Yeah, it's a very interesting way of announcing a breakup. A very PUBLIC way of doing it as well. Some (most?) employees likely found out via some YouTubers, just before the meeting with the CEO Andrew Han. Or at least that's how it sounded; maybe they found out just before the video embargo was lifted? I mean, I guess he couldn't reasonably invite 20 or 50 publications to a briefing and then expect it not to leak. With only three people in attendance, and perhaps because there was some trust between them, that's a way to control the situation.
Could Andrew Han have invited more than 3 people, obviously yes he could. But why would he? Why did he pick those 3 men to do the private personal interview?
The people he invited were people he trusted from the media / industry to give a "Fair, Honest, and/or Unbiased" look at this situation.
That's the only logic that I can conclude.
But then it goes back to what Steve at GN was saying about there being some discrepancies. EVGA's CEO is basically killing 80% of his business. He won't retire. He won't sell. He won't even do any other GPUs (ie, AMD or Intel) — possibly because he just feels the entire GPU market is set for a major downturn. That's a lot of really odd decisions for a CEO to make that ultimately point to EVGA closing up shop, or at least massively downsizing. And it was all done after the major profits of the past two years were over. Jay said he felt like he spent four hours trying to talk Andrew out of this move. That suggests he also has some major concerns with what's happening.
He won't do anything with AMD or Intel at the moment. That can obviously change in the future. But currently, he feels "Burned" by nVIDIA and has Commitment Issues due to the abusive relation with nVIDIA.
This decision must be recent / fresh in his mind and still weigh in heavily on his mind because he spent 20+ years of his life building eVGA into what it is. It's not a easy decision to cut ties, but it's one that he decided to make. And as with any bad breakups in relationships, he might be having cold feet getting back into the "Dating Pool" or in his case "GPU Provider / AIB manufacturer" pool.
Given the MASSIVE influx of GPU's from the Crypto Mining Crash, nVIDIA setting Price Floors & Ceilings on their AIB's, and being forced to buy inventory at massively marked up prices during the GPU / Mining induced shortage. He probably sees his profit margin go to near 0 or go Red on his balance sheet.
I don't blame Andrew Han for wanting to quit if the current market is the way it is.
Rumors are that there is over a year's worth of supply of RTX 30 series sitting in ware houses, ready to be sold; but with used market tsunami & unsold stock + RTX 40 series and AMD's RDNA 3 series coming out, it's going to be ROUGH to get rid of existing inventory that their $$$ is tied up into.
Personally, I think it's stupid to shut down the GPU division like this and refuse to sell. Even if EVGA was sold off to someone "unethical," that might hurt Andrew Han's feelings or whatever, but hardly anyone really thinks of him when they think of EVGA. It's just a company that does decent graphics cards and some other PC hardware to most of us. Selling the company couldn't possibly be any worse for the current employees AFAICT. Because it looks as though 80% of them will have to find a different job in the near future, and a new owner almost certainly wouldn't be doing anything worse than that.
EVGA is Andrew Han's private company, he can do with it what he wants. If that means down-sizing, who are we, outsiders, to say what is good for him.
EVGA is like Andrew Han's personal dream come to life. It ate up over 2 decades of his life and created countless Video Cards that many consumers enjoyed.
Let's be supportive of what Andrew Han wants to do in the future. Let's be encouraging to him.
I don't see how EVGA gets through this without ending up where BFG went. And how much sense would it make for EVGA to continue making PSUs under their current brand? Change the name to EPSU, because there's no longer any VGA. PSUs might have higher margins, but they're also far less exciting and far lower sales compared to GPUs. EVGA was 40% of the US Nvidia market. That's massive. If it made 20% profit off each card sold, compared to 60% profit off each PSU sold, the GPU division still would have brought in far more money.
The only solution I see is for EVGA to go with AMD. Intel is a mess with ARC, I don't trust ARC's future in dGPU's given what I'm hearing BtS (Behind the Scenes).
The question is whether or not EVGA has a "Non Compete" clause with nVIDIA and how long will it last?
If anybody has insider knowledge of this, I'd like to know.
But this is the decision of the CEO, since EVGA isn't publicly traded. He can do whatever he wants, and right now he apparently wants to spit in Nvidia's face, let the whole world know that he thinks Nvidia is a bad business partner, and take his GPU ball and go home. I don't doubt that it's very hard at times to do business with Nvidia. I guess not doing business at all will be better. Or if EVGA now changes course and decides to start doing AMD or Intel cards, or sells off the company, then maybe this was just a big PR move to get the appropriate buyer or partner or whatever. We'll see.
Your options is to do business with nVIDIA, and eventually your Video Card division will go in the Red.
Why on Earth would you want to lose money? You don't exist to just get squeezed out of the Video Card market by Jensen Huang.
Jensen Huang has made it public that he HATES AIB's and thinks they're lazy & adds no value.
Jensen Huang has made it public that he wants nVIDIA to become like Apple, FULL VERTICAL INTEGRATION.
The question is how long will the other AIB's hang on?
XFX swapped sides, BFG went down and closed shop.
EVGA currently is calling it quits.
When will ZOTAC, PNY, ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI all call it quits in North America?
How long before the AIB's in other regions like GALAX, Gainward, Colorful, etc stay around?
Time will obviously tell, but given the shrinking profit margins, I wouldn't be surprised if we see all AIB partners pushed out before the end of 2030 given the accelerated shrinking profit margins for AIB's.
Jensen Huang is 59 y/o, how long do you think he can remain in good health / faculties and still run nVIDIA?
If his ultimate plan is to get rid of all AIB's without explicitly kicking them out, but squeeze them out financially, Jensens master plan is working to a T.
He only has 5x more AIB's in North America and a handful outside to worry about.
At this rate, I'm sure all the division managers in those other nVIDIA partnered respective AIB companies are carefully watching their balance sheet and making sure that it makes financial sense to still do business in the nVIDIA AIB market.