Nvidia: Grand Slam Origins

Denny’s CEO Kelli Valade and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang
at the Denny’s where Nvidia took shape. (WSJ photo)

In Silicon Valley, when young inventors need to build a prototype, they use their parents' garage.

When developing designs and business plans, a tolerant restaurant or coffee shop is the setting de rigueur.

And so it was that Nvidia, the newest entry in the trillion-dollar-market-value club, commemorated its founding 30 years ago at a Denny's restaurant in San Jose:

Last week, a San Jose Denny’s officially became a part of Silicon Valley lore.

The world’s tech capital is crawling with iconic names like Apple and Hewlett Packard that were founded in someone’s garage. Now the chain diner is officially credited as the birthplace of Nvidia, the chip company at the heart of the artificial intelligence revolution. With local news cameras in tow, Nvidia Chief Executive and co-founder Jensen Huang met Denny’s CEO Kelli Valade to unveil a plaque marking the booth where he and his co-founders sketched out the idea for the company back in 1993.

Denny's was more than the place where Jensen Huang came up with the idea for Nvidia:

As a young man, he worked at Denny's in San Jose.

"Oh, yeah, I was a dishwasher, I was a busboy, I was a waiter,” he said.

While on welfare J,K. Rowling wrote the first several Harry Potter books in Edinburgh cafés.

“It’s no secret that the best place to write, in my opinion, is in a café. You don’t have to make your own coffee, you don’t have to feel like you’re in solitary confinement and if you have writers block, you can get up and walk to the next café while giving your batteries time to recharge and brain time to think. The best writing café is crowded enough to allow you blend in, but not too crowded that you have to share a table with someone else.”

Ever since retirement I've been spending a lot of time at diners and coffee shops, waiting for inspiration to strike. And yet the $millions haven't rolled in....