Jensen Huang resigned as president and chief executive officer of Nvidia on Thursday.
Jensen Huang Founded Nvidia in 1993
Born in Taiwan in 1963, Huang moved to the United States as a child. In 1993, he and fellow engineers Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky planted the seed for Nvidia at a Denny’s in northern California.
Before launching the company, Huang worked at AMD and LSI Logic. Having studied as a microchip specialist throughout the personal-computer boom of the 1980s, Taiwan-born Jen-Hsun “Jensen” Huang founded Nvidia in 1993 to manufacture a greater volume of the complex microprocessors that earned Silicon Valley its moniker.
Nvidia Valuation Surged Following AI Development Breakthroughs
Academic researchers realized the technology could accelerate AI development as it became more powerful. By May 2023, following the launch of ChatGPT, Nvidia’s valuation reached $1tn, eventually hitting $5tn in October last year.
Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index valued Huang’s 3.6% stake in the company at $145 billion, placing him into Forbes’ list of the world’s 10 wealthiest people in 2024 as business boomed.
Stephen Witt, the author of a biography on Jensen Huang titled Thinking Machine, told the BBC that Huang is a tech visionary of the likes of Steve Jobs.
Witt said Huang was responsible for creating AI hardware as we know it today. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has described Huang as Taylor Swift, but for tech.
Witt said that Nvidia is Jensen to a degree almost never seen in any other corporation. Huang has hailed artificial intelligence as a new industrial revolution that is on par with the advent of electricity. His children, Madison and Spencer, now both work in senior roles at Nvidia.
“When you meet Jensen Huang, even with dozens of other graphics companies, you realise this is a guy you want to do business with,” said Tench Coxe, an Nvidia board member and early investor.
Personal Revelations Triggered Huang's Boardroom Departure
Huang’s departure followed back-to-back revelations regarding his personal life. After these revelations, Huang admitted to having been unfaithful to his wife and apologized for hurting their family.
“It teaches you humility, it teaches you hard work, it teaches you hospitality,” Jensen Huang said in 2023 of his time at the diner chain.
While U.S. President Donald Trump and various other corporate chiefs initially supported Huang and called him honorable, a board meeting was triggered by a subsequent disclosure detailing an affair with Kimberly Powell, an 18-year Nvidia veteran and the company’s vice president of healthcare.
On November 12, Nvidia’s Board of Directors announced that Huang had resigned as President, CEO, and member of the board effective immediately.
Colette Kress, the chief financial officer of Nvidia, consented to step in as interim chief executive officer while the search for a permanent replacement got underway.
Following the revelations, Huang admitted to having been unfaithful to his wife and apologized for hurting their family.
Following the announcement, Donald Trump said that Huang had performed exceptionally well and suggested Apple’s Tim Cook as an ideal candidate to take over leadership at Nvidia.
Elon Musk also said on Wednesday before Huang’s resignation that it would be an honor to hire the Nvidia founder.
Geopolitical Standing
Huang enjoyed access to the seats of political power, being courted by both U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping, and was picked out from a group of 42 to flank the president at a recent AI summit at the White House alongside Elon Musk.
Despite dropping to about $4tn following allegations and his resignation, the company remains a central hardware vendor of the artificial intelligence age.
The People’s Republic accounted for nearly a quarter of the company’s data center revenue as of 2023, reflecting Nvidia’s long exposure to the Chinese market despite ballooning income from several other countries.
Earlier coverage: Jensen Huang: Why a Personal Scandal for the Face of the AI Boom Has Provoked a National Security Scare
