How Nvidia Beat Everyone Else in the AI Race by Whizy Kim
March 7, 2024
Introduction:
(Vox) Only four companies in the world are worth over $2 trillion. Apple, Microsoft, the oil company Saudi Aramco — and, as of 2024, Nvidia. It’s understandable if the name doesn’t ring a bell. The company doesn’t exactly make a shiny product attached to your hand all day, every day, as Apple does. Nvidia designs a chip hidden deep inside the complicated innards of a computer, a seemingly niche product more are relying on every day.
Rewind the clock back to 2019, and Nvidia’s market value was hovering around $100 billion. Its incredible speedrun to 20 times that already enviable size was really enabled by one thing — the AI craze. Nvidia is arguably the biggest winner in the AI industry. ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which catapulted this obsession into the mainstream, is currently worth around $80 billion, and according to market research firm Grand View Research, the entire global AI market was worth a bit under $200 billion in 2023. Both are just a paltry fraction of Nvidia’s value. With all eyes on the company’s jaw-dropping evolution, the real question now is whether Nvidia can hold on to its lofty perch — but here’s how the company got to this level.
From games to crypto mining to AI
In 1993, long before uncanny AI-generated art and amusing AI chatbot convos took over our social media feeds, three Silicon Valley electrical engineers launched a startup that would focus on an exciting, fast-growing segment of personal computing: video games.
Nvidia was founded to design a specific kind of chip called a graphics card — also commonly called a GPU (graphics processing unit) — that enables the output of fancy 3D visuals on the computer screen. The better the graphics card, the more quickly high-quality visuals can be rendered, which is important for things like playing games and video editing. In the prospectus filed ahead of its initial public offering in 1999, Nvidia noted that its future success would depend on the continued growth of computer applications relying on 3D graphics. For most of Nvidia’s existence, game graphics were Nvidia’s raison d’etre.
More for Them, Less for Us by Sarah Anderson, William Rice, Zachary Tashman
March 13, 2024
Introduction:
(Other Words) In his State of the Union address, President Biden called out “massive executive pay” and vowed to “make big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their share” of taxes.
Corporate tax dodging and CEO pay have gotten so out of control that many major U.S. companies are paying their top executives more than they’re paying Uncle Sam.
Tesla is perhaps the most dramatic example. Over the period 2018-2022, the electric car maker raked in $4.4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk became one of the world’s richest men.
When it comes to fleecing taxpayers while overpaying executives, Tesla is hardly alone. A new report we co-authored for the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness analyzes executive pay data for some of the country’s most notorious corporate tax dodgers.
What did we find? In addition to Tesla, 34 other large and profitable U.S. firms — including household names like Ford, Netflix, and T-Mobile — paid less in federal income taxes between 2018 and 2022 than they paid their top five executives.
Government Investigating Archer-Daniels-Midland by Sky Chadde
April 18, 2024
Introduction:
(Investigate Midwest) In late 2020, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), one of America’s oldest and most profitable food companies, predicted customers’ preference for foods with “bright and exciting” colors and “familiar, nostalgic” flavors would “shape the food industry.” ADM seemed poised to capitalize. Over the next few years, it purchased two companies specializing in crafting tastes. One creates savory dairy flavors for snacks and frozen meals.
But the division spearheading ADM’s new flavor forays, Nutrition, was not as healthy as it seemed. It missed revenue expectations — prompting internal, government and shareholder scrutiny.
In January, ADM placed its chief financial officer on administrative leave as company lawyers reviewed accounting practices. In one day, the company’s stock dropped from about $68 to $51, or a 24% decrease — its worst trading day since the Great Depression, according to Reuters.
The U.S. Department of Justice is now probing ADM’s accounting practices. It has requested documents and subpoenaed current and former employees, according to company filings. A shareholder also sued the company, alleging executives mischaracterized Nutrition’s financial performance. ADM’s “accounting practices misrepresented its true financial results and prospects,” the lawsuit alleges.
On March 12, ADM said in business filings that “certain” sales information was not recorded at “amounts approximating market” value. However, that information had “no impact” on the company’s overall balance sheets, ADM said. The company also said it is cooperating with the Justice Department.
