[Op-Ed] The Persistent Spirit of Challenge of Lee Kun-hee and Jensen Huang, Overcoming Crisis and Pioneering Innovation

“I’m the CEO who is hardest to bring down.”

These are the words of Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who experienced multiple business failures. Even amid the threat of bankruptcy and a string of setbacks, he never stopped taking on challenges, and in the end Nvidia developed the GeForce 256 in 1999, the world’s best-selling GPU.

His business did not go smoothly from the start. As personal computers spread rapidly, Jensen Huang and his colleagues saw the potential of 3D graphics technology and entered the GPU market, then still a blue ocean. But they ran into difficulties due to a range of factors, including project failures, funding shortages, and the entry of large corporations into the market.

Whenever a crisis hit, he trusted himself and his company and made massive investments. He also spared no effort in securing outside funding. When Nvidia unveiled the RIVA 128, a graphics card for PCs, the company had only enough money left to cover one month of employee pay. Thanks to his exceptional drive, the RIVA 128 sold 1 million units within four months of its release and brought Nvidia $4.1 million in profit.

In the early 2000s, one phone call became a turning point for Nvidia. It came from a researcher at Stanford University, who said that Nvidia’s GPU had dramatically reduced the time needed for simple computer calculations. This led Nvidia to develop CUDA, enabling GPUs, which had previously been limited to game graphics, to be used for computing as well.

CUDA is a technology that uses the processing power of GPUs to perform complex calculations quickly and efficiently. This innovation drove explosive demand by finding applications across industry and everyday life, including artificial intelligence, scientific research, and cryptocurrency mining. As a result, Nvidia was able to rise to become the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization.

About a year before the RIVA 128’s major success, a renowned entrepreneur who recognized Nvidia’s potential sent Jensen Huang a letter. It was Lee Kun-hee, the man who built Samsung into a global powerhouse. In the letter, he wrote, “I want to connect Korea with high-speed internet, advance Korea’s technology through video games, and hold the world’s first Video Game Olympics. To do that, I need your help.” Was it mere coincidence that Lee Kun-hee sent Jensen Huang a letter? Perhaps he sensed that Huang’s entrepreneurial spirit resembled his own.

Today, Korea holds a competitive edge in the global semiconductor market in both technological capability and production capacity. At the center of this stands Samsung Electronics. Before Samsung entered the semiconductor market, there were strong internal concerns, including the high initial costs of semiconductors. But convinced that semiconductors would be a future growth engine, Lee Kun-hee invested his personal funds in 1974 and acquired a 50% stake in Korea Semiconductor, which was facing a liquidity crisis.

Then, in 1983, Samsung Electronics succeeded in independently developing a 64-kilobyte DRAM, a key memory semiconductor that improves the efficiency and responsiveness of an entire computer system. At the time, the semiconductor industry was led by the United States and Japan, but by developing DRAM on its own without any technology transfer from advanced countries, Samsung was able to lay the foundation for entering the global market.

Crises came to Lee Kun-hee without pause. At the time, Samsung Electronics had export competitiveness based on low labor costs, but after the labor movement drove wages higher and pressure from Japanese technology intensified, he put forward the management philosophy, “Pursue quality over quantity.” To reduce defect rates, he halted production on any line that produced defective goods until the issue was resolved, and he reinforced that spirit by burning 50 billion won worth of Anycall phones in front of employees. Thereafter, Samsung strengthened its market competitiveness through multifaceted efforts, including systematic quality control, improvements in management practices, talent development, and innovation in education and training.

Lee Kun-hee and Jensen Huang overcame crises through persistent determination and opened paths to innovation. Their foresight, bold action, and courage in seizing opportunities for change led their companies to the forefront of their respective fields, transcending industries and eras. The growth and sustainability of the Korean economy today have likewise been supported by this kind of entrepreneurial spirit. Now that low growth has become structural, entrepreneurial spirit is needed more urgently than ever across government and all generations alike.

Hyun-jo Choi, Intern Researcher, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [칼럼] 이건희∙젠슨황의 끈질긴 도전 정신, 위기 극복하고 혁신의 길 개척

Author: Hyun-jo Choi

Date: 2025-12-05

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&idx=28401