Spreading its resources too thin, it attempted to compensate by stretching the goals for its next high-performance chip beyond the competencies of its development process. In the last months of 2000, 3dfx closed its doors, selling its patents, brands, and inventory to Nvidia, where many of its talented engineers wound up working.

FOUR: Thirty Days

“When David Kirk arrived at Nvidia’s offices for the first time, in 1996, he could see at once that the company was doomed. Kirk was a graphics expert who consulted throughout the Valley, which was like being a connoisseur of failure. He had watched a great many start-ups falter, including his own, and Nvidia exhibited all of the symptoms of a company hurtling toward insolvency. The employees looked haggard and demoralized, the quirky product didn’t fit with the market, and the supposedly chummy founders were now deadlocked in a “technical discussion” that was obviously more than just a discussion and obviously about more than just technology.

Despite the success, Huang remained wary. In 1996, the leading graphics accelerator firm was S3 Graphics. By 1999, it was gone. In 1998, the leading firm was 3dfx. By 2000, it was gone, too. There was no guarantee the same wouldn’t happen to Nvidia. One of the business books stacked in Huang’s office, written by Intel CEO Andy Grove, was titled Only the Paranoid Survive.

Huang’s tirades inspired as much guilt as fear, and he often described, in detail, how in letting their customers down, Nvidia employees had let one another’s families down as well. (“I think I’m driven as much by guilt as anything else,” Huang told me.)

Nvidia conducted regular performance reviews of employees, and following the GeForce FX debacle, Clay feared that her next one would read RI: “Requires Improvement.” This, at Nvidia, was like being handed the Black Spot. For the GeForce FX, Clay had run four or five quality-control tests.

By 2012, the situation was becoming dire. Nvidia’s stock price had not appreciated in more than a decade, and although revenues and employment at the company had grown considerably, profits remained flat. Huang was bringing supercomputing to the masses, but the masses didn’t want it.