"
It behooves many billionaires, especially the new and quick-money types, to take a closer look and learn from this gentleman.
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JamesJones44 husker said:
Huang's net worth is US$38.3 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That's his entire net worth, not just his stock options. It seems unlikely that Priem would be worth double Huang just for sticking it out with him. These kind of "what if" scenarios often lead to unrealistic conclusions.Depends on a lot of factors. I know Huang has sold stock in the past and some just recently. If he's sold a significant portion over the years it would be possible for one of the founders to have never sold and have a higher net worth. There are so many factors though, it would take a good amount of time to verify the claim.
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gg83 RPI is an insanely expensive school but you get what you pay for. I didn't know Preim went there too. It's where stereo was created. I want to read his manifestos, I bet they are interesting.
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