英伟达的老黄在斯坦福接受了一个采访，信息量很大，包括公司治理和人工智能发展，及「如黑夹克缺货，你穿什么」的尖锐问题，我给翻译了下，并逐行改了3遍。
主持人：
老黄，太荣幸了！谢谢你能来 🎉
Jensen, this is such an honor. Thank you for being here.
老黄：
很高兴能来这儿，谢谢～
I’m delighted to be here. Thank you.
主持人：
为了纪念您重返斯坦福，我想我们可以从您初次离开时刻开始讨论。那时您加入了 LSI Logic，这家公司当时特别火！
您在科技界建立了非凡的声誉，并与一些最著名的科技公司合作。然而，最终您还是决定离开，去创立自己的公司。为什么呢？
In honor of your return to Stanford, I decided we’d start talking about the time when you first left, you joined LSI Logic, and that was one of the most exciting companies at the time. You’re building a phenomenal reputation with some of the biggest names in tech, and yet you decide to leave to become a founder. What motivated you?
老黄：
因为克里斯和柯蒂斯。
当我还是一名工程师时，克里斯和柯蒂斯在 Sun 工作。我有幸与包括安迪·贝克托斯海姆在内的一些计算机科学界最杰出的人物一起工作，共同开发了工作站、图形工作站等等。
Chris and Curtis, Chris and Curtis, I was an engineer atlogic and Chris and Curtis were at Sun and I was working with, with, some of the brightest minds in computer science at the time of all time, including Andy bektosheim and others building, building work stations and graphics workstations and so on and so forth.
老黄：
有一天，克里斯和柯蒂斯说他们想离开 Sun，并希望我能想出他们下一步该做什么。
虽然我当时已有一份很棒的工作，但他们坚持要与我一起创立一家公司。因此，每当他们来访时，我们就会在 Danny’s 餐厅聚会。顺便提一句，那是我母校，也是我创立的第一家公司，在成为 CEO 之前，我的第一份工作是洗碗工。
And Chris and Curtis, said one day that they like to leave Sun and they like me to go figure out what they’re going to go be for and, I had a great job, but they insisted that I figure out, you know, with them how to, how to build a company. And so, so we hung out of Danny’s whenever they drop by and, which was, which is, by the way, my Alma martyr, my first company, you know, my first job before for before CEO was a, was a dishwasher.
老黄：
其实我做得一直还都不错。
总之，我们聚在一起，那是在微处理器革命期间，大约在 1992 年到 1993 年间，PC 革命刚刚开始。那时候，革命性的 Windows 95 显然还未上市，奔腾处理器甚至还没宣布。
所以，这一切都是在 PC 革命之前。显然，微处理器将会非常重要。我们想，为什么不创立一家公司，来解决普通计算机无法解决的问题呢？这就成了公司的使命——制造一种类型的计算机，解决普通计算机无法解决的问题。直到今天，我们依然专注于此。如果你看看我们因此而开拓的市场，你会发现，像计算药物设计、天气模拟、材料设计等问题，都是我们非常自豪的成就。
And so, and I did that very well and so anyways, we got together and we just, and then was during the microprocessor revolution, this is 19 ninetythree and 19 ninetytwo when we’re getting together, the PC revolution was just getting going. You know, that Windows 95 obviously, which is the revolutionary version of Windows, didn’t even come to the market yet, and Pentium wasn’t even announced yet. And so it’s, and this is, this is all before the right before the PC revolution. And it was, it was pretty clear that that, the microprocessor was going to be very important. And we thought, you know, why don’t we build a company to go to solve problems that a normal computer that is powered by general purpose computing can’t. And so that, that became the company’s mission, to go to go build a computer, the type of computers and solve problems that normal computers can. And to this day, we’re focused on that. And if you look at all the problems that, that in the markets that we opened up as a result, it’s, you know, things like computational drug design, weather simulation, materials design, these are all things that we’re really, really proud of.
老黄：
机器人技术、自动驾驶汽车、我们所说的人工智能软件。我们推动了技术的发展，使得计算成本几乎降至零，这开启了一种全新的软件开发方式，即由计算机自己编写软件。
Robotics, self driving cars, autonomous, autonomous, software we call artificial intelligence. And then all, you know, of course, we, we drove the, the technology so hard, that, that eventually the computational cost, went to approximately 0 and then enabled enable the whole new way of developing software where the computer wrote the software itself.
老黄：
你没听错，就是人工智能，从那时候开始，我们上路了。
Artificial intelligence is, we know it. And so, so I, that, that was, that was it, that was the journey.
主持人：
对！
Yeah.
老黄：
后面的大家也都看到了😊
thank you all for coming.
主持人：
是的，这些东西现在充满了我们的生活。
让我们回头看，在当时，LSI Logic的CEO说服了他最大的投资者Don Valentine与您见面。显然，他是Sequoia的创始人。
很多的创始人都在预测和创造未来，在这个过程中，您是如何说服硅谷 VC 大佬们去押注一个初创团队，真金白银地支持一个面向未来的产品呢？
Well, these applications are on all of our minds today. We’re back. Then the CEO of LSI Logic convinced his biggest investor Don Valentine to meet with you. He is obviously the founder of Sequoia. Now I can see a lot of founders here edging forward in anticipation, but how did you convince the most sought after investor in Silicon Valley to invest in a team of first time founders building a new product for a market that doesn’t even exist?
老黄：
在最一开始，我不知道如何写商业计划，所以我去了一家书店，那时还有书店😊😊😊
在商业书籍区，有一本书是我认识的一个人戈登·贝尔写的，书名叫做如何撰写商业计划。这本书非常厚，看起来像是为某个小众市场写的。我买了这本书。
I didn’t know how to write a business plan and, so I went to a, went to a bookstore and back then there were bookstores and, in the business book section, there was this book and it was written by somebody I knew, Gordon Bell and this book, I should go find it again, but it’s a very large book and the book says how to write a business plan and that was, you know, a highly specific title for a very niche market. And it seems like he wrote it for like, you know, people. And that was one of them. And so I bought the book.
老黄：
那其实不是个好主意，毕竟 Gordon 非常聪明。聪明人往往话多，而我几乎可以肯定，Gordon 想要教我如何全面地编写商业计划。
因此，我买下了一本厚达 450 页的书。但我根本就没看完，连近都没近。我随意翻了几页，便想：等我把这本书看完，我可能就要破产了。那时，我和 Laurie 在银行的存款只够维持六个月，加上我们得照顾 Spencer、Madison 和一条狗。
所以，我们五口之家得依靠那点存款生活。我真的没有太多时间可以浪费。
I should have known right away that that was a bad idea because, you know, you know, Gordon is super, super smart and super smart. People have a lot to say and they want to, you know I’m pretty sure Gordon wants to teach me how to write a business plan completely. And so I picked up this book is like 450 pages long. Well, I never got through it, not even close. I flipped through it a few pages and I go, you know what, by the time I’m done reading this thing I’ll be out of business. I’ll be out of money and Laurie and I only had about 6 months, in the bank and we had already Spencer Madison and, and a dog. And so the five of us had to live off of, you know, whatever money we had in the bank. And so I didn’t have much time.
老黄：
于是，我决定不写商业计划，转而直接找柯里根谈话。他有一次打来电话说：“嘿，你离开了公司，却连要干什么都没跟我说。我希望你能回来向我解释一下。”于是我就回去跟他详细解释了一遍，可他最后却说：“我完全听不懂你在说什么。这得是我听过的最糟糕的电梯演讲了。”
接着，他就给 Don Valentine 打了个电话，告诉他：“我要送个小伙子过去，我想你应该给他投资。他是 LSI Logic 有史以来最出色的员工之一。”
And so instead of writing the business plan, I just went to talk to wealth Corrigan, he turned, he called me one day and said, hey, you know, you left the company. You didn’t even tell me what you were doing. I want you to come back and explain it to me. And so I went back and I explained to wealth and Wolf Wolf, at the end of it, he said, I have no idea what you said. And, that’s one of the worst elevator pitches I’ve ever heard. And then he picked up the phone and he called Don Valentine and he called Don and he says Don, I want you to get I’m going to send a kid over. I want you to give money. He’s one of the best employees LSI logic ever had ever had and.
老黄
这件事教给我的是，可能你能侃侃而谈，甚至可能搞砸一次面试，但你的过去是无法逃避的。因此，拥有一个值得骄傲的过去是多么重要啊。
我之前说我是个优秀的洗碗工，这可不是开玩笑的。
So the thing I learned is, is you can make up a great interview. You could even have a bad interview, but you can’t run away from your past. And so have a good past, you know, try to have a good past and in a lot of ways, I was serious when I said I was a good dishwasher.
