One man could slow down AI. He won’t. Why?

PJ Vogt (0:25)

This is Search Engine, I'm PJ Vogt. No question too big, no question too small.

A lot of understanding the world right now means just trying to understand the inner lives of the handful of people who exert a lot of control over it. The tech moguls, who we mostly know on a first or sometimes last name basis. Musk and Bezos, Dario and Sam.

Men who control large parts of our lives, and who we have to make up our minds about. And this year, we got a new one. The new mogul, omnipresent in American life. CEO of the most valuable company in human history. The man who could, on his own, just decide to slow down the American AI race. If he wanted to. But he doesn't.

I've been trying to understand him. How he became so powerful. Why he sees the world the way he does. Months in the story of this other person's life.

I think you have to start that story in 1973 With a 10 year old boy born in Taiwan. The boy and his parents now live in a country in the throes of political violence. The parents don't think they can keep their son and his brother safe. So they send them both to America, where an uncle lives. They think the children will be better off there. In Oneida, Kentucky.

Supposedly, there's an elite boarding school in Oneida. And the idea is that the sons will go there. But there's been a misunderstanding. Their kids are sent to a reform school. According to the boy, a particularly violent one.

In the dorm where this 10-year-old Taiwanese boy sleeps, his roommate is 17 And he shows him the knife scars all over his body from a recent fight. His parents have sent their son to America to keep him safe. Instead, they've shipped into a crucible. His mom and dad are thousands of miles away. His English is not very good. He's very vulnerable in a place he does not understand. That's his introduction to America. A country he'll one day have about as much power over as anyone can.

But for now, he has to figure it all out himself. He improves his English, cleans a lot of toilets, gets a job in high school doing dishes at Denny's, graduates college, the boy grows up. At 30, he starts a company. The company is called Nvidia. The man's name is Jensen.

SPEAKER_2 (2:38)

Please welcome Jensen Huang.

PJ Vogt (2:44)

On September 14th, Jensen Huang walked on stage to join the All In podcast for a very special live taping. Jensen now 63 with a still youthful face, frameless glasses, a big, poofy crown of silver hair, wearing one of his trademark black leather jackets.

You should watch this yourself. It's such a strange broadcast. These nerds have gotten so rich and powerful, they can fill an auditorium with people who will treat them like they're cool, like they're rock stars. One of the hosts intros Jensen with a moderately funny one-liner, which the crowd roars over.

SPEAKER_2 (3:22)

Ladies and gentlemen, GPU. Jesus. They love you. They love you.

Jensen Huang (3:30)

Thank you, I love you back.

PJ Vogt (3:33)

It's sycophantic, sure, but the enthusiasm is real.

An auditorium of people shouting, I love you, to a man whose company designs the microchips that power the AI race. Jensen in this room is seen not just as a generationally talented engineer, but as one of the greatest businessmen of our time. A man with the ear of the American president. In fact, at one point during the podcast taping, Trump calls him and Jensen, after a bit of difficulty, puts the president on speakerphone for the room to hear.

Jim Schneider (4:01)

Hold on sir, we're getting a microphone.

Jensen Huang (4:03)

Mr. President, you're now talking to the planet.

Donald Trump (4:07)

See, the great thing about life is that Jensen can develop the most complex computer chip in the world that nobody can copy for 10 years, but he can't figure out how to put me on speaker.

PJ Vogt (4:21)

Something you should know about the hosts of All In, is that when they hear the president make a joke, any joke, they react like it's the first joke they've ever heard. It's unusual, but they all sit breathlessly on stage, as Trump says, how AI is great, data centers are great, how safety concerns about AI are just garbage.

These doubters are a threat to American AI's future dominance.

Donald Trump (4:42)

They're just playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don't want to see it happen, and that could be political people, it could also be China, and we're not going to let that happen. It's a hoax.