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The Thinking Machine

Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip

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The Thinking Machine

By: Stephen Witt
Narrated by: Stephen Witt
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Nvidia is as valuable as Apple and Microsoft. It has shaped the world as we know it. But its story is little known. This is the definitive story of the greatest technology company of our times.

In June 2024, thirty-one years after it was founded in a diner, Nvidia became the most valuable corporation on Earth. The Thinking Machine is the astonishing story of how a designer of videogame equipment conquered the market for AI hardware, and in the process reinvented the computer.

Essential to Nvidia’s meteoric success is its visionary CEO Jensen Huang, who more than a decade ago, on the basis of a few promising scientific results, bet his entire company on AI. Through unprecedented access to Huang, his friends, his investors and his employees, Stephen Witt documents for the first time the company’s epic rise and its single-minded and ferocious leader, now one of Silicon Valley’s most influential figures.

The Thinking Machine is the story of how Nvidia evolved to supplying hundred-million-dollar supercomputers. It is the story of a determined entrepreneur who defied Wall Street to push his radical vision for computing, becoming one of the wealthiest men alive. It is the story of a rev­olution in computer architecture, and the small group of renegade engineers who made it happen. And it’s the story of our awesome and terrifying AI future, which Huang has billed as the ‘next industrial revolution,’ as a new kind of microchip unlocks hyper-realistic avatars, autonomous robots, self-driving cars and new movies, art and books, generated on command.

This is the story of the company that is inventing the future.

‘Gripping and brilliantly told’ Mustafa Suleyman, author of The Coming Wave

‘A page-turning biography of perhaps the most consequential CEO and company in the world’ David Epstein, author of Range

‘Brilliantly captures the riveting, unlikely story of Jensen Huang's Nvidia ... Exceptional reporting’ Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Nearer


© Stephen Witt 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Business Business Development & Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship Professionals & Academics Computer Science Technology Silicon Valley Robotics

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Critic reviews

Witt has a knack for explaining the science in ways that everyone can understand… A thrilling origin story... This is the rarest of books on tech – one that may just leave you feeling good about an entrepreneur founder and optimistic about the future
Gripping and brilliantly told, this is the amazing story of the improbable origins of one of the most important technologies of our times
An excellent biography of Jensen Huang … Stephen Witt weaves together the story of the man, his company and the computer science that led to large language models such as ChatGPT, which brought generative AI to the masses in 2022
Jensen Huang, the obsessive co-founder and chief executive of Nvidia, the AI chipmaking giant, is at the centre of this deeply reported and accessible account of the group’s rise to become one of the world’s most valuable companies
Stephen Witt’s deep reporting shines through every page of The Thinking Machine. The result is a page-turning biography of perhaps the most consequential CEO and company in the world (David Epstein, author of Range)
The Thinking Machine brilliantly captures the riveting, unlikely story of Jensen Huang’s Nvidia—a company driving the exponential growth of artificial intelligence and humanity's inevitable merger with technology. Stephen Witt’s exceptional reporting offers a rare glimpse into the pioneers driving humanity’s leap toward an infinite future (Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Nearer)
A great story and Witt tells it well. He paints a rounded picture of a remarkable entrepreneur – part visionary, part maniacal workaholic, part inspiring corporate leader
Closely reported and brilliantly written ... Highly entertaining
Thought-provoking, [and] occasionally alarming… Jensen Huang… deserves this wide-ranging account of his life and the meteoric rise of his company
The Thinking Machine…is the second such corporate biography [on Nvidia]… Witt approaches his subject with a more critical eye and more verve
All stars
Most relevant
Loved the methodical detail running in sequence of Jenson life and achievements this required reading to the public at large

The phenomenon of Jenson

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A stunning story told with clarity and insight of some of the key characters in the AI journey. Took me a while to get used to the high register of the narrator, but ultimately enjoyed him too.

A timely read

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Fascinating insight into the minds and machines that are NVIDIA. Very much recommended. A tech must read

Impressive work

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