老黄：
我很可能是 Denny’s 最棒的洗碗工。我工作有计划，条理清晰，洗碗洗得干干净净。后来，他们还把我提升为了收银员。我敢说，我是 Denny’s 有史以来最好的收银员。我从来不空手来空手去，效率极高。最终，我成了 CEO，我还在努力做一个优秀的 CEO
I was probably Denny’s best dishwasher. I planned my work, I was organized, you know, I was misson plus, and then I washed the living daylights out of the dish dishes and then, and then, you know, they promoted me to bus boy. I was certain I’m the best bus boy Denny’s ever had, you know, I was. I never left the station with empty handed. I never came back empty handed. I was very efficient and then they, and so anyways, eventually I became, you know, AC EO I’m working I’m still working on being being a good CEO, but .
主持人：
要成为行业最佳，你需要从其他 89 家后来获得资金做相同事情的公司中脱颖而出。然后，当你发现还有 69 个月的资金时，你意识到最初的愿景根本行不通。
面对这种极不利的情况，你是如何决定接下来该怎么做以挽救公司的呢？
you talk about being the best you needed to be the best among 89 other companies that were funded after you to build the same thing. And then with 69 months of runway left, you realize that the initial vision was just not gonna work. How did you decide what to do next to save the company when the cards were so stacked against you?
老黄：
我们创建了一家专注于加速计算的家公司。
但问题是，它的用途在哪里？有没有什么杀手级应用？这成了我们做出的第一个重大决策。
Well, we started, this company called for accelerated computing and the question is, what’s it for? What’s the killer app? And that was that, that came our first great decision.
老黄：
红杉资本投资我们的第一个重大决定是，第一个杀手级应用将是 3D 图形。技术会是 3D 图形，应用领域则是当时的视频游戏。当时制作 3D 图形几乎是不可能的。
当时的图像生成器来自硅谷图形公司，价值百万美元。而视频游戏市场价值为零。因此，你拥有了这项难以商品化和商业化的令人难以置信的技术，而市场却是空白。这个交集正是我们公司成立的基础。
And this is what Sequoia funded, the first great decision was the first killer app was going to be 3D graphics and the technology was going to be 3D graphics and the application was going to be video games at the time D graphics was impossible to make cheap. It was million dollar image generators from silicon graphic graphics and the video. And so it was a million dollars and it’s hard to make cheap. And the video game game market was $0 billion. So you have this incredible technology that’s hard to commoditize and commercialize. And then you have this market that doesn’t exist. That was, that intersection was the founding of our company.
老黄：
我还记得唐在我的陈述结束时对我说的话。他当时有点……他说的那些话，那时很有道理，现在仍然适用。
他说，创业公司不应该投资于创业公司，或者说，不应该与其他创业公司合作。他的意思是，要使英伟达成功，我们需要另一家创业公司也能成功。那家创业公司就是 EA。在我离开时，他提醒我，EA 的首席技术官只有 14 岁，还需要他妈妈开车送他去上班。
他只是想提醒我，我的赌注就放在他们身上。之后，他还说，如果你亏了我的钱，我会找你算账。这就是我对那次初次会面的记忆。
And I still remember when, when Don at the end of my presentation, you know Don was still kind of, he said, you know, and one of the things he said to me, which made a lot of sense back then, it’s makes a lot of sense today. He says startups don’t invest in startups or startups don’t partner with startups. And his point is that in order for Nvidia to succeed, we needed another startup to succeed. And that other startup was Electronic Arts. And then on the way out, he reminded me that Electronic Arts is CTO, is 14 years old and had to be driven to work by his mom. And he just wanted to remind me that that’s who I’m relying on, that, that. And then, and, and then after that he said, if you lose my money I’ll kill you. And that that was, that was kind of my memories of that first meeting.
老黄：
尽管如此，我们创造了某些东西，然后在接下来的几年里，我们开创了市场，为个人电脑创造了游戏市场。
这个过程需要很长时间。我们今天仍在进行这项工作。我们意识到，不仅要创造技术，发明一种新的计算机图形处理方式，让曾经价值百万美元的东西现在只需三四百美元就能买到，还必须开拓这个全新的市场。因此，我们既要创造技术，也要创造市场。
公司创造技术和市场的理念几乎定义了今天的英伟达，我们几乎所做的一切都是为了创造技术和市场。这就是人们为什么说我们拥有一种生态系统的原因。但归根结底，情况就是这样。
But nonetheless, we created, we created something, we went on, the next several years to go create the market, to create the gaming market for Pcs. And it took a long time to do so. We’re still doing it today. We realized that not only do you have to create the technology and, invent a new way of doing computer graphics so that what was a million dollars is now, you know, 3, 400, $500, that fits in a computer and you have to go create this new market. So we have to create technology, create markets. The idea that a company would create technology, create markets defines a video today, almost everything we do, we create technology, we create markets. That’s the reason why people say we have a, you know, people call it a stack and ecosystem, words like that. But that’s basically it at the core.
老黄：
30 年前，英伟达意识到，为了让人们能够购买我们的产品，我们必须创造出使之成为可能的条件，因此我们必须发明这个全新的市场。
这就是我们为什么在自动驾驶领域处于领先地位的原因。这也是我们为什么在深度学习领域早早布局的原因。这就是为什么我们几乎在所有这些领域，包括计算药物设计和发现等，都处于领先地位的原因——我们试图在创造技术的同时创造市场。
For 30 years when Nvidia realized we had to do is in order to, create the conditions by which somebody could buy our products, we had to go invent this new market. And it’s the reason why we’re early in autonomous driving. It was the reason why we’re early in deep learning. It was the reason why we’re early in just about all these things, including computational drug, discuss drug design and discovery, all the different areas we’re trying to create the market while we’re creating the technology. And so that that’s, okay.
老黄：
然后我们就开始了。
当时有一件事情，微软推出了一个名为 Direct 3D 的标准，这引发了数百家公司的诞生。
And then we got, we got going and then, and then, Microsoft introduced, a standard called Direct 3D and that spawned off hundreds of companies.
老黄：
几年后，我们发现自己几乎与所有人竞争。我们所发明的，公司所发明的技术，将 3D 图形消费化了，但与 Direct 3D 不兼容。
因此，我们创立了这家公司，拥有这项 3D 图形技术，原本价值百万美元，我们试图让它变得更易于消费。
因此，我们发明了所有这些技术，然后不久之后就变得不兼容了。
And we found ourselves a couple of years later competing with just about everybody. And the thing that that we invented, the company, that technology we invented, d graphics consumerized 3D with turns out to be incompatible with direct 3D, So we started this company, we had this 3D graphics thing, we million dollar thing, we’re trying to make it consumerized. And so we invented all this technology and then shortly after it became incompatible.
老黄：
因此，我们不得不重新规划公司，否则就只能倒闭。但我们不知道该怎么做，不知道如何按照微软定义的方式来构建它。
我记得有个周末的会议，我们讨论说：“我们现在有 89 个竞争对手。我明白我们的做法不对，但我们不知道正确的做法是什么。”
幸运的是，还有另一家书店，那就是 Fry’s Electronics。
And so we had to reset the company or go out of business, but we didn’t know how to, we didn’t know how to build it the way that Microsoft had defined it And, and I remember, I remember a meeting at, at, you know, on the weekend and the conversation was, you know, we now have 89 competitors. I understand that the way we do it is not, not right, but we don’t know how to do it the right way and, thankfully there was another bookstore and, and the bookstore is called fries, fries, electronics.
老黄：
我不确定它现在还在不在。所以我开车带着女儿 Madison 去了 Fry’s，正好在那里找到了 OpenGL 手册，这本手册定义了硅图形公司的计算机图形处理方式。
I don’t think I don’t know if it’s still here. And so I had, I had, I had, I think I drove Madison, my daughter on a weekend to fries and it was sitting right there, the open GL manual, which would define how Silicon Graphics did computer graphics.
老黄：
每本书大约 68 美元。我带了几百美元过去，买了三本书。
我拿着这些书回到办公室，告诉大家：“我找到了我们的未来。”我分发了这三本书，每本书中都有一个漂亮的中央展开页。那个中央展开页就是 OpenGL 管线，也就是计算机图形管线。我将这些书交给了和我一起创立公司的天才们。我们实现了 OpenGL 管线，做得比任何人都要好。
我们创造了世界前所未见的东西。
And so it was, it was right there was like $68 a book. And so I had a couple hundred dollars. I bought three books. I took it back to the office and I said, guys, I found it our future. And I handed out, I have three versions of it handed out, had a big nice cent centerfold. You know, the centerfold is the open GL pipeline, which is the computer graphics pipeline. And I and I handed it to the same geniuses that I founded the company with. And we implemented the open GL pipeline like nobody had ever implemented the open GL pipeline. And we built something the world never seen.
老黄：
那一刻，我们公司学到了很多东西，这给了我们极大的信心💡
And so a lot of lessons are right there that moment in time for our company, gave us so much confidence.
