alt Hacker NewsNvidia is preparing to oust Jensen Huang
Comments
I recently recalled Nvidia's rather strange reaction to the Gamers Nexus investigation into GPU smuggling [0]. Found it somewhat strange at the time how incredibly agitated the reaction seemed to have been, given Nvidia could sell the same GPUs for the same price essentially instantly without the Chinese market. Their reaction wasn't merely a denial, dismissal or even silence, but very irrationally sounding for a company of their size and standing.
Why not just sell to not-sanctioned entities, ensure compliance to the best of your abilities and otherwise keep your head down? Again, wasn't like they struggled to find buyers for their chips.
Considering Megaspeed, I now see this in a very different light. Him cheating is personal and I wish the affected members of any family of a cheater the best, but not relevant for us outsiders.
Being honey trapped very bad securities wise, but he'd be a victim (and evidence for why we shouldn't discount Mistral in the frontier lab race [1]). If sanctions avoidance went all the way to the top, that is hard to negate even for a board that is interested in keeping him. At that stage he was neither honey trapped nor "merely horny"...
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3xQaf7BFI
[1] https://time.com/archive/7146565/hollandes-popularity-goes-u...
I said on this a few days ago that he should be thinking about resigning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50418016
At the time I didn't think it would happen because of impact on Nvidia's stock price, but at that point we didn't know about his second affair - with Kimberly Powell.
I'd suggest this latest revelation makes his position untenable, especially if the board found out about the second affair via a source other than Huang himself. He should have spilled the beans on that when the first affair came out, not that it would necessarily have saved him, but withholding the information - if that's what he did - should condemn him. It's another serious lapse in judgement and a failure of integrity that is not befitting of one of the most powerful corporate leaders on earth.
Goodness knows how his wife is feeling at this point. Certainly makes his apology from a couple of days back ring rather hollow.
EDIT: The fact that someone like Jensen Huang - who I'd previously considered to be an incredibly smart guy as opposed to a nitwit - can somehow completely implode his life in almost the most ridiculous way imaginable does give me some hope that at least some of the troublemaker ne'er do wells that have wielded so much power over us all over the past decade or so might also experience some just desserts in the not too distant future.
Here's why Jensen is critical to Nvidia as well as the industry:
Without Jensen Huang's vision, Nvidia might have remained primarily a graphics chip maker, and the deep learning revolution would not have arrived when it did. Long before deep neural networks took off, Huang backed the use of Nvidia GPUs for scientific and general-purpose computing, including the development of CUDA. In 2012, Krizhevsky, Sutskever, and Hinton used Nvidia GPUs and CUDA to train AlexNet, whose breakthrough performance helped ignite the modern deep learning boom. Nvidia's investment in programmable GPUs helped make that breakthrough possible.
The critical vision was that GPUs could become a platform for computing beyond graphics—and that Nvidia should invest in making them programmable before a large market for that use existed.
The board should punish Huang without punishing the industry and the nation. For example by cutting his salary and stock to 0 for 2 years.
People arguing the technical and business merits of what Jensen brought to the company aren't getting how serious these allegations against him are.
The US Government is using NVIDIA chips for all sort of stuff across all classification levels. Subsequently, Jensen has deep relationships within the government that warrants additional scrutiny.
Him authorizing his company to sell massive amounts of chips to a restricted country is massively illegal, but companies work around that and have since forever. Doesn't make it less illegal, but that's only a small part of the problem.
The real problem is that nobody knows how much sensitive info Jensen gave this woman or how far that info spread.
It's really about fairness. Us technical salespeople take training that tells us all of the ways that deals with restricted countries happen and how we will immediately get fired ten ways to Sunday if we forego that to close quota. Also, normies with clearances tell their partners stuff they shouldn't. Stuff they think isn't really sensitive since it seems so minute. This isn't bad until said partner spills at the wrong place and wrong time. That's how normies get sent to prison for treason. Loose lips sink ships and all that. [^0]
Getting fired -- WHICH HE ABSOLUTELY SHOULD BE -- is the least of his problems.
[^0] Examples:
- https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/retired-us-army-officer.... Army officer leaks secrets through dating website to sound cool; gets six years
- https://www.foxnews.com/us/pentagon-leaker-jack-teixeira-rec.... Leaked secrets about Ukraine war through Discord to sound cool; gets 15 years
- https://www.westernjournal.com/ex-cia-officer-accused-leakin.... CIA officer leaks stuff to journalist girlfriend; gets 10 years
What’s the non-cynical explanation here which doesn’t involve Jensen having ruffled feathers he shouldn’t have?
