alt Hacker News> He had a long-term mindset
Did he? A singular CEO with 40+ direct reports and no succession plan... that alone feels like a very short term mindset to me. He could have been hit by a car tomorrow, what's the contingency plan there? Not to mention the whole 'violating export restrictions' thing, that's typically not great for the long term viability of a company either.
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Without naming names, as that would be too identifying, the issue there is actually that Jensen was a bad and weak manager. Part of the reason for his accumulation of direct reports was not straightening out interpersonal issues amongst his reports - he has multiple sets of multiple reports each where they would naturally have a single owner but because they hate each other he couldn't have any of them report to any of the others (looking at you, Mellanox). This is a basic failure of managerial skill.
Jansen was once an engineer and a solid evangelist, but he doesn't really appear to have any skill at managing people.
Not sure it’s as much “short term mindset” as it is power consolidation. He doesn’t own a big voting share (only 3.5%) or a special share class like Zuck, so it’s in his interest to not have a clear #2 lest they and the board get any ideas of collaborating on a coup.