Sold Before the Surge: The Story of Lost Billions

Nvidia co-founder Nvidia Curtis Priem lost about $574 billion in potential profits due to selling his shares too early, according to Fortune.

Founding History and Founder Shares

Priem, together with Jensen Huang and Chris Malachowsky, founded Nvidia in 1993. Prior to that, the trio worked at Sun Microsystems — one of the most prominent tech startups of the 1990s.

According to archival documents from SEC before Nvidia’s IPO in 1999, Priem owned 3 million shares — about 12.8% of the company. Similar stakes were held by his co-founders. At the time of the IPO, Nvidia was valued at roughly $1.1 billion. During the public offering, 3.5 million shares were issued, diluting founder ownership to about 11%.

In 2003, Priem left Nvidia. According to media reports, this was due to family circumstances that prevented him from dedicating sufficient time to the business. By 2006, he had fully sold all of his shares.

Although exact transaction amounts were not disclosed, Priem stated that he donated more than three-quarters of his wealth to the Priem Family Foundation.

Today, his personal net worth is estimated at about $30 million. If Priem had retained his original stake (adjusted for subsequent stock splits), his shares could be worth approximately $574 billion today.

The calculation is based on Nvidia’s current share price of about $191.6. The historical peak exceeded $200, which could value the stake at nearly $600 billion.

Nvidia stock price on the Nasdaq exchange. Source: TradingView

Nvidia’s market capitalization currently exceeds $4.6 trillion, largely driven by explosive demand for the company’s GPUs during the global AI boom.

Since 2023, Nvidia has become one of the primary beneficiaries of the AI revolution. Its chips are widely used for training and operating large language models, data centers, and cloud computing infrastructure. The company has essentially taken a strategic position in the infrastructure of the new technological wave.

This factor created an astronomical gap between Priem’s early stake value and its potential current valuation. In 1999, his share was worth about $141 million — an impressive amount at the time. However, holding the shares long term through three decades of unprecedented company growth could have resulted in wealth comparable to that of the world’s largest billionaires.

In media comments, Priem admitted that, looking back, he would have liked to keep “a little” Nvidia stock. His story is a classic example of the dilemma faced by early tech company co-founders. Selling shares can be logical due to personal circumstances, diversification, and risk reduction. However, if the company later becomes one of the most valuable businesses in history, the cost of missed opportunity becomes enormous.

This case also highlights one of the key characteristics of the tech sector: major wealth is often created not at IPO, but through long-term holding of shares in fast-growing companies.

Curtis Priem’s story is not so much about “lost” hundreds of billions as it is a reminder of how difficult it is to predict future success even for those who stood at the origins of a company.