Jeff Hirsh
2
Read: Februrary 2026
Inspiration: recommended on Amazon’s bestsellers list
Summary
Written with the help of ChatGPT, below is a brief summary to understand what is covered in the book.
| “The Thinking Machine”, published in 2025 by journalist and author Stephen Witt, tells the story of Jensen Huang and Nvidia’s transformation from a video-game graphics company into one of the most important companies powering the artificial intelligence revolution. Witt traces Huang’s early life, Nvidia’s founding in 1993, and the repeated technical and financial challenges that shaped the company’s highly demanding culture. He explains how Nvidia’s development of graphics processors and its long-term investment in the CUDA software platform positioned its chips to become uniquely valuable for training modern neural networks. The book follows Nvidia’s rise alongside breakthroughs in deep learning and generative AI, while examining Huang’s unconventional management style and willingness to invest years ahead of obvious commercial demand. Ultimately, it shows how decades of investment in accelerated computing, software, and developer infrastructure allowed Nvidia to become a foundational supplier to the modern AI economy. |
Unedited Notes
Direct from my original book log, below are my unedited notes (abbreviations and misspellings included) to show how I take notes as I read.
Central premise is CEO’s most important job is capital allocation, reinvest in existing business, acquisitions, pay down debt, dividends, or repurchase stock, and can fund via cash flow/debt/equity, great CEOs constantly compare expected returns across all options vs blindly follow, 8 CEOs profiled are Henry Singleton/Teledyne, Tom Murphy/Capital Cities, Bill Anders/General Dynamics, John Malone/TCI, Katharine Graham/Washington Post, Bill Stiritz/Ralston Purina, Dick Smith/General Cinema, Warren Buffett/Berkshire, focus on per-share value vs absolute size/revenue/earnings, cash flow more important than reported EPS/accounting earnings, Singleton—Teledyne used expensive stock aggressively as currency for acquisitions when conglomerates traded at huge multiples in 60s, then completely flipped when stock became cheap and repurchased enormous amount of shares (ultimately ~90% of outstanding stock)—same CEO using opposite strategies at different points because price/economics changed, lesson is no capital allocation tool is inherently good/bad, depends on valuation, Murphy at Cap Cities ran very decentralized/frugal organization and made infrequent but huge acquisitions incl ABC when opportunity finally made sense, Malone at TCI obsess over cash flow/tax efficiency/leverage while traditional media peers focused on earnings, Anders at General Dynamics shrunk company dramatically—sold businesses/returned capital rather than pursue growth for sake of growth, Washington Post under Graham/Buffett bought back shares heavily when undervalued rather than chase acquisitions, outsiders generally kept tiny corporate staffs and decentralized operating decisions while keeping capital allocation centralized, unusual combo of operational delegation + intense central control over money, tended to avoid investor relations theater/quarterly guidance/consultants and peer benchmarking, rational CEO needs ability to ignore crowd, acquisitions should be judged exactly like any investment—not strategically exciting but what am I paying vs cash flows received, share issuance should be viewed as selling part of company so expensive equity can be useful currency and cheap equity should almost never be issued, repurchases create huge value only when shares bought below intrinsic value, dividends are basically admission company cannot reinvest capital at attractive returns so not inherently positive/negative, CEOs often not charismatic/promotional and many were relatively unknown despite extraordinary returns, rationality and flexibility—do whatever produces highest long-term per-share return even when it means shrinking company or doing nothing for long periods
