Not Too Cool to Rule: One of NVIDIA's Most Coveted Products is a Ruler
"This is super cool;" "I've never seen anything like it;" "How do I get my hands on one?" Talk to NVIDIA recruiter Lisa Calderon and she'll tell you she has a secret weapon when it comes to getting tech's top talent talking to her. It's a foot long, one-and-a-half inches wide and covered with - to the uninitiated - strange gold markings. "Everyone asks the same thing," Calderon says. "'Can I have one?' And, of course, 'can I take another one for my 'friend'?'"
It's the NVIDIA ruler. And, as many NVIDIANs have learned, taking this modest slab of PCB board to the right place - and showing it to the right people - gets an immediate reaction. "Every electrical engineer that I've showed it to has instantly said 'I need one of these right now,'" says Josh, an NVIDIA ASIC architect, who has mailed bunches of them to contacts around the industry. Each time the ruler appears at NVIDIA's internal company store - which has sold 5,000 of these rulers so far - it sells out in minutes. Thousands more have been snatched up at industry conferences such as NIPS - the long-running deep-learning conference - where its appearance created a social media sensation. Employees at competitors will sidle up to our booth at industry events to trade bundles of their swag for it. It's never been made available to the public. But, if you're quick, you can find one on eBay for 10 times its modest employee-only price of $3.50 (when it's available). The only sure to way to get one: make friends with someone at NVIDIA.
It's the NVIDIA ruler. And, as many NVIDIANs have learned, taking this modest slab of PCB board to the right place - and showing it to the right people - gets an immediate reaction. "Every electrical engineer that I've showed it to has instantly said 'I need one of these right now,'" says Josh, an NVIDIA ASIC architect, who has mailed bunches of them to contacts around the industry. Each time the ruler appears at NVIDIA's internal company store - which has sold 5,000 of these rulers so far - it sells out in minutes. Thousands more have been snatched up at industry conferences such as NIPS - the long-running deep-learning conference - where its appearance created a social media sensation. Employees at competitors will sidle up to our booth at industry events to trade bundles of their swag for it. It's never been made available to the public. But, if you're quick, you can find one on eBay for 10 times its modest employee-only price of $3.50 (when it's available). The only sure to way to get one: make friends with someone at NVIDIA.
