Jensen Huang is such an important figure at Nvidia that his extramarital affairs — with an alleged Chinese spy and apparently with a colleague — have left the world’s most valuable chipmaker with what may be the world’s biggest corporate succession problem.
Trading on a rags-to-riches life story that saw him make huge, risky long-term bets on the future of the tech market, Huang developed a reputation as a tech visionary whose name was synonymous with – and even eclipsed – that of his company.
Now, for the first time since he co-founded the company in 1993, a real discussion has begun about who might replace him.
“We always knew that key man risk was an issue for Nvidia,” said Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon. “It’s not clear who will be the successor… there’s blood in the water now.”
Nvidia employees, known for their fierce loyalty to the CEO and relatively low attrition rates, were stunned. Some are angry, not knowing if Huang will be able to stay.
“This is the greatest disgrace,” said a longtime Nvidia colleague, adding that a “globally respected and admired” technology group had been weakened “because of its own ego and weakness.”
Huang uses an unusual horizontal management structure with about 60 executives reporting directly to him. This gives him enormous reach and influence over every decision made within the company.
This arrangement means that in Huang’s absence, no leader is able to fulfill his role as chief diplomat, strategist, lobbyist, investor and salesman. Nvidia also has no formal public succession plan — an idea Huang said he doesn’t believe in.
Colleagues say Huang is known to have entered a discussion thread with relatively junior employees to ask him about product details. Its influence is reflected even in the physical layout of its headquarters.
The chief executive speaks with a large group of executives at the start of each week in a special conference room that doubles as Huang’s office, emphasizing the “flat” organizational structure he has developed.
Executives sit around a huge oval office, with a few rows of stadium-style seats in the back and brainstorming boards on the walls. “Jensen does most of the talking,” said one person who attended those meetings.
This same horizontal system built around a single, unique personality is set to fragment if Huang is ousted.
Nvidia’s board, which includes several of Huang’s allies who have worked with him since the 1990s, launched an independent investigation led by a former federal prosecutor.
A person within the company said the simplest solution in the event of Huang’s resignation or ouster would be for the board to appoint CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO while it considers a permanent replacement.
The person described Kress — who is well-known in the investment and analyst community but has been content to allow her boss to take center stage — as having the ruthlessness, “sharp elbows” and broad understanding of Nvidia’s sprawling finances needed for the role.
The company has a portfolio of deals and products that spans the next decade, meaning there is unlikely to be an immediate impact on its day-to-day operations or strategic roadmap.
Kress, who joined Cisco in 2013 and previously worked at Microsoft, however, is not an engineer like his boss and lacks his technical background. Her first big public test will come Tuesday, when she is scheduled to host the company’s quarterly results conference call.
Kress is part of an inner circle of four official leaders around Huang. The other three are General Counsel Tim Teter, Chief Operations Officer Debora Shoquist and Chief of Global Field Operations Nick Parker.
Parker only joined Nvidia from Microsoft in August, replacing Jay Puri, Huang’s longtime confidant, who retired. Puri had overseen Parker’s transition to this “senior advisor” role.
Teter, a former attorney at Palo Alto-based Cooley, played a key role in Nvidia’s lobbying efforts over AI chip exports in Washington, which now face a major bipartisan backlash after the midterm elections.
Chris Malachowsky, the engineer who co-founded the company with Huang, still officially works there as an “Nvidia Fellow” but is not involved in day-to-day operations.
Two company sources also pointed to two-decade Nvidia veteran Ian Buck, who runs Nvidia’s mission-critical data center business and is known for developing the CUDA software that its AI chips use.
Unlike Kress, Buck is not officially part of Nvidia’s inner circle of executives. However, the discreet and approachable engineer is held in high esteem within the company and can match his boss’s technical understanding of the company’s vast product portfolio, the sources said.
If the board looks outside the company, analysts say an obvious candidate would be Arm CEO René Haas, himself a former Nvidia executive.
Meanwhile, Lisa Su at AMD, Nvidia’s closest competitor, already has experience rescuing a large company from crisis. Spokespeople for both leaders did not respond to requests for comment.
Huang’s daughter, Madison Huang, who joined Nvidia as an intern about six years ago, now holds a senior position in product marketing. She was seen as a potential successor before the scandal broke, albeit in the distant future, two sources said.
She had begun appearing more frequently, accompanying her father on international trips, including his most recent visit to Europe last month.
Jensen Huang told Bloomberg last month that Madison Huang or his son Spencer Huang, who also works at Nvidia, “should win it” and suggested he planned to stay in the role for another 20 years.
“We need to create the conditions for the business to continue to thrive,” Huang said. “Just like I can be fired, the next CEO has to be hired.”
Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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