Deacon Jude Tam Tran

THE CUTE LITTLE CREATURE

“Do not despise these small beginnings…” — Zechariah 4:10
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” — Psalm 118:22

Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Intel was basically the king of the technology universe.

Not a king.

THE king.

If computers were a jungle, Intel was the 900-pound gorilla wearing a gold crown, sitting on a mountain of cash, eating smaller competitors for breakfast, and casually reminding everyone:

“Relax everybody… we are Intel.”

Their “Intel Inside” sticker was on almost every computer sold on Earth. They had gigantic factories, elite engineers, billions of dollars, and enough influence to make Wall Street analysts bow respectfully like medieval peasants greeting royalty.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the corner of Silicon Valley, a smaller company named NVIDIA was busy making graphics cards mostly for gamers.

To many people back then, NVIDIA was basically:

“Those guys helping teenage boys play better video games in their parents’ basement.”

Not exactly a résumé that terrified Intel.

At the time, Intel executives were probably looking at NVIDIA the same way a lion looks at a squirrel:

“Cute little creature. Anyway…”

But NVIDIA’s CEO, Jensen Huang, had a strange vision.

He believed GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) were not just for games.

He believed they would someday power scientific computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and basically the future itself.

Now imagine explaining that idea in 2003.

People probably stared at him like:

“So… let me get this straight… you think the future of humanity depends on graphics cards originally designed to help people shoot aliens faster?”

Even Intel probably thought:

“This man has inhaled too much thermal paste.”

Because in those days, CPUs ruled everything.
And Intel owned CPU (Central Processing Unit).

Why would anyone need another type of computing architecture?

That question would later age like milk left in a hot car.

You see, Intel became incredibly successful by dominating the present.

NVIDIA became incredibly successful by preparing for the future.

And those are not always the same thing.

Intel focused on protecting its empire:

faster CPUs,
bigger factories,
maintaining dominance,
squeezing more power from the same business model.

Which made perfect sense.

If you own the casino, you don’t suddenly go outside and start selling hot dogs in the parking lot.

But NVIDIA was doing something weird.

Instead of just improving gaming graphics, they started investing heavily into parallel computing — teaching GPUs to perform massive numbers of calculations simultaneously.

Then in 2006, NVIDIA launched CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture.)

Most people outside the tech world had no idea what CUDA was.

Honestly, even many tech people looked confused.

CUDA basically allowed developers to use NVIDIA GPUs for serious computing tasks instead of only graphics.

And for YEARS, almost nobody cared.

Wall Street wasn’t throwing confetti.

People weren’t dancing in the streets.

There was no dramatic movie soundtrack playing in the background.

It was more like:
“Congratulations Jensen… your graphics cards can now do math.”

Amazing. Truly revolutionary. Somebody calls NASA.

But Jensen Huang kept pushing anyway.

That’s one of the fascinating things about visionary people:
they are often willing to look ridiculous for a very long time.

Meanwhile, Intel was still gigantic.

Still profitable.
Still powerful.
Still convinced the CPU was the center of the universe.

And to be fair, for many years, they were right.

But history has a funny habit:
the future rarely sends an appointment notice before arriving.

Then came artificial intelligence.

Suddenly the world needed enormous computing power capable of processing millions and billions of calculations in parallel.

And guess whose technology was PERFECT for that?

NVIDIA.

The “gaming graphics company.”
The squirrel.
The side characters.

The company many people underestimated for decades.

Turns out GPUs were not just useful for video games.

They became the engine behind modern AI.

And suddenly the world realized NVIDIA had quietly spent nearly twenty years building the infrastructure for the next technological revolution while everyone else was arguing about slightly faster CPUs.

That’s when the plot twist hit.

The small company nobody took seriously became one of the most valuable companies on Earth.

Meanwhile, Intel — still huge, still important, still respected — suddenly looked like a giant trying to turn around a cruise ship while NVIDIA was flying by on a speedboat.

Now here’s the part that applies to modern life.

A lot of people think being small means being weak.

That’s not always true.
Sometimes being small is an advantage.
Small companies move faster.
Small teams adapt quicker.
Small people dream bigger because they have to.

Meanwhile, giant organizations often become prisoners of their own success.

When you are making billions doing something one way, changing direction feels terrifying.

That’s why history keeps repeating itself:

Yahoo underestimated Google
Blockbuster laughed at Netflix
Kodak ignored digital cameras
Intel underestimated how important GPUs and AI would become

Not because these companies were stupid.

Actually, many of them were filled with brilliant people.

But success can quietly become a trap.

When you become powerful, you naturally protect what already works.

And sometimes while you’re busy protecting today’s castle, somebody else is quietly inventing tomorrow.

That reminds me of this verse:
“Do not despise these small beginnings…” — Book of Zechariah 4:10

Because small beginnings often look unimpressive.

NVIDIA once looked like “just a gaming company.”

David looked like “just a shepherd boy.”
Noah looked like “the crazy old guy building a boat where there was no rain.”

The future often arrives wearing ordinary clothes.

Another powerful verse is:
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” — Psalm 118:22

That verse perfectly fits NVIDIA’s story.

The technology many people dismissed eventually became the foundation of the AI age.

And honestly, this lesson applies far beyond technology.

In modern life:

the person everyone ignores today may become tomorrow’s leader,
the small business nobody notices may someday dominate the market,
the quiet employee in the corner may become the innovator everyone depends on,
and the idea people laugh at today may change the world tomorrow.

So never measure your future by your current size.

And never assume giants are invincible.

Because history repeatedly shows:

the future does not always belong to the biggest.

Sometimes it belongs to the one willing to look foolish early, stay patient longer, and keep building while everyone else is busy laughing.