Jensen Huang Had Just Said He'd Do Another 20 Years—Then the Board Pulled the Plug Overnight

A few weeks ago, in Bloomberg's 45-minute documentary, Jensen Huang spent the final 50 seconds talking about succession and a sense of crisis. A few weeks later, both halves of that statement came true at the same time.

At 43:23 in the original video, the host asks about a successor, and Jensen Huang says that as long as his health allows, he plans to do another 20 years. Before the end credits, he adds a bit of management philosophy: he could be fired at any time, the next CEO must also be hired on merit, no one he likes can rest secure in their position, and everyone must always have a sense of crisis. The quote in the source material is chilling.

Weeks later, the first half came true. The source material claims that, amid a relationship with a direct-report executive and NDAs signed by the security team that crossed corporate-governance red lines, the independent board—which had publicly backed him just four days earlier—pulled the plug overnight. An SEC 8-K filing recorded that the resignation took effect immediately, with no one-day buffer. NDA stands for non-disclosure agreement; here, it points to a governance issue.

The second half exposed another problem: for 33 years, there was no COO and no business-unit president, and roughly 60 vice presidents reported directly to him in a single line. After he left, there was no internal No. 2 who had overseen the complete cross-business portfolio. With only five days left before a Q3 earnings report carrying expectations of $100 billion for the quarter, the CFO stepped in to put out the fire and also took on the CEO role, and Nvidia, 33 years after its founding, selected its first-ever chairman overnight.

In the comments, some pointed the finger at the power structure, saying Jensen has a 3.8% stake but 100% of the power. Others said the flat structure was fundamentally unreasonable from the start, and even the backup option was empty. Still others wrote that the management philosophy used to sound like management philosophy, but now it sounds like a trailer he wrote for himself.

A netizen posted a question from a trading platform: Are you on Team Huang? The attached image was NVDA-related.

Another table was posted, and the person who posted it asked only one question: What does this table tell us? The source material did not elaborate on the data in the table; the image is left here.

After 33 years at the helm, he ultimately proved firsthand that no one's position at Nvidia is a given—including his own, just a dozen or so seconds after he said he planned to do another 20 years. The final line of the source material lands hard and is very specific.

Source: https://x.com/mylifcc/status/2121030531823591860

Reference: https://x.com/weexglobal_ch/status/2121055664353251648