NVIDIA vs Uber: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: NVIDIA and Uber side by side

1. 1993NVIDIA

   Founding in Santa Clara

   Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem founded NVIDIA on April 5, 1993, with a focus on 3D graphics for gaming and multimedia. The founding set the company on a parallel-processing path long before AI infrastructure became the main market.

2. 1999NVIDIA

   GPU Category Defined

   NVIDIA introduced the graphics processing unit concept in 1999. The milestone mattered because it framed graphics hardware as a specialized processor, a technical idea that later carried into accelerated computing and AI workloads.

3. 2006NVIDIA

   CUDA Opens GPUs to General Computing

   CUDA opened GPU parallel processing to scientists, researchers, and developers outside graphics. It became the software foundation that made NVIDIA hardware useful for machine learning, simulation, and other compute-heavy workloads.

4. 2009Uber

   UberCab idea takes shape

   Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick developed the Uber idea after discussing the difficulty of getting a reliable ride in Paris and San Francisco.

5. 2010Uber

   San Francisco service launch

   Uber launched service in San Francisco in 2010, proving that riders would pay for visible arrival times, stored payment, and digital receipts.

6. 2012NVIDIA

   AlexNet Shows GPU Value for Deep Learning

   The AlexNet breakthrough used NVIDIA GPUs to win the ImageNet competition. The event helped convince researchers and engineers that GPUs could accelerate neural-network training at a scale CPUs could not match.

7. 2012Uber

   UberX expands the addressable market

   UberX brought lower-priced rides from personal vehicles into the product mix. That shift moved the company beyond premium black cars, increased driver supply, and opened the larger regulatory debate over licensing, insurance, and worker classification.

8. 2016NVIDIA

   DGX-1 AI Supercomputer

   Nvidia introduced the DGX-1 deep-learning supercomputer in 2016, its first system built specifically for artificial intelligence.

9. 2016Uber

   China exit through Didi deal

   Uber exited China by selling its local operation to Didi Chuxing after an expensive subsidy fight. The retreat showed that local payments, regulation, mapping, and distribution could outweigh global capital and brand recognition.

10. 2017Uber

    Dara Khosrowshahi becomes CEO

    Dara Khosrowshahi replaced Travis Kalanick as CEO after a year of cultural, legal, and regulatory crises. The transition mattered because Uber needed a more credible operating and governance model before entering public markets.

11. 2018NVIDIA

    RTX Brings Real-Time Ray Tracing to Graphics

    NVIDIA RTX brought real-time ray tracing into the company's graphics roadmap. The product line kept gaming and professional visualization tied to AI-enhanced rendering while Data Center was becoming more important.

12. 2019Uber

    Uber becomes a public company

    Uber completed its initial public offering in May 2019 and later reported roughly $8.0 billion in net IPO proceeds. The listing forced the company to explain its economics to public investors and shifted attention from geographic expansion to profitability.

13. 2020NVIDIA

    Mellanox Acquisition Adds Networking

    NVIDIA completed the Mellanox acquisition for about $7 billion. The deal mattered because large AI and high-performance-computing clusters depend on fast networking between accelerators, not only on individual GPU speed.

14. 2020Uber

    Postmates acquisition strengthens U.S. Delivery

    Uber agreed to acquire Postmates for approximately $2.65 billion in an all-stock transaction. The deal added U.S. Delivery density, local merchant relationships, and delivery-as-a-service capabilities as Eats became more important during the pandemic.

15. 2021Uber

    Uber One launches

    Uber One launched as a paid membership connecting rides, delivery, and groceries. The product mattered because it gave frequent users a reason to keep more transactions inside one account instead of switching between single-category rivals.

16. 2021Uber

    Uber Freight agrees to buy Transplace

    Uber Freight agreed to acquire Transplace for approximately $2.25 billion. The deal moved Freight deeper into managed transportation and shipper software, a different business from consumer rides but tied to the same broader logistics ambition.

17. 2022NVIDIA

    Arm Acquisition Terminated

    NVIDIA and SoftBank terminated the proposed Arm acquisition because of significant regulatory challenges. The failed deal showed how closely governments watch control points in semiconductor architecture.

18. 2022NVIDIA

    Hopper H100 Announced

    Nvidia announced the Hopper-architecture H100 data-center GPU in March 2022.

19. 2023NVIDIA

    Grace CPU Enters Data Center Roadmap

    NVIDIA introduced its first data-center CPU, Grace, for large-scale AI and high-performance computing. The milestone expanded the platform from GPUs and networking into CPU-GPU system design.

20. 2023Uber

    Waymo partnership brings autonomous rides to Uber

    Waymo and Uber announced a multi-year partnership to make the Waymo Driver available through the Uber platform, starting in Phoenix. The deal showed Uber's post-ATG autonomy strategy: partner with vehicle specialists while keeping the marketplace relationship.

21. 2024NVIDIA

    Blackwell Architecture Launched

    NVIDIA launched Blackwell as a data-center-scale architecture combining GPUs, CPUs, DPUs, interconnects, switch chips, systems, and networking adapters. The architecture became central to FY2026 Data Center demand.

22. 2024Uber

    $44.0 billion revenue year

    FY2024 revenue reached $44.0 billion, up from $37.3 billion in FY2023. The result showed that mobility had recovered after the pandemic while delivery remained a larger and more durable part of the business.

23. 2025Uber

    $52.0 billion revenue and $193.5 billion gross bookings

    FY2025 revenue reached $52.0 billion, gross bookings reached $193.5 billion, and annual trips rose to 13.6 billion. The milestone mattered because it showed growth alongside GAAP operating income, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow at significant scale.

24. 2026NVIDIA

    $215.9B FY2026 Revenue

    NVIDIA reported $215.9 billion of FY2026 revenue, $193.7 billion of Data Center revenue, and $120.1 billion of net income. The result showed how far AI infrastructure had moved the company beyond its original PC graphics market.

25. 2026Uber

    $14.8 billion Delivery Hero offer and 3,300-role restructuring

    Uber offered €41.50 per share for Delivery Hero in July 2026 and launched the tender in September after Delivery Hero's boards backed it. The same month it announced about 3,300 corporate job cuts to remove management layers.

Acquisitions

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