老黄：
这证明了，即使你对某件事一无所知，你也可以成功做某事，开创未来。这已经成为我现在看待所有事物的态度。
当有人告诉我关于某件我从未听说过的事情，或者即使我听说过，也完全不了解它是怎么运作的，我的第一反应总是：“这有多难？”可能只是需要阅读一本教科书而已。你可能只是差一篇旧论文就能解决问题。因此，我花了很多时间阅读旧论文，并且，这确实非常有用。
当然，你不能简单地学习别人是如何做某事的，然后期望通过照搬来获得不同的结果。但你可以了解某事是如何被完成的，然后回到最基本的原理上，问自己：考虑到今天的条件，我的动机，工具和设备以及事物的变化，我会如何重新做这件事？
And the reason for that is you can succeed in doing something, inventing a future, even if you were not informed about it at all. And it’s kind of my attitude about everything now, you know, when somebody tells me about something and I’ve never heard of it before, or if I’ve heard of it, never don’t understand how it works at all. My first thought is always, you know, how hard can it be? And it’s probably just a textbook away. You know, you have probably one archived paper away from figuring this out. And so I spent a lot of time reading archive papers and, and it’s true, it’s true you can, you can now, of course you can’t learn how somebody else does something and do it exactly the same way and hope to have a different outcome, but you could learn how something can be done and then go back to first principles and ask yourself, giving the conditions today, given my motivation, given the instruments, the tools, given, you know, how things have changed, how would I redo this?
老黄：
我会如何重新发明整个过程？我会如何设计它？如果我今天要建造一辆汽车，我会怎么做？我会按照 1950 年代和 19 世纪的方式一步步建造吗？如果我今天要建造一台计算机，我会怎么做？我会如何编写软件？这完全没有意义。
因此，我总是回到最基本的原理，即使是在公司内部，也是重新设定我们自己，因为世界已经改变了。我们过去编写软件的方式已经过时了，它是为超级计算机设计的，但现在它是分散的，等等。
How would I reinvent this whole thing? How would I design it? How would I build a car today? Would I build it incrementally from 1950s and 19 hundreds? How would I build a computer today? How would I write software today? Doesn’t make sense. And so I go back to first principles all the time, even in the company today and just reset ourselves, you know, because the world has changed. And, the way we wrote software in the past was malelithic and it’s designed for supercomputers, but now it’s disaggregated just, you know, so on and so forth.
老黄：
看待软件、计算机、甚至你的公司的方式都应当始终回归到最基本的原理。这样做会创造出大量的机会。
And now how we think about software today, how we think about computers today, how we think just always cause your company, always cause yourself to go back to first first principles. And it creates lots and lots of opportunities.
主持人：
技术真是颠覆性的。
一路上动力十足，收入增长了好几倍。但就在成功的高峰期，你决定稍微调整方向。这个转变的契机是一次视频通话，你和一位化学教授交流。
能跟我们分享一下那次通话的内容，以及你是如何从听到的信息中找到灵感，最终实现转变的吗？
The way you applied this technology turns to be revolutionary. You get all the momentum that you need to IPO and then some more because you grow your revenue x in the next years. But in the middle of all of this success, you decide to pivot a little bit. The focus of innovation happening it in video based on a phone call you have with this chemistry professor. Can you tell us about that phone call and how you connected the dots from what you heard to where you went.
老黄：
回想起来，在公司的早期，我们正在尝试开拓一条全新的计算道路。
起初，我们只是把计算机图形作为一个起点，但我们很快意识到，潜力远不止于此。从图像处理到粒子物理，再到流体动力学，一系列让人兴奋的领域接踵而至。为了能够支持这些领域的复杂算法，我们让我们的处理器变得更加灵活，更易于编程。
接着，某天我们取得了一项重大发明，就像是给计算世界带来了可编程的“剃须刀”，这让各种形式的成像和计算机图形处理都能通过编程来实现。这真是一个巨大的飞跃。从那时起，我们就站在了一个全新的起点上。
I remember at the core, the company was pioneering a new way of doing computing. Computer graphics was the first application, but we already always knew that there would be other applications. And so image processing came, particle physics came, fluids came, so on and so forth, all kinds of interesting things that we wanted to do. We made the processor more programmable so that we could express more algorithms, if you will. And then one day we invented, programmable shavers, which made all forms of imaging and computer graphics programmable. That was a great breakthrough. So we invented that fork.
老黄：
大概在 2003 年左右，我们开发出了一种名为 CG 的技术，它专门为 GPU 设计，比 CUDA 早了三年。这个技术的创造者，也正是那位写下了挽救公司命运的教科书的马克·基尔加德。
我们不仅编写了关于它的手册，还开始教育人们如何使用它，开发了各种工具。很多斯坦福的研究生都开始用它做研究，很多后来加入英伟达成为工程师的人也是从这里开始的。
有一次，麻省总医院的一对医生用它来进行 CT 重建，那次经历让我们更有信心，更坚信我们走的路是对的。
On top of that, we invented, we tried to ex, look for ways to express, more com, more sophisticated algorithms, that could be computation that could be computed on our processor, which is very different than ACP, and so we created this thing called CG, and so I think was 2003 or so C for Gpus, it predated kuda by about 3 years, the same person who wrote the textbook that saved the company mark kilgard wrote that textbook and, I, and so CG was, was super cool, we wrote textbooks about it, We started teaching people how to use it, we developed tools and such, and then several, several researchers discovered it, many of the researchers here, students here at Stanford was using it, many of the engineers that that then became engineers and Nvidia, we’re we’re playing with it, a doctor a couple of doctors at at mass general picked it up and used it for, CT reconstruction. So I flew out and saw them and said, you know, what are you guys doing with this thing and, they told me about that and then, and then AAA computational a quantum chemist, used it to, express his, his algorithms and so I realized that that there’s, there’s some evidence that people might want to use this. And it gave, it gave us, gave us, you know, incrementally more. More confidence that that we ought to go do this, that that this field, this form of computing could solve problems that normal computers really can. And, reinforced our belief and kept us going.
主持人：
听起来，你似乎特别喜欢迎接新事物带来的惊喜。这种心态好像已经成为你在英伟达领导层的一部分了。
你总能在技术变革还远未到来时就做出投资，到时候技术成熟时，你就像穿着黑皮夹克的你一样，恰好站在那里，等着它落入怀抱。
Every time you heard something new, you really savored that surprise. And that seems to be a theme throughout your leadership at Nvidia. It feels like you make these bets so far in advance of technology inflections that when the apple finally falls from the tree, you’re standing right there in your black leather jacket waiting to catch it noise.
老黄：
感觉上总是像是最后一刻扑救一样，是吧？确实，有点像是那样。
但其实，这一切都建立在我们的核心信念之上。我们深信，我们能创造出能解决真正问题的计算机。
How do you find the canal always seems like a diving catch? Oh, it does seem like a diving catch. You do things based on core beliefs. You know, we are, we deeply believe that, that we, we could peanut create a computer that solves problems.
老黄：
通用的处理方法有其局限性。CPU 能做的事情有限，通用计算也是如此。
但是，还有很多有趣的问题等着我们去解决。挑战在于，这些问题不仅需要吸引人，还得能形成有吸引力的市场。
因为如果它们不能形成有吸引力的市场，那我们的努力就难以为继。英伟达花了大约十年的时间投入到这个未来的愿景中，尽管那时候市场几乎是空白。那时，唯一真正存在的市场是计算机图形学。而今天推动英伟达发展的市场，当时根本就不存在。
Normal processing can do that. There are limits to what a CPU can do. There are limits to what general purpose computing can do. And then there are interesting problems, that we can go solve. The question, the question is always, are those inc interesting problems only or they can, they also be interesting markets? Because if they’re not interesting markets, it’s not sustainable. And Nvidia went through about a decade where we were investing in this future and the markets didn’t exist. There was only one market at the time was computer ground for 1015 years. The markets that fuels Nvidia today just didn’t exist.
老黄：
那在这种情况下，你是怎么继续前进的呢？
你身边有这么多人——我们的公司、管理团队、所有杰出的工程师，还有你的股东、董事会、所有的合作伙伴。你带着他们一起前进，即便面对的市场挑战重重。
你知道技术有解决问题的能力，你的研究论文都证明了这一点，这很吸引人，但你仍旧在寻找那个市场。即使在市场形成之前，你也需要一些能预示未来成功的早期迹象。
And so, so how do you continue, with all of the people around you know, our company and, you know, and vida’s management team and all of the amazing engineers that they’re creating this future with me, all of your shareholders, your board of directors, all your partners, you’re, you’re taking everybody with you and there’s no evidence of a market that is really, really challenging, you know, the fact that the technology can solve problems and the fact that you have research papers that that are used that there are made possible because of it are interesting, but you’re always looking for that market, but nonetheless before a market exists, you still need early indicators of future success.
老黄：
我们公司有个说法，叫做“关键绩效指标”（KPI）。
但实话说，我觉得 KPI 有时候挺难理解的。你其实需要的是那些能预示未来积极成果的早期迹象，而且越早越好。因为你需要的是那些能证明你正走在正确道路上的早期迹象。
所以我们有个说法，叫做“早期成功指标”。
You know, we have this phrase in the company, you know, there’s a phrase called key performance indicators. Unfortunately kpis are are hard to understand. I find KPI is hard to understand what’s a good KPI, you know, a lot of people, you know, when when we look for KPI go gross margins, that’s not a KPI As a result, you know, you’re looking for something that’s an early indicators of future positive results, okay, and as early as possible. And the reason for that is because you want early Indic that early sign that you’re going in the right direction. And so we have this phrase is called EOI FSS FS, you know, early indicators eio of this, early indicators of future success.
