Who Are Nvidia's Two Other Co-Founders & Where Are They Now? One Stayed, The Other Walked Away From A Billion-Dollar Fortune

With Jensen Huang's resignation as CEO and the search for a successor under way, attention has turned to who runs Nvidia next. Two other men were with him at the start, and their paths since have been very different.

Three men and a Denny's booth

Nvidia was founded on April 5, 1993, when Huang, Malachowsky and Priem met at a Denny's restaurant. Huang had once worked there as a dishwasher and busboy.

Who is Chris Malachowsky?

Malachowsky, born May 2, 1959, holds an electrical engineering degree from the University of Florida and a master's from Santa Clara University. Before Nvidia he held engineering and technical leadership roles at Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.

At Nvidia he served as senior vice president of engineering and operations. He is now a co-founder and Nvidia Fellow, a senior technical position, and is part of the executive staff. He has been inducted into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

He has also given back to his alma mater. Malachowsky donated $25 million to the University of Florida to help build an AI-focused data centre for what was billed as the fastest AI supercomputer in higher education. Nvidia added a matching contribution, bringing the combined commitment to $50 million.

Who is Curtis Priem?

Priem earned his electrical engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 1982. He designed the first graphics processor for the PC, IBM's Professional Graphics Adapter. From 1986 to 1993 he was a senior staff engineer at Sun, where he developed the GX graphics chip.

He was Nvidia's first chief technology officer, a post he held for a decade. Priem has described his early role as the architect of the underlying blueprint that let engineers design algorithms for Nvidia's chips, working mostly behind the scenes. He retired in 2003. Priem has said he was distracted by problems at home and was not contributing at the level he wanted.

When Nvidia listed in 1999, Priem held about 12.8 percent of the company. Within months he set up the Priem Family Foundation and moved more than three-quarters of that stake into it, Fortune reported. He sold his remaining shares by 2006.

Forbes estimated in 2024 that had he kept everything, he would be worth around $70 billion. It put his actual net worth at about $30 million as of November 2023.

Much of his wealth went to RPI. He has donated $275 million since 2001, about 40 percent of the university's total gifts in that period, according to Fortune. That includes a $40 million gift that funded the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, New York. He has been an RPI trustee since 2003 and became vice chair of its board in 2024. The foundation was reported to be set to wind down around 2031.