Technology History | NVIDIA — The Booth at 2484 Berryessa Road

People treat NVIDIA as a Santa Clara campus that appeared fully formed with a GPU.

The company was argued into existence here, in a corner booth at the Denny's at 2484 Berryessa Road in East San Jose.

In late 1992 Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem sat for hours over Grand Slam breakfasts and too much coffee. Malachowsky later told the Wall Street Journal they were not good customers: four hours, ten cups. Huang had washed dishes at a Denny's as a teenager in Oregon; he chose this room because the coffee was cheap and no one chased them out.

They were not designing a finished chip on a napkin. Malachowsky and Priem wanted to leave Sun. Huang was still running CoreWare at LSI Logic. The shared claim was narrower than the later myth: a processor that would do the 3D work a general-purpose PC of 1993 could not. The diner is still a diner. On 26 September 2023 Denny's CEO Kelli Valade stood with Huang while a plaque was fixed to that booth.

The articles of incorporation were signed on 5 April 1993. The first paid rooms were not this restaurant. They were two bedrooms in Priem's Fremont townhouse.