Elon regularly gets away with way more morally (and perhaps legally) egregious stuff and yet he has increasingly cemented his position. Partly through indirect leverage from his companies and partly from buying access to power directly.
Even Sam managed to stage an employee revolt to stay in control.
For founders of companies perhaps the lesson keeps repeating itself - keep control of your companies no matter what.
I’m not sure this is good for shareholders and the larger AI ecosystem either. Corporate governance is obviously important especially for mature industries.
But Jensen has consistently demonstrated ability to keep Nvidia alive during dire times and eventually delivered the biggest profits in corporate history.
Edit: some cynical explanations:
1. China hawks in tech and admin wanted him out
2. Nvidia competitors found oppo research too juicy to ignore and sequenced a set of destructive reporting
3. People in AI found Jensen’s grip of the supply chain too annoying and wanted to loosen it somehow
4. Internal politics / someone wanting Jensen’s job
5. Some combination of the above
Nvidia is one of the most critical strategic assets in the USA today, underpinning economic dominance and national defence. Leadership at this level usually operates under an implicit shield. Normal procedure would be to cover-up. A sudden loss of Nvidia's founder and CEO at this juncture is a blow to American strategic posture and a windfall to China.
I think the real story is not the affair, which was already reported in asian media in 2024, but what specific catalyst broke that protective shield and made continued containment untenable.
Nuanced opinions
1) The fact that he cheated on his wife isn't particularly relevant, other than the lack of a prenup meaning she owns half his stock (4% of the company).
2) The fact that he slept with a subordinate shows bad judgment, but isn't a huge deal (although improper and opens up potential quid-pro-quo lawsuits)
3) The fact that he slept with a Chinese spy is a huge deal.
4) The fact that there are allegations that he was aware that they were selling illegally to China is a huge deal.
5) Even though those export control were arguably bad, the law must be respected and the being seen ignoring the law would have a chilling effect on appearance of a fair democracy.
6) There is definitely a demonstration of lack of judgment (getting caught selling to china rather than maintaining plausible deniability), (sleeping with a spy rather than just hiring an escort)
7) Despite all of this, in theory he would arguably still be the most profitable CEO (if he doesn't get charged with a crime, AND if there are no other issues to discover) in the medium term, but where there's smoke there may be fire. Does this raise the odds of circular financing and other shenanigans?
If this had happened at a more recent founder-led tech company, the board would have far less practical independence
Dual-class share structures have become the defacto standard for founder led companies, giving founders disproportionate (even majority) voting power.
Someone like Zuckerberg effectively controls the board and would be extraordinarily difficult to oust against his wishes (absent some exceptional legal intervention or a decision to step aside)
This is kinda huge; my layperson view is that Jensen has been responsible for their long term technology strategy, which requires deep understanding of so much outside of the business domain. I'm not exactly thrilled that they are "eating the world" (hf purchase had me bent out of shape, for example), but they've undeniably executed on some long term complex shit. Who could take his place?
It's really interesting to me how unaggressive Jensen has been vs. his peers about tighting up control over his company (even during the recent years when he had huge leverage):
- His board setup is ... odd. He isn't Chairman of the Board (a role over 50% of Fortune 100 CEOs apparently hold). He seems to be responsible for Nvidia having a wierdly more egalitarian structure (all directors including him, are equal, with a designated lead independent director)
- His compensation (~$35M, primarily stock) is ... not up there with other tech CEOs
- He doesn't seem to have ever pushed for super-voting rights (he only has like ~3.5% of the company), but I guess that's hard to change once you IPO
I kinda wonder if this ends with him taking a month off, spending 12-18 months transitioning to a successor and ending as the chairman of the board or some such. He really does seem vital to the company (and thus the stock price).
Sounds like he helped China get GPUs in violation of export controls. This puts NVidia in a tough place as keeping him as CEO risks broader legal ramifications.
Large companies always have a backup plan in case the CEO needs to be replaced. What usually happens in these cases is that a new CEO will be named. That new CEO will focus on maximizing the company's earnings while neglecting the tech. And the company will be an earnings winner for the next few years.
He's out as CEO but he'll continue to be a force at Nvidia. If the new CEO is smart, he'll keep him in the company, but it will be hard since Huang will be seen as the company's leader and it will be very hard for Huang to act any other way.
Well, what makes me little dissapointed is instead of focusing on issues and topics that really matter, we discuss who f*cked whom.
