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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on inventing new markets

Jensen Huang photo
Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang,  co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, solved the 3D graphic challenge for the personal computer in 1999 with the company’s release of the first-ever graphics processing unit (GPU).

Nvidia’s vision for the chips that fueled new video games existed before they had a name for it, he said during last week’s Dean’s Speaker Series at Haas.

“It’s OK that you don’t’ have the words to describe it, but you need to know what the company does and for what reason,” said Huang, whose company was named to Time Magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential companies of 2022.

Nvidia set new standards in visual computing with interactive graphics on tablets, portable media players, and workstations. Its technology has been used in movies like Harry Potter, Iron Man and Avatar and is at the center of the most cutting-edge trends in technology: virtual reality, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars.

Now, Nvidia and other chip-makers’ stock shares are rising over their potential to power OpenAI’s language tool, ChatGPT, a “chatbot” that interacts in a conversational way with users.

(Watch the DSS talk here.)

Huang calls ChatGPT “the iPhone moment of artificial intelligence.”

“When was the last time that we saw a piece of technology that is so versatile that it can solve problems and surprise people in so many ways?” he said. “It can write a poem, fill out a spreadsheet, do a sequel theory, and write Python code. We’ve been waiting for this moment.”

Nvidia is constantly reinventing itself, which is the key for every entrepreneur, he said.

“Creating something out of nothing is a skill that I think every company or startup needs to have,” he said. “The energy of looking for something new – a new way of doing something – is always there.”

Leadership requires both dedication and empathy, he added.

“Being a CEO, being a leader, it’s a craft. You have to dedicate yourself to the craft. I don’t think there’s any easy answer aside from that. You have to have curiosity, you have to have deep empathy for other people’s work.”

Jann Wenner on UC Berkeley in the 1960s & the evolution of Rolling Stone

As co-founder of Rolling Stone Magazine, Jann Wenner published the first major interviews with dozens of top rock stars of the 1960s and launched the careers of generations of journalists, musicians and photographers.

AT 77, Wenner recently published a memoir, Like a Rolling Stone, which covers the launch of the magazine and the music, politics, lifestyle, and cultural change that swept America during the 1960s and beyond.

In conversation with writer author and music critic Greil Marcus last week, Wenner looked back on his time as a student at UC Berkeley, where he met Marcus and participated in the Free Speech Movement.

“The soil of Berkeley gave birth to this,” Wenner said during The Chris Boskin Deans’ Speaker Series in Business and Journalism talk. “Part drugs, part music, part student – it was out of this consciousness.”

Running a groundbreaking publication brought its share of organizational challenges, Wenner said.

“Our main task in the first 15 to 20 years was learning how to be a business and how to manage growth,” Wenner said. “Our growth was rapid. We had no experience. Anything that you did that was wrong, you don’t learn from, you just move on. It leads you, obviously, into making some pretty dumb moves and mistakes, thinking you’re better than you are.”

Rolling Stone helped pioneer narrative journalism when two of the magazine’s reporters, Hunter S. Thompson and Timothy Crouse, eschewed conventional reporting during the 1972 presidential race between George McGovern and Richard Nixon.

“We did something so brilliant and exceptional that it changed journalism forever and put Rolling Stone up into the first rank of American publications,” said Wenner.

Wenner also published Outside, US Weekly, Family Life, and Men’s Journal, and co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Watch the full video.

Dean’s Speaker Series: Reddit COO Jen Wong on her leadership journey

Growing up as a shy introvert, Reddit COO Jen Wong said she never saw herself as a leader.

“I think I assumed a leader was a person who told other people what to do,” Wong said.

It was her fascination with companies and the people who lead them, as well as a drive to solve new problems, that led her to pursue a career that has included leadership positions at Time, Inc.; PopSugar; AOL, and now Reddit.

“I’m a puzzler at heart, and when my mind starts searching for a new problem to solve, and there’s something I can learn, that propels me forward,” Wong said. “I always want to move into something that has a clear lane for me to have an impact.”

Wong, who topped Reddit’s Queer 50 list this year, shared her leadership journey with MBA students and the Haas community at a Dean’s Speaker Series talk on Sept. 21. The talk was co-sponsored by [email protected] as part of Coming Out Week, September 18-22.

As Reddit’s Chief Operation Officer, Wong oversees business strategy and related teams.  Only four years into her tenure as COO, she has helped lead the growth of Reddit into a profitable business by scaling ad revenue to well over $100 million.  Her leadership goes beyond growing the business; she is also passionate about Reddit’s company goal that’s just as important as revenue: diversity and inclusion. In addition, Jen is viewed as an expert in the digital landscape.

Watch the full talk:


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Chevron VP & CFO Pierre Breber on how a traditional energy company can be part of a sustainable future

Dean Ann Harrison kicked off the first Dean’s Speaker Series talk of the year with a fireside chat with Pierre Breber, Vice President and CFO of Chevron. The talk, co-sponsored by the student-led Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative and the Energy Institute at Haas, was also the first in the Sustainable Futures Series, which will welcome business leaders this fall to talk about the role of business in combating climate change. 

“We believe that developing a sustainable, climate-resilient economy goes into every aspect of business—whether it’s agriculture, real estate, energy, finance, anything and everything will need to be reimagined and redesigned to address the current environmental, social, and economic crises,” said Harrison. “We really believe here at Haas that addressing our climate crisis and transitioning to a carbon free energy source is an integral component of the world’s sustainable future.” 

Breber, a “double Bear” who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UC Berkeley in 1986 and 1987 along with an MBA from Cornell in 1989, discussed the changes he’s seen over more than 30 years in the energy industry. He talked about Chevron’s ESG strategy, its goal of lowering carbon emissions in its traditional oil and gas business, as well as its investments in renewable fuels, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage. 

“Our primary objective is to safely deliver higher returns and lower carbon,” he said. “It’s clear and simple, and it’s something that our employees have rallied around.” 

Breber faced pointed questions from Harrison and students on how an oil and gas company can be part of a sustainable future. He said the company plans to continue its traditional oil and gas business—which holds 2% of the market—with a lower carbon output, while also building its faster-growing new energy business. 

“Right now, demand for our products is growing, not shrinking,” Breber said, pointing out that if supplies are cut while demand is still there, heating homes and driving to work will be unaffordable. “It’s an energy transition, it’s not a light switch… We’re going to be a really strong, responsible traditional energy provider, and we intend to be a leading a new energy provider.”

Harrison thanked Breber for volunteering his time to speak at an especially dynamic Dean’s Speaker Series.

“Students, we look forward to a sustainable future.  We need to think big,” she told the audience. “Working on the biggest challenges, with the biggest companies, creating the biggest transformations. We need your courage to engage in this kind of transformational change that will save our planet.”