老黄：
这个概念对大家都很有帮助，因为我一直在用它给大家带来希望，就像说，“嘿，看，我们解决了这个问题，我们解决了那个问题。”虽然市场还没形成，但有些重要的问题需要解决，这正是公司存在的使命。我们追求的是可持续性，因此最终市场是必需的。
但同时，你得能把取得的成果和正在做正确事情的证据区分开。这就是如何解决向着遥远的未来前进的问题，要尽早确定方向，并坚持到底。
And it helps people because I was using it all the time to give the company hope that, hey, look, we solve this problem. We solve that problem, we saw this problem. The markets didn’t exist, but there were important problems and that’s what the company’s about just solve these problems. We want to be sustainable. And therefore the markets have to exist at some point. But you want, you want to decouple the result from, from evidence that you’re doing the right thing, okay? And so, so that’s how you, that’s how you kind of solve this problem of investing into something that’s very, very far away. And having the conviction, to stay on the road is defined as early as possible.
老黄：
我们总是会从信念开始的，并坚持不动摇。同时，我会一直留心那些显示我们正走在成功路上的小迹象。
The indicators that you’re doing the right things. And so, start with a core belief. Unless something, you know, changes your mind, you continue to believe in and, I’ll look for early in case of future success.
主持人：
一些早期指标是什么？
What are some of those early indicators that have been used by product teams at Nvidia?
老黄：
有各种各样的。在我接触到一篇关于深度学习的论文之前，我就遇到了一些研究人员，他们当时需要我们的帮助来做深度学习的研究。
The all kinds. I saw, I saw, I saw a paper, long before I saw the paper, I met some people that needed my help on, on, on this thing called deep learning at a time.
老黄：
我当时甚至还不太懂深度学习是什么。
他们需要我们创建一种专门的语言，这样他们的所有算法都能轻松地在我们的处理器上运行。我们就发明了这种技术，它基本上是为存储计算和神经网络计算而设计的。我们为此创建了一种新语言，可以看作是深度学习的 OpenGL。他们需要这个，这样他们才能把他们的数学公式实现在我们的平台上。
他们可能不懂 CUDA，但他们懂他们的深度学习。因此，我们就为他们打造了这个桥梁。
I didn’t even know what deep learning was. And, and they needed us to create a domain specific language so that, all of their algorithms could be expressed easily on our, on our processors. And we created this thing called, and it’s essentially the sequel, sequels in storage computing. This is, neural network computing. And, we created a L, a language, if you will, domain specific language for that, you know, kind of like the open GL of, of, deep learning. And so we, they needed us to do that so that they could express their mathematics. And, they didn’t understand kuda, but they understood their deep learning. And so we created this thing in the middle for them.
老黄
我们为什么要这么做呢？
因为，即使没有任何经济利益，我是说，这些研究人员根本就没有预算。
这正体现了我们公司的一大优势，那就是愿意去做一些事情，哪怕从财务上看完全没有回报，甚至回报遥遥无期，只要我们相信它。
And the reason why we did it was because, even though there were 0, I mean, this, you know, these researchers had no money. And this is kind of one of the great skills of our company that, that you’re willing to do something even though the financial returns are completely nonexistent or maybe very, very far out, even if you believed in it.
老黄
我们自问，这项工作值得去做吗？它能否推进某个重要科学领域的发展？
注意，这是我一直以来的讨论重点。我们的动力来自工作的意义，而不是市场的大小，因为工作的意义是未来市场的早期指标。
没有人需要写商业计划，也不用向我展示利润表或者财务预测。关键的问题是，这项工作重要吗？如果我们不做，别人会做吗？如果我们不采取行动，事情会发生吗？这其实给了我巨大的快乐。
We ask ourselves, you know, is this worthy work to do? Does this advance a field of science somewhere that matters? Notice this is something that I I’ve been talking about, you know, since the very beginning of time. We find inspiration, not from the size of a market from, but from the importance of the work because the importance of the work is the early indicators of a future market and nobody has to write a, nobody has to do a business case on it. Nobody has to show me a, AP and L, nobody has to show me a financial forecast. The only question is, is this important work? And if we didn’t do it, would it happen without us now if we didn’t do something and something could happen without us, it gives me tremendous joy, actually.
老黄：
为什么呢？因为你能想象，即使你什么都不做，世界还是变得更好了吗？
And the reason for that is, could you imagine the world got better? You didn’t have to lift a finger.
老黄：
这就是最高级的懒惰。从某种意义上说，这是我们应该追求的。
原因很简单，你希望公司能在别人也能做的事情上变得“懒惰”。如果别人能做，那就让他们去做吧。我们应该去做那些如果我们不做，世界就会有所不同的事。你必须说服自己，如果你不去做，那件事就不会发生。这就是关键所在。这种工作往往既艰难又充满影响力，非常重要。
这样，你就会感到自己的工作充满了目的和意义。
That’s the definition of, you know, of ultimate laziness and in a lot of ways, in a lot of ways, you want that habit. And the reason for that is this, you want the company to be lazy about doing things that other people always do can do. If somebody else can do it, let them do it. We should go select the things that if we didn’t do it, the world, the world would fall apart. You have to convince yourself of that, that if I don’t do this, it won’t get done. That is in. And that work is hard and that work is impactful and important. Then it gives you a sense of purpose, doesn’t make sense.
老黄：
我们公司一直在寻找这样的项目，深度学习只是其中之一。而其成功的一个早期迹象就是，你知道，那只模糊的猫——是安德鲁发现的，然后是 Alex Kirchevski 发现了猫。
不是每次都成功，但成功得足够多，让我们看到了希望。然后我们开始思考深度学习的结构——我们是计算机科学家，我们懂得事情是如何运作的。因此，我们说服自己，这可能会改变一切。这就是一个例子。
And so our company has been selecting these projects, deep learning was just one of them and the first indicator of, of the success of that was this, you know, fuzzy cat that, that Andrew and came up with and, then, Alex, kirchev ski, detected cats. You know, not all the time, but, you know, successfully enough that it was, you know, this might take us somewhere. And then we reasoned about the structure of deep learning and, you know, or computer scientists and we understand how things work and so we, we convinced ourselves this could change everything and, and anyhow that, but that’s an, that’s an example.
主持人：
你在领导公司经历过一些挑战时期，比如金融危机时市值蒸发了80%，那时候华尔街对你们在机器学习上的投资持怀疑态度。在那样的时刻，你是怎样带领公司，让团队保持士气和动力的？
So these selections that you’ve made, they’ve paid huge dividends, both literally and figuratively, but you’ve had to steer the company through some very challenging times, like when it lost 80% of its market cap amid the financial crisis cause what Wall Street didn’t believe in your bet on ML, in times like these, how do you steer the company and keep the employees motivated at the task it hand?
老黄：
那时候，我的反应和你今天早上问我这周怎么样时一样。我的心跳都没变，这周、上周或是前几周都一样。
It’s this is that my reaction during that time is the same reaction I had about this week earlier today you asked me about this week. My pulse was exactly the same, this week is no different than last week or the week before that.
老黄：
我明白，股价下跌80%挺尴尬的。
你可能只想穿个“不怪我”的T恤，但更重要的是，你甚至不想离开床，不想出门。这些感觉都很真实。但然后，你就回到工作中，像往常一样起床，安排我的一天，思考最重要的事情是什么，一项项检查。有时候，提醒自己家人还爱我也挺有用的。所以你就这样过，回归基本，继续工作，让每次对话都回到核心，让公司专注于核心。
I, and so the opposite of that, you know, when you drop 80%, don’t get me wrong, when, when your share price drops 80%, it’s a little embarrassing, okay? And, you just wanna, you just want to wear a T shirt that says, wasn’t my fault, but even more than that, you just, you just don’t want it. You don’t, you don’t want to get out of your bed, you don’t want to leave the house. All of that is true, all of that is true, but then you go back to go back to just doing your job, woke up at the same time, prioritize my day in the same way I go back to, what do I believe you got a gut check, always got check back to the court, you know, what do you believe? What are the most important things? And, just check them off, you know, sometimes, sometimes it’s helpful that, yeah, family loves me, okay, check, you know, double cheer, right? And so you just gotta check it off and you go back to your court, and then go back to work and then every conversations go back to the core, keep the company focused back on the core.
老黄：
你还相信自己的方向吗？股价变了，但物理定律变了吗？我们的假设、我们的信念导致了我们的决策。这些基础有变吗？如果有变，你得改变一切。但如果没有，那就坚持下去。就这么简单。
Do you believe in it? Did something change the stock price change, but did something else change the physics change the gravity change, change? Did all of the things that we assumed, that we believed that led to our decision? Did any of those things change because of those things change? You got to change everything, but if none of those things change, you change nothing, keep on going, ya, that’s how you do it .