There are gravely important matters to focus on in the current state of affairs that affect us all, our kids and future of human kind, but we got somehow trained to waste our focus and time on mere noise every single day.
Related: Jensen Huang Said to Have Had Relationship with Nvidia Executive https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50459321
This doesn’t bode well for Anthropic’s IPO indirectly, due to whole AI industry being propped up largely by Nvidia’s circular investment. Also there’s likely a big overlap of institutional investors who are both NVDA and ANT investors and will now likely seek to dump ANT at the opening bell.
This doesn't seem like a healthy move for the company's longevity. What else did Jensen do? It's a given that companies that size will be targets for espionage and leak information even without it. This one mistake is enough to end all the value he has-and would continue to add to nvidia? Feels like we're missing information about the whole thing.
The thing I don't understand is what is the real issue? Just the bad PR? I would kind of think affairs are pretty common, it's just this is public? I'm struggling to find anything where he did something bad business wise or compromised national security. Seems like Americans just love the sensationalism of affairs. Makes for good news I guess.
Remember Jensen Huang's first post on twitter: "For my first post, I’m sharing a letter NVIDIA signed on why open models matter." https://x.com/JensenHuang/status/2080643682408321103
Open Weights and American AI Leadership https://images.nvidia.com/pdf/Open-Weights-and-American-AI-L...
Can someone make the strong case for why he should be ousted?
I’m not deep into this story, but my initial reaction is that marital infidelity doesn’t seem like a strong reason to oust him, aside from him possibly being compromised by an international spy. Haven’t other successful leaders continued to lead after having their affairs exposed?
(And no, I don’t believe what he did is morally excusable for the record.)
The thought that Jensen Huang might not be CEO of Nvidia when GTA VI comes out.
He's had the job since before GTA 1 started development.
There isn't enough discussion of how many controls needed to fail for Nvidia to smuggle billions of dollars of GPUs to Chinese firms in violation of export controls. The affairs with alleged spies is not even the most egregious failure of corporate governance.
When I read that Jensen was exploring Chinese Models, I thought it meant something different.
Considering that only Jensen has been pushing for anything close to open-source models in terms of AI vs the token merchants of OpenAI and Anthropic, it seems a really bad time for Huang to leave.
I do think that "eventually" AI will be open-(source, weight, something) and most people will run at least some of their workload on their own hardware; but his leaving might delay that day considerably.
Is there any reason why this will actually change the fundamentals of Nvidia's business so long as 5080s go for as much as a used car and the entire world wants H200s? Even if they lose an extremely hands-on CEO, they're selling a very expensive product with extremely high global demand.
I'm concerned about how this further could impact consumer access to GPUs and RAM, if he's replaced with someone who will prioritize these markets even less than they already are.
I wonder what happens to NVDA afterwards. People say Jensen is NVDA or at least he has a lot of controls over the company. I guess they finally found the right time (very bad midterm) and the right opportunity (mistress as Chinese spy).
I even wonder whether some elements within the Chinese government has a hand in it -- not (only) the mistress part but the ousting part.
Interesting to see what happens to the consumer, gaming GPU market.
Financially it almost certainly makes sense to sell to AI hyperscalers alone; without Jensen, perhaps Nvidia shifts like Micron before them, leaving the lower margin consumer market to others.
I would figure Jensen for the type to "dance with the girl who you bought to the dance" type. A new CEO may lack that sort of sentimentality for the gamers/prosumers that made Nvidia.
It's not immediately clear that Jensen is as visionary and indispensable as some people claim. True, under his watch, Nvidia rose from a relatively obscure company to one of the largest companies in the world, and even a national asset. But it's really hard to believe that these achievements are due to Jensen's brilliance. Jensen didn't create the crypto mania that propelled Nvidia in the 2010s, nor did he create the current AI revolution.
To me, he had the good fortune of standing in the right place at the right time. He is no Steve Jobs, who almost single-handedly started the PC revolution and the iPhone revolution. This is not to deny his brilliance and business acumen, but I think too many people overstate his contribution to both the company and the United States. Of course I could be wrong so I welcome correction or alternative viewpoints.
Speaking of the US, Jensen has indeed become a liability. A compromised CEO is, of course, a liability to a national asset, and a politically toxic one at that. Nvidia is a business with sensitive political ties now. It can't afford to appear compromised in the eyes of Washington. Therefore, Nvidia's stakeholders must let Jensen go; otherwise, it will affect the company as a whole.
Did he break any law?
Did he circumvent export restrictions?
