Simply Better Living

Staying positive in the light of life's events   Something goes wrong. We lose a job. A relationship ends. A flight is cancelled. We don’t get the house we wanted. An illness or injury interrupts our plans. And almost immediately, we give the event a label: Bad. Sometimes the opposite happens. We receive unexpected money. We get the promotion. We meet somebody new. An opportunity suddenly appears. Good. But there is an old Chinese parable that suggests we might be a little too quick with our labels. A farmer owned a valuable horse. One day, the horse ran away. His neighbours came to console him. “What terrible luck,” they said. The farmer replied: “Maybe.” The following day, the horse returned — and with it came several wild horses. The neighbours were delighted. “What wonderful luck!” The farmer replied: “Maybe.” Soon afterwards, the farmer’s son tried to tame one of the wild horses. He was thrown from its back and badly injured his leg. Again the neighbours came. “What terrible l...

NVIDIA and the Danger of Settling Too Soon I am not expecting many readers of SIMPLY BETTER LIVING to start a semiconductor company this week. Nevertheless, the extraordinary story of NVIDIA has something to say to all of us, especially those reaching an age when life is supposedly meant to be settling down. NVIDIA began in 1993 when three engineers met in a booth at a Denny’s restaurant in California. They believed that computers were going to become increasingly visual and that this would require a new kind of technology. It was a bold idea. Unfortunately, their first attempt was based on the wrong technology. The wider computer industry moved in a different direction, their expensive new product became almost useless and the young company came dangerously close to collapse. Even its important contract with the Japanese gaming company Sega was built around the wrong system. This is where the story becomes particularly interesting. Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s chief executive, told Sega th...