主持人：
听说在那段时间，你尽量避免公众亮相？
in that speaking with your employees, they say that you try to avoid the public. In speaking with your employees, they’ve said that your leadership.
老黄：
是的，现在我管理得还行。领导者必须要出现在大家面前，可那部分确实挺难的。
including the employees. I’m just good now le leaders have to be seen. Unfortunately, that’s the hard, that’s the hard part.
老黄：
我上大学时才16岁，那时候学的是电气工程，而且我有点内向。我不太喜欢公开演讲。虽然我很高兴来到这里，但公开演讲对我来说并不自然。所以，当局势艰难时，站在最在乎的人面前特别不容易。
想象一下，公司大会上，我们的股价下跌了，而我作为CEO的任务就是站出来，面对大家，给出解释。
You know, I was, I was, I was at I was, I was an electrical engineering student and I was quite young when I went to school. When I went to, went to college, I was, I was still 16 years old. And so I was, I was young when I did everything. And so I was a bit of an introvert. I’m kind of, you know I’m shy, I don’t enjoy public speaking. I’m delighted to be here. I’m not suggesting, but, but it’s not something that I do naturally and, and so, so when, when things are challenging, it’s not easy to be in front of precisely the people that you care most about, you know? And the reason for that is because could you imagine a company meeting, which is our stock prices drop by And the most important thing I have to do as the CEO is this, to come and face you explain, explain it.
老黄：
有时候你不确定发生了什么，不知道会持续多久，会有多糟。但你还是得出面解释。面对所有人，你知道他们在想什么。有人可能认为我们注定失败，有人可能觉得你是个傻瓜，还有人可能在想别的。
你知道他们在想这些，但你还得站出来，面对这一切，做那些艰难的工作。
And partly you’re not sure why partly. You’re not sure how long, how bad. You just don’t know these things and, but you still gotta explain it. Face, face, face all these people and you know what they’re thinking, you know, you know, some of more probably thinking were doomed. Some people are probably thinking you’re an idiot and some people are probably thinking, you know, something else. And so there are a lot of things that people are thinking and you know that they’re thinking those things and, but you still have to get in front of them and deal, you know, do the hard work.
主持人：
考虑到这些情况，但在这样的困难时刻，你的领导团队没有一个人离开，实际上，他们都非常难以替代。
Maybe thinking of those things, but yet not a single person of your leadership team team left during times like this and in fact, unemployable.
老黄：
这就是我一直在强调的。我只不过是个小角色，而我周围全是天才。
我们的技术管理深度是世界上最为深厚的。不论是商务、营销、销售，还有那些令人敬畏的工程师团队，以及我的研发团队，他们都是卓越的。
That’s what I keep reminding them. I’m just kid. I’m surrounded by geniuses. I’m surrounded by geniuses. Yeah, other geniuses, unbelievable, nvidia is well known to have singularly the best management team on the planet. This is the deepest technology management team the world’s ever seen. I’m surrounded by a whole bunch of them and they’re just genius. Business teams, marketing team, sales, sales teams, just incredible engineering teams. My research teams, teams, unbelievable. Yeah.
主持人：
你的员工们说你的领导风格非常亲力亲为。
你直接管理着 50 人，鼓励组织内的每个人向你反馈他们心中的前五件事，并且你经常提醒大家，没有任何任务是低人一等的。
你能分享一下你为什么要特意打造这样一个扁平化的组织结构吗？在设计未来组织时，我们应该如何思考？
Your employees say that your leadership style is very engaged. You have 50 direct reports, you encourage people across all parts of the organization to send you the top five things on their mind and you constantly remind people that no task is beneath you. Can you tell us why you’ve purposefully designed such a flat organization? And how should we be thinking about our organizations that we design in the future?
老黄：
没我始终相信，没有任何任务是低微的。记住，我也是从洗碗工开始的，清洁过的厕所比大家加起来都多。
No task is, is to me, no task is beneath me because remember, I used to be a dishwasher and I, and I mean that and I used to clean toilets. I mean, you know, I cleaned a lot of toilets. I’ve cleaned more toilets and all of you combined and some of them just can UNC.
老黄：
所以，对我来说，没有太低微的任务。现在虽然我不亲自执行这些任务，但并不是因为它们太微不足道。
I don’t know. Like, I don’t know what to tell you. You know, that’s life. And so, so you can’t show me and you can’t show me a task of that is that’s beneath me. Now I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it, only because, because of, you know, whether it’s beneath me or not beneath me.
老黄
我愿意倾听你的想法，如果我能提供帮助，我会尽力而为。在审查过程中，我会与你分享我的推理过程，让你看到我是如何分析问题的。
这样，我就能对你有所贡献，帮助你理解我的思考方式。
If you send me something and you want my input on it and I can be of service to you and in my, in my review of it, share with you how I reason through it. I’ve made a contribution to you. I’ve made I’ve made it possible for you to see how I reason through something and by reasoning, as you know, how someone reasons through something empowers you.
老黄：
哦，看，这就是你如何处理这种问题的。没那么复杂。这就是你如何应对模糊不清的情况，如何应对难以计算的问题，如何面对看似可怕的情况。所以我经常向人们展示，如何理性分析，如何战略规划，如何预测，如何分解问题。这样，你就赋予了人们无限的力量。
Oh my gosh, that’s how you reason through something like this. It’s not as complicated as it seems. This is how you reason through something that’s super ambiguous. This is how you reason through something that’s incalculable. This is how you reason through something that you know seems to be very scary. This is how you’ve seen, do you understand? And so I show people how to reason through things all the time, strategy things, things, you know, how to forecast something, how to break a problem down, and you’re just, you’re empowering people all over the place. And so that’s how I see it.
老黄：
你给我东西让我帮着看看，我会尽力帮忙，并向你展示我的处理方式。
在这个过程中，我当然也从你那里学到了很多。你提供的信息让我受益匪浅，我觉得这个过程非常有价值。
If you send me something, you want me to help review it, I’ll do my best and I’ll show you how I would do it. In the process of doing that, of course I learned a lot from you. Is that right? You gave me a seed of a lot of information, I learned a lot and so I feel rewarded by the process.
老黄
处理这些事情确实非常耗费精力，因为你得为那些本来就非常聪明的人创造价值。我周围全是聪明人，你至少得理解他们的思考方式，这真的很难，需要巨大的情感和智力投入。
所以处理完这些事情后，我常感到筋疲力尽。CEO 应该有尽可能多的直接下属，因为按理来说，向 CEO 汇报的人应该需要最少的管理。我不理解为什么有些 CEO 直接下属很少，除非是出于特别的原因。
It does take a lot of energy sometimes because, you know, you got in order to add value to somebody and they’re incredibly smart as a starting point. And I’m surrounded by incredibly smart people, you have to at least get to their plane, you know, you have to get into their headspace and that’s really hard, that’s really hard. And that takes just an enormous amount of emotional and intellectual energy. And so I feel exhausted after, after I work on things like that. I’m surrounded by a lot of great people. A CEO should have the most direct reports, by definition because the people that reports, the CEO requires the least amount of management. It makes no sense to me that Ceos have so few people reporting to him, except for one fact that I know to be true.
老黄：
知识和信息应该是开放的，而不是神秘且仅限于少数人之间分享的。
The knowledge, the information of AC EOIs supposedly so, so valuable, so secretive, you can only share with two other people or three. And their information is so invaluable, so incredibly secretive, that they can only share with a couple more. Well, I don’t believe in a culture and environment where the information that you possess is the reason why you have power.
老黄：
我希望我们每个人都能为公司做出贡献，我们在公司中的职位，应体现我们解决复杂问题、领导他人取得成就、激励和赋权他人以及支持他人的能力。管理团队的存在，就是为了服务于公司中的每一个人，创造一个让所有这些了不起的人愿意自愿来工作的环境，而不是选择去全球其他所有顶尖的科技公司。他们选择了加入我们，是因为我们提供了让他们能够实现人生事业的条件，这正是我的使命。
我坚信我的工作就是要创造这样的条件。那么，这样的条件应该是怎样的呢？它应该能够极大地赋予大家权力，因为只有当你理解了整个情境，你才能被真正地赋权。
I would like us all to contribute to the company and our position in the company should have something to do with our ability to reason through complicated things, lead other people to achieve, achieve greatness, inspire, empower other people, support other people. Those are the reasons why that the management team exist in service of all of the other people that work in the company to create the conditions by which all of the all of these amazing people volunteer to come work for you instead of all the healing amazing high tech companies around the world, they elected, they volunteered to work for you. And so you should create the conditions by which they could do their life’s work, which is my mission. You know, you probably heard it and I’ve I’ve said that, you know, pretty clearly and I, and I believe that what my job is, is very simply to create the conditions by which you could do your life’s work. And so how do I do that? What does that condition look like? What that condition should, result in a great deal of empowerment you should, you can only be empowered if you understand the circumstance, isn’t it right?