If not, replacing him would be a mistake for Nvidia. I also fear that it would endanger open weight models in America.
I think there are multiple factors working here:
1. Hardliners angry about NVDA selling GPUs to China;
2. Board/Big investors want to get rid of him. They may think he is less important now that NVDA is clearly the top dog.
3. Political power trying to build up a case starting with him;
Anything else?
If Nvidia is going to fire Jensen Huang, my question is whether Jensen will be allowed to start another "Nvidia".
I hope he's allowed to do so. He now knows how not to get trapped into a tactically targeted honeypot, he knows the ins and outs of a GPU fab business plus he has all the connections.
This minus all the cruft and legacy overhead of a company as old as Nvidia. I'm now hoping he gets fired.
Jensen made Nvidia. He named it, he built it from nothing with 2 other founders.
Ousting him is pretty much the worst case scenario for the company.
He would absolutely be fired if he were in any role, but as CEO cofounder, it's hard not to attribute Nvidia's success to his leadership.
The thing is, this is just what's been reported. There's almost certainly more going on if 2 affairs are public disclosure. If there is a sexual harassment angle here as well, he's toast.
Something very fishy is going on here. If NVIDIA suddenly closes down GPU sales to the general public after Jensen is gone then we know what is happening: the Altman/Dario/Musk mafia have gotten what they wanted: no more compute for open weight models for the general public.
China wins again The Guoanbu ( Guojia Anquan Bu (国家安全部) China's spy agency ) is subtle.
Honeytrap.
Reveal the information to a trusted journalist.
Destroy Huang's credibility.
Force his resignation.
Damage Nvidia.
China moves further in the AI game.
Game set and match. Sounds like this might have been China's real goal.
Jensen Huang is genuinely a classy guy, all possibilities accounted for, I like him.
The breed of CEO's coming up in tech are monstrous in comparison.
It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup, and there seems to be quite a bit of evidence of a coverup and deliberate deception. It’s a liability problem; shareholders will sue. Heads will roll.
It will be a huge mistake for Nvidia
This is like Apple board firing Jobs and Woz at the same time.
I fear this is all political. Jensen was becoming too powerful.
This is basically the civilised US version of what China did to Jack Ma.
Isn't this just not only about the severity of crimes but the potential to withstand the legacy of whatever crimes that were committed that seems untenable to digest.
Won't the CEO be fighting 2 big fights - One on the corporate front burning through the AI races and second the impending doom of lawsuits and the sheer number of avenues this opens up, frivolous or serios, for any Tom, Dick and Harry working with Nvidia as an employee, vendor, partner or anything just wanting an extra piece of the Trillion dollar pie?
That YTD chart, woooow. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NVDA/
Without knowing more this seems like the wrong move... The U.S. has the AI supply chain visualized incorrectly. The necessary manufacturing, raw materials and components all come from outside of the U.S. For nVidia to have decades of supplier relationships and manufacturing understanding, much of this was in the hands of the CEO more than other companies. Jensen has a lot of direct reports which is odd given the corporate structure.
I do wonder if Megaspeed and other shell companies have been monitored for over a year by the Feds where they broke export rules, failed to report to the Govt with the knowledge of several in the Administration... Everyone was making money on the side by allowing Jensen, Megaspeed and others profit off of bypassing export controls. Just recently a shipment of GPUs randomly disappeared as well.
If this all turns out to be true then removing him is a lot stronger than it seems and maybe in the long run fixing the bus factor problem will have been a good change.
Or, since nVidia is the central bank of the AI bubble, forcing him out kicks off a chain reaction that pops the bubble.
This all looks like an excuse to force him to bend the knee. He is the only western tech ceo who is 1) a strong proponent of open weight models and 2) is highly critical of the chip sanctions on China because they’ve done the opposite of what they were meant to do.
Love is a game in which one always cheats.
— Honoré de Balzac
If the allegations of selling “trade secrets” are false. He should remain CEO. I am unsure that there is ITAR or real regulations here, is it really an AI war. If it was it would be best if they trained on American chips for America.
I want a straw poll from people that actually own NVDA. Or at least can honestly adjust to a mental frame of "I am an NVDA shareholder".
Should the board replace him or not?
It's easy to judge when you have no skin in the game. What would you think if you did?
Any Nvidia employees out there?
I would not be surprised if the woman is actually a CIA agent. Since the government bought a stake in Intel, and 15% of Nvidia exports revenue, it has been clear that it want direct control of the industry.
https://archive.is/ZmOEH