Ex-Nvidia advisor says the company owes him $1 billion in stock, but Nvidia disagrees
According to Gullichsen, he was granted 25,000 stock options in 1993 after demonstrating his fast implementation of biquadratic texture mapping to Nvidia co-founders Jensen Huang and Curtis Priem, technology detailed in a US patent on which he is a named inventor. Read Entire Article
Former Nvidia advisor Eric Gullichsen claims the company owes him $1 billion in stock, but Nvidia refutes the assertion. Gullichsen served on Nvidia's Technical Advisory Board from 1993 to 1996 and was granted 25,000 stock options in 1993 following his rapid implementation of biquadratic texture mapping. Upon leaving the company in 1996, only 15,625 options had vested, a discrepancy he attributes to paperwork error.
By his calculations, the unvested 9,375 options would be worth over $1 billion today, given Nvidia's cumulative 480 stock splits over the past three decades. Gullichsen noticed the error in 2024 as Nvidia's stock soared during the AI boom. According to him, the vesting period should have been quarterly, not annual, so all 25,000 options should have vested before he left in 1996.
However, Nvidia argues that the vesting period was four years, not four quarters, and only 62.5% of options vested, resulting in less than $300 million in value. Despite hiring attorneys, Nvidia maintained the claims were time-barred, and Gullichsen decided not to sue but considered his options exhausted.
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