Ex-Nvidia advisor says the company owes him $1 billion in stock, but Nvidia disagrees

• Eric Gullichsen says Nvidia owes him ~$1B in stock over a 1990s vesting error. • He claims his 1993 options agreement specified quarterly, not four-year, vesting. • Nvidia called the claim time-barred; Gullichsen chose not to sue given the statute of limitations. VR pioneer Eric Gullichsen, who served on Nvidia's Technical Advisory Board from 1993-1996, says the company owes him roughly $1 billion in stock due to a decades-old vesting error. He was granted 25,000 options in 1993 for his texture-mapping technology, but only 15,625 had vested by the time he left in April 1996. Gullichsen says he discovered in 2024 that his option agreement specified vesting over four quarterly installments within one year, not four years as stated in Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang's original invitation letter. He argues the option agreement, which reportedly superseded that letter, should have fully vested all 25,000 options before he departed. After 480x cumulative stock splits, the missing 9,375 options would now equal about 4.5 million shares worth roughly $230 each. Gullichsen's attorneys spent about a year negotiating with Nvidia, which didn't dispute the agreement's authenticity but rejected a settlement, calling the claim time-barred. Gullichsen ultimately decided against suing, concluding the statute of limitations made the case unwinnable.