Jensen Huang's early days at Nvidia? Pure survival mode. Back when the company was barely alive, they cut a deal with Sega to build chips for what would become the Dreamcast console. That partnership was their lifeline.

But here's the kicker—they screwed up the development. Badly. While other Silicon Valley firms were thriving, Nvidia was dead last in the race. The tech wasn't ready. Deadlines were slipping. Jensen was staring at disaster.

He needed one final $5M payment from Sega. Without it? Game over. Not just for the Dreamcast project—for the entire company. That money was the difference between shutting down or living to fight another day.

Wild to think the GPU giant we know today was once one missed payment away from extinction. Those early hardware battles shaped everything that came after—including the chips now powering AI models and mining rigs across the planet.