CES Required Reading: "The Nvidia Way"
As you prepare for your CES 2025 experience making appointments and packing sleep aids and pain relievers you might add the new biography of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to your kitbag. “The Nvidia Way” captures all that CES has always stood for in terms of startup opportunities, evolving markets, and new technology.
(In fact, this year's event takes place 31 years after Nvidia's first visit to Comdex, also held in Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center, in the fall of 1994 where the company presented its first product, the NV1, with its European manufacturing partner SGS-Thomson.)
Most importantly, “The Nvidia Way” highlights the transformative power of an individual. Nvidia had three founders, each with their own expertise: Curtis Priem, Chris Malachowsky, and Huang. But all three instinctively knew that Huang would lead them.
As author Tae Kim tells the tale, quoting Priem: “’We basically deferred to Jensen on day one,’ Priem said, telling him ‘you’re in charge of running the company – all the stuff Chris and I don’t know how to do.’
“Huang remembers Priem being even more direct: ‘Jensen, you’re the CEO, right? Done.’”
It was the same way with investors. Writes Kim: “Although (LSI CEO Wilfred) Corrigan may have had doubts about Nvidia’s potential, he had none about Jensen himself. When he called Valentine after his conversation with the young, departing engineer, he didn’t pitch Jensen’s star-up idea; he pitched Jensen.”
The same element applies to companies and industries represented across the spectrum of CES 2025 from healthcare to mobility and beyond. For me, CES has emerged as a showcase of automotive technology and the struggles of the automotive industry to come to grips with connectivity and the so-called software-defined vehicle. The latest innovations will be on display at CES 2025 and semiconductor companies will play a prominent role.
One automotive application in particular remains elusive. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has had a lot to say about how to build cars and enable semi-automated driving, but one area he has yet to conquer is in-vehicle commerce – v-commerce. In spite of all of his headline grabbing antics and regulator-defying innovation, Musk and Tesla have failed to deliver an in-vehicle platform capable of enabling commerce from the car.
This opportunity is still being pursued by exhibitors at this year’s CES 2025 including companies ranging from Sheeva.ai and Soundhound.ai to Blackberry, Qualcomm, Harman International, Faurecia, Continental, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW. But one company stands out thanks to the vision and expertise of its CEO and co-founder Cynthia Hollen and that is Mavi.io.
When Harman went looking for an executive to help ignite the Harman Ignite app store the company’s marketing team found its way to Hollen, the former president of eShopWorld. (Now known as ESW, it is a global, direct-to-consumer e-commerce company that helps brands and retailers expand their businesses.)
The ESW platform assists the shopper’s journey, from demand generation to customer service, and includes compliance, data security, fraud protection, taxes, and tariffs. Harman had been working on creating v-commerce experiences for nearly 20 years before finding Hollen.
Hollen is the “fifth element” of in-vehicle commerce. She was preceded in this application space by the likes of Robert Acker, the former CEO of Aha Radio who passed away in 2014. Aha Radio was acquired by Harman and led, among other activities, an effort to create a v-commerce platform.
Telenav’s Sal Dhanani and H.P. Jin demonstrated Starbucks coffee purchases from their in-car navigation platform years before the pandemic, but never brought the solution to market. And Dan Gittleman, CEO of Xevo, brought General Motors’ Marketplace app to life before selling the company to Lear and seeing the app ultimately fail.
What all of these efforts lacked was a Cynthia Hollen – someone with deep experience in the e-commerce sector, but also someone who had researched consumer behavior and preferences. The Mavi.io OnMyWay v-commerce solution for ordering food and groceries from a vehicle – consumer or commercial – will be on display at multiple locations at CES 2025 including Qualcomm’s booth and the COVESA event, Tuesday evening at Bellagio.
Thanks to Hollen, Mavi.io is bringing together fleet operators, car companies, and integration partners with the world of retail and restaurants where she is well known and trusted. Technology experts and Silicon Valley engineers and marketers have come and gone, passing through the halls of leading auto makers and failing to deliver transformative experiences for consumers. Cynthia Hollen is a one-of-a-kind value proposition who is finally unlocking the door to v-commerce an objective long sought by the automotive industry.
Meanwhile don’t miss Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote at 6:30 Monday evening, January 6th. Consumer Technology Association (presenter and owner of CES 2025) CEO Gary Shapiro has his own book to tout at CES: “Pivot or Die.” Jensen Huang is the ultimate pivot master moving from workstation graphics to graphics cards for PC gaming, to bitcoin mining and robotaxis, to artificial intelligence and a 3T+ market cap. In the words of Curtis Priem, now vice chairman of the board of Nvidia: “Done.”