I distinctly remember the day, back in 1998, when Geiss (screenshots) first hit the Winamp plugin community. I was blown away by what seemed like a simple application but in reality was a very challenging use of the GPU. It is now de rigeur to have a Geiss-like screensaver for audio applications but before Geiss, there was nothing like it.
I noticed that Ryan Geiss is working at NVidia now, and that seems like the perfect place for him to be.
Homepage: Geisswerks
Winamp plug-ins: Geiss2
Winamp Alumni: Ryan Geiss
Ryan’s throwing a party in Santa Cruz at the end of this month. Let me know if you want details
I’ve known him since my time at Creative, and keep running into him at random conferences (like the Game Developer’s)