Nvidia's 3,776% run
An engineer joined a gaming-chip company. Most of his pay later sat in unvested shares.
3,776%share-price rise, early 2019 to mid-2024
What they did
He took a job at Nvidia. Cash salary was just over $200,000; most compensation was equity that vested over four years. He thought of Nvidia as a gaming company.
What they did not choose
Generative AI made Nvidia's GPUs the bottleneck hardware for the industry. He did not choose the timing of that wave. He told the magazine: 'I could not believe my luck. I still feel that way every quarter.'
Figures
- Nvidia returned +233.6% in 2023 and +172.8% in 2024 (StatMuse, S&P data).
- Share price rose about 3,776% from early 2019 to September 2024 (Forbes / Tom's Hardware).
- One engineer in his late 20s held $1.6 million in unvested shares, about $800,000 after tax on the next 18 months of vesting (New York Magazine).