老黄：
理解情境是创新的关键。因此，我必须创造一个让你能理解整个背景的环境，这意味着你需要被充分地告知。最佳的告知方式，就是尽可能减少信息在我们之间传递时的扭曲。
这就是为什么我经常像在这样的场合一样与大家交流我的思考过程。
You have to understand the, you have to understand the context of the situation you’re in order for you to come up with great ideas. And so I have to create a circumstance where you understand the context, which means you have to be informed and the best way to be informed is for there to be as little layers of information mutilation right between us. And so that’s the reason why it’s very often that I’m reasoning through things like in an audience like this.
老黄：
首先，我会告诉你我们面对的事实是什么，我们拥有哪些数据，我将如何通过这些数据进行推理，我们做了哪些假设，哪些是未知数，哪些是已知数。
通过这样的推理过程，我们就能建立一个高度赋权的组织。
I’ll say, first of all, this is the beginning facts. These are the data that we have, this is how I would reason through it, these are some of the assumptions, these are some of the unknowns, these are some of the knowns, and so you reason through it, and now you’ve created an organization that’s highly empowered.
老黄：
在一个拥有 30000 名员工的公司里，我们是全球最“小”的大公司。
我们虽小，但每位员工都拥有巨大的权力，他们每天都在代表我做出明智的决策。这背后的原因是，他们理解我们的情况，他们了解我的立场。
In vidia’s 30000 people were the smallest large company in the world. We’re tiny little company, but every employee is so empowered and they’re making smart decisions on my behalf every single day. And the reason for that is because, you know, they understand that. They understand my condition. They understand my condition.
老黄：
我对大家非常坦诚，我相信我可以将信息信任给你们。虽然有时信息可能难以接受，情况也可能很复杂，但我相信你们能够处理。
很多人听过我说，你们都是成年人，你们能够应对。有时候，尽管他们刚毕业并不真的是成熟的成年人，我还是开玩笑说，我知道我刚毕业时几乎不算成年人，但我很幸运地被人信任处理重要信息，我也希望创造条件让人们能这样做。
I’m very transparent with people and I believe it that I can trust you with the information. Now, oftentimes the information is hard to hear and the situations are complicated, but I trust that you can handle it. You’re you know, a lot of people hear me say, you know, these, you’re, you’re adults here. You can handle this. Sometimes they’re not really adults, they just graduated. I’m just kidding, I don’t know. I know that when I first graduated was barely an adult and, I, but I was, I was fortunate that I was trusted with, with, with, important information as I want to do that I want to create the conditions for people to do that.
主持人：
在大家都关注的 AI 主题上，你上周提到生成式 AI 和加速计算已达到临界点。随着这项技术变得越来越普及，你个人最感兴趣的应用是什么？
I do want to now address the topic that is on everybody’s mind. AI last week you said that generative AI and accelerated computing have hit the tipping point. So as this technology becomes more mainstream, what are the applications that you personally are most excited about?
老黄：
要理解这一点，我们得回到最基本原理。生成式人工智能是什么？我们现在拥有能够理解事物的软件。
首先，我们把一切都数字化了，比如基因测序，我们把基因数字化了，但这些基因序列意味着什么？我们数字化了氨基酸，但意味着什么？我们已经能够数字化文字、声音、图像和视频，但它们又代表什么呢？
Well, you have to go back to first principles and ask yourself, what is generative AI? What happened? What happened was we have, we now have the ability to have software that can understand something. They can understand why, you know, what is, first of all, we digitized everything that was, you know, like for example, gene sequencing, you digitized genes, but what does it mean, that sequence of genes? What does it mean? We’ve digitized amino acids. But what does it mean? And so we now have the ability of, we digitize words, we digitize sounds, we digitize that images and videos, videos, we digitized a lot of things, but what does it mean?
老黄：
有了大量的数据和研究，通过模式和关系，我们开始理解它们的含义。
We now have the ability to a lot of studying, a lot of data and from their patterns and relationships, we now understand what they mean.
老黄：
我们不仅理解了它们的含义，还能在它们之间进行转换，因为我们在同一个世界里学习了这些事物的含义，并不是分开学习的。所以，我们学习语言、单词、段落和词汇时是在同一个语境中，发现了它们之间的相关性。现在我们不仅理解了每种模式的含义，还能够理解如何在它们之间转换。
因此，显而易见的是，你可以给视频加上文字说明，把文字转换成图像，或者在 ChatGPT 中把文字转换成文字，这些都是非常了不起的应用。我们现在明白了含义，并且可以进行转换，这种转换本质上就是信息的生成。
Not only do we understand what they mean, we can translate between them because we learned about the meaning of these things in the same world. We didn’t learn about them separately. So we learned about speech and words and paragraphs and vocabulary in the same context. And so we found correlations between them. And they’re all, you know, registered, if you will, register to each other. And so now we, not only do we understand the modality, the meaning of each modality, we can understand how to translate between them. And so for obvious things, you could caption video to text that’s captioning text to images, mid journey, text to text ChatGPT, amazing things. And so, so we now we now know that we understand meeting and we can translate, the translation of something is generation of information and, and all of a sudden you have to take your, you take a step back and ask yourself, what is the implication in every single layer of everything that we do?
老黄：
我在这里，就像当初我第一次看到 AlexNet 那样，开始推理，大约 13、14 年前了，我看到了什么？有多有趣？它能做什么？非常酷，但更重要的是，这意味着什么？对计算的每一个层面意味着什么？这意味着，我们处理信息的方式将来会有根本性的变化。
And so I’m exercising in front of you. I’m reasoning in front of you the same thing I did a quarter years ago when I first saw Alex net, some 1314 years ago, I guess, how I reasoned through it, what did I see? How interesting, what can it do? Very cool, but then most importantly, what does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean to every single layer of computing? Because, you know, we’re in the world of computing. And so what it means is that that the way that we, process information fundamentally will be different in the future.
老黄：
这意味着，当我们构建视频、芯片和系统时，我们编写软件的方式将彻底变化。我们未来能够编写的软件类型，新的应用程序，以及这些应用程序的处理方式都将不同。
That’s when a video builds, you know, chips and systems, the way we write software will be fundamentally different in the future. The type of software will be able to write, write in the future will be different new applications, and then also the processing of those applications will be different.
老黄：
过去我们依赖的是基于检索的模型，信息基本上是预先录制的。未来，信息的一小部分，我们称之为“提示”，将成为起点，然后我们生成其余的内容。因此，未来的计算将是高度生成式的。
What was historically a retrieval based model where information was prerecorded, if you will, almost, you know, we wrote the text prerecorded and we retrieved that based on some recommenders system algorithm In the future, some seed of information will be, will be, the starting point. We call them prompts you as you guys know, and then we generate the rest of it. And so the future of computing will be highly generated.
老黄：
给你举个例子，我们现在的对话，我传达的信息大多是即兴生成的，这就是所谓的智能。因此，未来我们将看到更多生成式内容，我们的计算机也将以这种方式运行，变得高度生成式而不是简单地基于检索。这就让人不禁思考，对于创业者而言，哪些行业将会被颠覆？我们是否会像对待存储那样对待网络？我们是否会继续像现在这样滥用互联网流量？可能不会。我希望我的每个问题都能得到解答，这样我们就不必再像以前那样大量传输信息了。
Well, let me give you an example of what’s happening, for example, that we’re having a conversation right now, very little of the information I’m trans I’m conveying to you is retreat. Most of it is generated, it’s call intelligence. And so in the future, we’re going to have a lot more generative, our computers will will perform in that way, it’s going to be highly generative instead of highly retrieval based, then you go back and you can ask yourself, you know, now for, you know, entrepreneurs, you got to ask yourself, what industries will be disrupted? Therefore, will we think about networking the same way we think about storage, the same way we think about, would we be as abusive of internet traffic as we are today? Probably not notice we’re having a conversation right now? And I want to get in my car every question so we don’t have to be a as abusive of of transformation information transporting as we used to.
老黄：
未来将会增加什么，减少什么？会有哪些新的应用出现？这一切都源自对当前发生的事情的思考。生成式 AI 的基础是什么？
What’s going to be more, what’s going to be less, what kind of applications, you know, etc., etc., etc.. So you can go through the entire industrial spread and ask yourself, what’s gonna get disrupted? What’s gonna get be different? What’s gonna get nude, you know, so on and so forth. And that reasoning starts from what is happening. What is generative AI foundationally, what is happening?
老黄：
回到一切的基本原则。还有一件事，你提了问题，我之前忘了回答。关于如何创建组织，简而言之，有一天，不要担心其他公司的组织结构是什么样的。
Go back to first principles with all things. There was something I was going to tell you about organization. You asked the question and I forgot to answer it the way you create an organization, by the way, someday, don’t worry about how other companies or charts look.
老黄：
从最基本的原则出发。记住组织的设计初衷。过去的组织结构中，有一个国王，即 CEO，然后是各种王室成员，逐层向下，最底层是员工。
You start from first principles. Remember what an organization is designed to do. The organizations of the past where there’s a king, you know, CEO, and then, then you have all these, you know, the royal subjects, you know, the royal court and then east out, and then you keep working your way down.
