Hello. This is Oing.
Today, I want to talk about a man the entire world is watching. The man whose trademark is a black leather jacket. The king who stands at the center of the AI revolution, shaking up the global semiconductor market.
I’m talking about the CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang.
Recently, his name has been all over the headlines. His unconventional moves at the 2025 APEC in Gyeongju, especially the so-called Jensen Huang Love Shot with Samsung’s Jay Y. Lee and Hyundai’s Euisun Chung, became a massive story. People are energized by his confidence and charisma.
But we shouldn’t see him as just another successful entrepreneur or a famous showman.
His life is the most realistic and powerful textbook on how an individual can climb from the absolute bottom to the very top in a capitalist market, all through the power of execution. How did a Taiwanese immigrant boy, who once cleaned toilets at a boarding school, become the head of a trillion-dollar company?
Today, Oing will dig deep into Jensen Huang’s relentless story of survival, the true meaning behind that “love shot,” and the survival philosophy we must learn from him in this new era.
1. Starting from the Bottom: Cleaning Toilets and an Unbroken Will
When you look at the pasts of successful people, there’s always hardship. But Jensen Huang’s start was uniquely harsh. Born in Taiwan in 1963, he was sent to relatives in the U.S. in 1973 to escape political turmoil.
But the place he landed was a boarding school for immigrants. On unfamiliar American soil, he had to endure extreme racism and bullying. His daily job was cleaning the dormitory toilets.
Now, this is the point where most people break. They blame their environment, complain about their luck, and collapse. I have no luck, the world is unfair, they say, and they just sit down.
But he was different. He knew instinctively that the only weapon to escape this grim reality was education. Instead of wasting time on complaints, he chose action. He studied obsessively, earning an electrical engineering degree from Oregon State and a master’s from Stanford, firmly establishing himself as a semiconductor engineer.
This is the beginning of the execution he preaches. Instead of complaining, he opened a book.
2. The $40,000 Gamble and Crushing Failure
In 1993, Jensen Huang and his colleagues started a company with just $40,000. They named it NVIDIA, from the Latin word Invidia (Envy). Their bold ambition was: The technology we create will be the envy of the world.
This was at a time when Intel dominated the market. He was convinced that the era of the Graphics Processing Unit, or GPU, was coming.
But reality was cold. Their first product, the NV1, was a catastrophic failure due to market indifference and compatibility issues. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy.
It’s the same when we start a side hustle or a new business. We start with ambition, but when our first month’s revenue is $0, or we face cold reactions, we want to quit. See, I knew I couldn’t do it, we tell ourselves.
Instead of quitting, he treated failure as data. He ruthlessly analyzed what went wrong and corrected his course. In 1997, he launched the RIVA 128, which sold 1 million units in just four months, marking a spectacular comeback.
Failure is not the end. It is just the strongest possible signal to change your direction.
3. Creating the Market: A New Brain Called the ‘GPU’
Jensen Huang wasn’t satisfied with just making a faster graphics card. In 1999, he introduced the concept of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to the world.
This was the GeForce 256.
He declared that this wasn’t just a graphics component; it was the computer’s second brain. It was a revolutionary idea that the GPU could handle complex calculations more quickly and efficiently than the CPU.
He didn’t predict the future; he designed it. He chose a path no one else was on and made that path the new standard. This is the mark of a true economic agent who changes the game.
4. A Rival in the Family and the $1 Salary Decision
There’s a person you can’t leave out of Jensen Huang’s story: AMD’s CEO, Lisa Su. In a surprising twist, she is his cousin.
The Jensen Huang vs. Lisa Su keyword is Silicon Valley’s hottest family drama and rivalry. While Lisa Su was shaking up the CPU market, Jensen was aiming for the AI world with his GPUs.
But his real test came not from family, but from the market. The dot-com bubble burst, the 2008 GPU defect recall crisis, and the global financial meltdown. The company was, once again, about to go under.
At this moment, Jensen cut his own salary to just $1.
He didn’t just talk about overcoming the crisis. As a leader, he demonstrated execution by giving up his own share first and taking responsibility. He refocused the company, moving beyond graphics and into computation. This very decision became the cornerstone for the AI era.
5. The Long Game Pays Off: Striking Gold in the AI Era
In 2012, a deep learning model called AlexNet won an image recognition competition by an overwhelming margin. And the hardware that made this miracle of learning possible? NVIDIA’s GPUs.
Jensen did not miss this moment. His GPU parallel computing technology (CUDA), which he had been preparing for over a decade, had finally met its moment. He immediately redefined the GPU, not as a gaming toy, but as an AI learning engine.
Then, in 2023, ChatGPT changed the world.
While everyone was excited about the AI models themselves, the market realized they all needed shovels to “mine” this new gold. That shovel was NVIDIA’s A100 GPU. As the AI gold rush began, the company selling the shovels became a trillion-dollar enterprise.
When technology that has been patiently developed over a long time meets the right market trend, the explosion is beyond imagination. This is the most thrilling opportunity that capitalism offers.
6. The ‘Love Shot’: The Real Meaning in Kkanbu Chicken
And then, in October 2025, a legendary scene was born at the APEC summit in Gyeongju, Korea.
Jensen Huang announced a massive deal to supply 260,000 GPUs to Korea. But the real highlight was that evening. He, along with Samsung’s Jay Y. Lee and Hyundai’s Euisun Chung, skipped the formal banquet hall and went to a Kkanbu Chicken joint in Gangnam.
Three of the world’s biggest titans, clinking beer glasses in a “love shot.” The world’s media dubbed this the Jensen Huang Love Shot and covered it extensively.
Why did people react so strongly to this simple event?
Jensen never forgot that when NVIDIA was struggling with the failure of the NV1, it was Korea’s PC bang (internet cafe) and StarCraft culture that created an explosive demand for graphics cards, saving his company.
“Korean gamers saved NVIDIA. That’s why I always think of Korea as my ‘Kkanbu’ (partner/friend).”
His love shot was not mere showmanship.
It was a symbol of trust and a scene that captured his management philosophy of never forgetting his history. AI, semiconductors, and the trust between people. Business, in the end, is done by people. And leaders with this kind of story and authenticity are the ones who ultimately win the market.
7. What is Your ‘Execution’?
Jensen Huang still steps on stage in his black leather jacket. His philosophy is clear.
Do not fear crisis. Technology is on the side of those who challenge it.
His entire life has been a continuous series of executions, unafraid of failure.
To everyone reading this: What are you doing right now? Are you hesitating on your side hustle? Postponing your self-development? Just dreaming of financial freedom? Just as Jensen dreamed of Stanford while cleaning toilets, just as he opened the world of GPUs after the failure of NV1, we must also execute something from where we stand.
In the AI era, the waves of capitalism will only get rougher. We must ride these waves and become subjective agents like Jensen Huang, captaining our own ships. Do not fear failure. Act. Now.
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