By Geoff Weiss
Publication Date: 2026-01-22 10:00:00
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Derek Fulton, 31, a former Nvidia software engineer who quit to found the North Carolina-based cloud startup Carolina Cloud with his wife. Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment about its work culture. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve been messing around with computers since I got my first MacBook in 2006 at age 11. From building potato cannons to flying drones, I always wanted to solve problems and build things.
After college, I worked in data science at a European bank and as a quantitative analyst at a hedge fund specializing in mortgage investments.
When a friend from college who worked at Nvidia posted on LinkedIn about a software engineering opportunity, I knew I had to apply. I’ve always been a technologist at heart, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about.
When I first joined, I felt like I was learning a good bit. It was the first time I was on a team where software was the final product and not just an internal tool — where getting the last mile right really mattered.