老黄：
这样设计是为了让员工获取尽可能少的信息，因为基本上，士兵的角色就是在战场上牺牲，无需提问。但在 Nvidia，我不希望我的三万名员工中的任何一个牺牲。我希望他们对一切都提出质疑。
Eventually they’re employees. What the reason why it was designed that way is because they wanted the employees to have as low information as possible because they’re fundamental purpose of the soldiers is to die in the field of battle to die without asking questions. You guys know this. I don’t, I only have 30000 employees. I would like them, none of them to die. I would like them to question everything, does it make sense?
老黄：
过去与现在的组织方式截然不同。Nvidia 是什么？Nvidia 在构建什么？
And so the way you organize in the past and the way you organize today is very different to second, the question is, what is Nvidia, what is Nvidia build?
老黄：
组织结构的目的是为了更好地构建我们所制造的东西。我们都在制造不同的东西，为什么我们要以相同的方式组织呢？为什么组织结构必须完全相同，无论你构建的是什么？这没有任何道理。你在构建计算机时的组织方式，与你在构建医疗服务时的组织方式应该完全不同。所以你需要回到最基本的原则，深入思考这些问题。
An organization is designed so that we could build what it, whatever it is, we build better. And so we all build different things. Why are we organized the same way? Why would, why would this organizational machinery be exactly the same? Irrespective of what you build? It doesn’t make any sense. You build computers, you organize this way, you build health care services, you’re building exactly the same way, it makes no sense whatsoever, and so you have to go back to first principles.
老黄：
我时常问自己：我们的组织以何为生，在做什么，可以延续吗吗？
Just ask yourself, what kind of machinery, what, what is the input, what is the output, what are the properties of this environment? You know, what is, what is the, what is the, what is the forest that this animal has to live in, what are its characteristics is, is it stable?
老黄：
我很幸运，当我二十九岁时就有机会退后一步，思考我要如何为未来打造这家公司，以及它将会是什么样子。包括我们的操作系统，也就是企业文化，鼓励和强化什么样的行为，阻止和不强化什么样的行为等等。
Most of the time you’re trying to squeeze out the last drop of water or is it changing all the time, being attacked by everybody. And so you got to understand, you know, if you’re the CEO, your job is to architect this company. That’s my first job, to create the conditions by which you can do your life’s work. And the architecture has to be right. And so you have to go back to first principles and think about those things. And I was fortunate that that when I was Twentynine years old, you know, I had the benefit of taking a step back and asking myself, you know, how would I build this company for the future and what would it look like? And, you know, what’s the operating system, which is called culture? What do we, what kind of behavior do we encourage, enhance, and what would we discourage and not enhance, you know, so on and so forth.
老黄：
就是这样😊
And in ways .
主持人：
为了节省观众的时间，我想直接切入今年的主题——重新定义明天。
我们向所有嘉宾提出了同一个问题：作为英伟达的联合创始人及CEO，如果你能闭上眼睛，神奇地改变明天的一件事，那会是什么？
I wanna save time for audience questions, but, this year’s theme review from the top is redefining tomorrow. And one question we’ve asked all of our guests is Jensen as the cofounder and CE of Nvidia, if you were to close your eyes and magically change one thing about tomorrow, what would it be?
老黄：
我们需要提前思考这个问题吗？
Were we supposed to think about this in advance?
老黄：
我可能会给出一个并不理想的回答——我不知道。
有太多我们无法控制的事情。但我认为，我们的使命是贡献独一无二的价值，过一个有意义的生活，做一些别人无法或不会做的事情。这样，当我们完成使命时，人们会说，因为有了你，世界变得更美好。我觉得，我就是以这样的方式生活的。
I’m going to give you a horrible answer. I don’t know. That is one thing. Look, there are a lot of things we don’t control. And another lot of things we don’t control. Your job is to make a unique contribution live, live a life of purpose, to do something that nobody else in the world would do or can do to make a unique contribution. So that in the event that after you’re done. Everybody says, you know, the world was better because you were here. And so I think that that to me, I live, I live my life kind of like this.
老黄：
我习惯向前看，再回头审视。你的问题，从某种角度来说，和我的思考方式恰恰相反。我从不仅仅从当前的位置向前看。
I go forward in time and I look backwards. So you asked me a question that’s exactly from a, from a computer vision pose perspective, exactly the opposite of how I think I never look forward from where I am.
老黄：
我走向未来，再回首，因为这样更简单。
通过回顾历史，我们理解自己的行动：我们采取了这样那样的措施，解决了这样那样的问题。这有点像解决问题的逻辑：确定你想要的结果，然后逆向工作，努力实现它。因此，我认为英伟达在推动计算的未来方面做出了独特的贡献，这是人类最重要的工具之一。
I go forward in time and look backwards. And the reason for that is easier. I would look backwards and kind of read my history. We did this and we did that way and we broke that problem down. Doesn’t make sense. And so it’s a little bit like, how you guys solve problems. You figure out what is the end result that you’re looking for and you work backwards to achieve it. And so I imagine Nvidia making a unique contribution to advancing the future of computing, which is the single most important instrument of all humanity.
老黄：
这并不是自我吹嘘，而是我们在做我们擅长并且极难实现的事情。
我们相信我们能够做出独特的贡献，这个过程花了我们31年的时间。我们的旅程仍在继续。这是极其困难的。回顾过去，我相信我们会被认为是一家改变了一切的公司，不仅仅是因为我们所说的话，而是因为我们完成了一件极难的任务，我们在这方面表现卓越，我们热爱它，我们坚持了很长时间。
Now, it’s not about our self, self importance, but this is just what we’re good at, and it’s incredibly hard to do, and we believe we can make an absolute unique contributions taking us 31 years to be here. And we’re still just beginning our journey. And so this is insanely hard to do. And, when I look backwards, I believe that we made, I believe that that we’re going to be remembered as a company that kind of changed everything, not because we went out and changed everything through all the things that we said, but because we did this one thing that was insanely hard to do that we’re incredibly good at doing, that we love doing. We did for a long time.
吃瓜群众：
我是 GSP 项目的负责人，2023 年毕业。我想了解，您如何看待贵公司在未来十年的发展前景？您认为将面临哪些挑战，以及公司是如何准备应对这些挑战的？
My I’m part of the GSP lead. I graduated in 2023. So my question is, how do you see your company in the next decade as what challenges do you see your company would face and how you are positioned for that?
老黄：
首先，我想分享一下我脑海中闪过的想法。正如你所说，面对的挑战众多，我在考虑应该重点讨论哪一个。坦白说，你提出这个问题时，我首先想到的大多数挑战是技术性的，因为这正是我今天早上关注的重点。
First of all, can I just tell you what was going on through my head? As you say, what challenges the list that flew by my head was so, so large that that I was trying to figure out what to select. Now, the honest truth is that when you asked that question, most of the challenges that showed up for me were technical challenges. And the reason for that is because that was my morning.
老黄：
如果你昨天问我，我可能会说是创造市场的挑战。有一些市场我非常希望能开拓，但却遇到了困难。我们一直在努力，但这不是我们一个人能够完成的。英伟达是一家技术平台公司，我们的目标是服务于众多其他公司，帮助他们实现希望和梦想。
我特别期待有一天生物学领域能够像芯片设计那样，通过电脑辅助设计（EDA）实现行业变革，我们今天所能做到的，相信未来也能帮助他们实现。
If you were to, you know, chosen yesterday, it might have been market creation challenges. There are some markets that I, gosh, I just desperately would love to create. I just can’t. We just do it already, you know? But we can’t do it alone. And video is a technology platform company. We’re here in service of a whole bunch of other companies so that they could realize if you were our hopes and dreams through them and so some of the things that I would love, I would love for the world of biology to be at 1 point where it’s kind of like the world of chip design years ago, computer aided and design Eda, that entire industry really made possible for us today. And I believe we’re going to make possible for them tomorrow.
老黄：
因为我们现在能够精确表示基因、蛋白质乃至细胞，从而深入理解细胞的含义——一大组基因的组合。这有点像理解一段文字的意思。如果我们能像理解文字那样理解细胞，想象一下我们能做些什么。
所以，我对此感到非常兴奋。
Computer aided drug design because we’re able to now represent genes and proteins and even cells now very, very close to be able to represent and understand the meaning of a cell, a combination of a whole bunch of genes. What does a cell mean? It’s kind of like, what does that paragraph mean? Well, if we could understand a cell, like we could understand a paragraph, imagine what we could do and so, so, so i’m anxious for that to happen, you know? I’m kind of excited about that.
老黄：
还有一些我感到兴奋的事情，比如我们即将实现的人类指令机器人，它们已经非常接近了。原因是，如果我们能理解和标记语音，为什么不能理解和标记操作呢？一旦我们解决了一些问题，就会启发我们思考，为什么我们不能做到更多？所以，这些挑战其实是令人愉悦的挑战。
There’s some that I’m just excited about, that I know we’re around the corner on, for example, human order robotics, they’re very, very close around the corner. And the reason for that is because if you can tokenize and understand speech, why can’t you tokenize and understand, manipipulation? And so, so these kind of computer science techniques, you, once you figure something out, you ask yourself, or I forgot to do that, why can’t I do that? And so I’m excited about those kind of things. And so that challenge is kind of a happy challenge.
老黄：
当然，还有一些其他的挑战，比如工业、地缘政治和社会方面的，但这些你们都已经熟知了。这些问题确实存在。世界上的社会问题，地缘政治问题，为什么我们不能和谐共处？为什么我们要放大这些问题？为什么我们要如此严苛地评判他人？你们都知道这些，我无需再多言。
Some of the, some of the other challenges, some of the other challenges, of course, are industrial and geopolitical and they’re social and, but you’ve heard all that stuff before. These are all true. You know, the social issues in the world, the geopolitical issues in the world. Why can’t we just get along things in the world? Why do I have to say those kind of things in the world? Why do we have to say those things and then amplify them in the world? Why do we have to judge people so much in the world? You know, all those things, you guys all know that I don’t have to say those things over again.
吃瓜群众：
我叫约瑟，2023 年毕业于 GSB。
我想问的是，您是否担忧我们发展人工智能的速度过快？您认为是否需要一定形式的监管呢？
My name’s Jose. I’m a class of the 2023, from the GSB, my question is, are you worried at all about the pace at which we’re developing AI, and do you believe that any sort of regulation might be needed?
老黄：
谢谢你的问题，我觉得这个问题的答案是肯定也是否定。
我们都知道，深度学习是现代人工智能最重要的突破之一，它带来了巨大的进步。但同样令人兴奋的是，我们最近在语言模型中引入了一种基于人类反馈的基础强化学习方法，这其实是人类长期以来都在使用的一种方法。实际上，这正是我的日常工作，而作为父母的你们，也一直在不知不觉中使用这种方法。
Thank you. Yeah, that’s, the answer is yes and no. We need, you know, that the greatest breakthrough in, modern AI, of course, deep learning and it, it enabled great progress. But another incredible breakthrough is something that that humans know and we have practice all the time. And we just invented it for, for language models called grounding, reinforcement learning, human feedback. I provide reinforcement learning, human feedback every day, that’s my job. And for their parents in the room, you’re providing reinforcement learning, human feedback all the time.
老黄：
现在，我们已经开始理解如何在人工智能系统中实施这一方法，但这需要更多技术的支持，比如设置保护栏、进行微调、生成遵循物理定律的数据等。目前，很多事物在虚拟空间中自由漂浮，不受物理定律限制，我们需要技术来解决这一问题。
安全问题也是一样，正如飞机之所以安全，是因为其自动驾驶系统集成了多种功能安全和主动安全系统。我们需要这些发明更快地诞生。同时，随着安全与人工智能边界的模糊，我们迫切需要在网络安全方面取得快速进展，以防止人工智能带来的潜在威胁。
因此，技术的发展速度需要更快，远远超过现在。
Okay, now we just figured out how to do that, at a system systematic level for artificial intelligence, there are a whole bunch of other technology necessary to, guardrail, fine tune ground, for example, how do I generate, how do I generate, tokens that obey the loss of physics? You know, right now things are floating in space and doing things and they don’t, they don’t obey the laws of physics. How do that requires technology? Guard railing requires technology, fine tuning requires technology, alignment requires technology, safety requires technology. The reason why planes are so safe is because, you know, all of the autopilot systems are, are surrounded by diversity and redundancy and all kinds of different functional safety and active safety systems that were invented. I need all of that to be invented much, much faster. You also know that that the border between security and artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence is going to become blurry and brillery and we need technology to advance very, very quickly in the area of cybersecurity in order to protect us from artificial intelligence. And so, so in a lot of ways, we need technology to go faster, a lot faster, faster, okay, regulation, there’s two types of regulation, there’s social regulation, I don’t know what to do about that, but there’s product and services regulation, know exactly what to do about that.
老黄：
至于监管，我认为有两种形式：社会监管我不太清楚怎么操作，但对于产品和服务的监管，我有非常明确的想法。比如FA、FAA、FDA等，它们都是针对特定产品和服务设立的，有明确的规定和标准。请不要尝试建立一个通用的超级监管机构。会计师监管与医生监管应当区分开来。
Okay, So, the FA, the FAA, the, FDA, the, knits, you name it, all the, all the FS and all the NS and all the, you know, Fccs that, that they all have regulations for products and services that are, have particular use cases, bar exams and doctors and, you know, so on and so forth. You all have a quali qualification exams, you all have standards or you have to read, you all have to continuously be certified accountants and so on and so forth. Whether it’s a product or service, there are lots and lots of regulations. Please do not add a super regulation that cuts across of it. The regulator who is regulating accounting should not be the regulator that regulates a doctor.
老黄：
我确实欣赏会计师，但如果我需要进行心脏手术，他们能够熟练处理账本的能力就显得不够了。
因此，我希望所有已经有明确产品和服务的领域，都能在人工智能的背景下加强其监管。但我忽略了一个重要问题，即人工智能的社会影响及其应对措施。
You know, I love accountants. But I just, you know, if I ever need a open heart surgery, the fact that they can close books is interesting, but not sufficient. And so and so I would like, I would like, all of those, all of those fields that already have products and services, to also enhance their regulations in context of, in the context of AI, okay, but I left out this one very big one, which is the social implication of AI and how do you, how do you deal with that?
老黄：
对此，我没有一个好答案。虽然有很多人在讨论这个问题，但重要的是要将其分解为不同的部分，避免因过度关注某个特定问题而忽略了其他许多常规的、我们本应做的事情。
否则，结果就是人们仍然会因为汽车和飞机事故而死亡，这是毫无意义的。我们应该确保在处理这些问题时做到正确，采取实用的措施。我可以换个问题吗？
I don’t have great answers for that. But you know, enough people are talking about it, but it’s important to subdivide all of this into chunks. Doesn’t make sense. So that we don’t, we don’t become super hyper focused on this one thing at the expense of a whole bunch of routine things that we could have done. And as a result, people are getting killed by cars and planes and, you know, it doesn’t make any sense. We should make sure that we do the right things there, okay? Very practical things.
主持人：
好的，我们将进行一些快问快答环节，就像我们往常的风格一样，准备好了吗？😜
Well, we have some rapid fire questions for you as view from the tradition,.
老黄：
你不要过来啊！！！😱😱😱
Okay, which was trying to avoid that. Okay, alright, far away
主持人：
回想一下你小时候在丹尼餐厅打工的日子，那是一段美好的回忆。
你的第一份工作就是在 Denny’s，现在他们甚至为你设立了一个专门的展位。你在 14 岁时有什么特别的回忆吗？
你的第一份工作是在Denny’s。他们现在有一个专门为你设置的展位。你14岁时最美好的记忆是什么？
老黄：
噢，其实我的第二份工作是在AMD。那里有没有给我设一个展台啊？我只是开个玩笑。
Second job was AMD by the way. Is there a booth dedicated to me there? I’m just kidding.
老黄：
我会很享受我的工作。我是的，我喜欢它。这是一家很棒的公司。
I’m gonna love my job there. I did, I love it. It’s a great company
主持人：
如果全球发生黑色皮夹克短缺，你会选择穿什么？
Yeah, if they were a worldwide shortage of black leather jackets, what would you be seen wearing？
老黄：
噢，不用担心，我有很多黑色皮夹克，我可能是唯一不需要担心这个问题的人。
Oh no I’ve I’ve got a large reservoir blackjack I’m the I’m I’ll be the only person who is who is not concerned.
主持人：
你谈了很多关于教科书的话题。如果你要写一本教科书，你会给它起什么名字？
You spoke a lot about textbooks. If you had to write one, what would it be called?
老黄：
这不可能，你问的是一个假设性问题，根本不可能发生。
I won’t writeone, you’re asking me a hypothetical question that has no possibility.
主持人：
最后，在节目结束时，如果你可以对斯坦福全校分享一句话，那会是什么？
That’s fair. And finally, if you could share one parting piece of advice to broadcast across Stanford, what would it be?
老黄：
我想分享的不是一句话，而是一种信念。每天都要审视自己的信念，全力以赴地追求，长时间坚持。将自己与所爱的人团结在一起，一同前行。这正是英伟达的故事。
It’s not a word, but but. You know, have a core belief. Got check, check it every day. I pursue it with all your might, Pursue it for a very long time. Surround yourself with people you love and take them on that, right? So that’s the story of Nvidia.
主持人：
受益良多，感谢这一小时的分享🎉
And since this last hour has been a treat, thank you for spending.
老黄：
谢谢😊
Thank you very much.
作者：赛博禅心
微信公众号：赛博禅心
本文由 @赛博禅心 翻译发布于人人都是产品经理。未经作者许可，禁止转载。
题图来自 Unsplash，基于 CC0 协议
