...you do realise that every word of this would have been written by a top-flight crisis management PR agency?

That doesn't explain why other similar letters, written with similar PR resources, always fail to meaningfully apologize.

Not being facetious, but it is very possible that the person/people in the PR team who wrote it were familiar with similar situations or had a higher emotional intelligence.

Are you suggesting that so many other companies’ PR teams are simply incompetent?

yeah. most people i see anywhere are incompetent.

Including at your own job? Or does it apply only to other people?

I also see this behavior quite a lot in people that claim that meritocracy doesn’t exist in our society. But they never go far enough to end point where they admit they don’t deserve their own job.

> Are you suggesting that so many other companies’ PR teams are simply incompetent

No.

I'm suggesting that a writers emotional intelligence and personal experience can show up in their writing. Especially, when the party they're writing for is receptive of the style.

So they are top-flight PR and crisis management companies that are terrible at emotional intelligence, and Huang just got lucky that rather than hiring one of the apparently-universally-incompetent companies, Nvidia hired the one good one, which nobody elsewhere thought to hire before?

And that’s a simpler answer than Huang actually wanting a more direct apology?

> And that’s a simpler answer than Huang actually wanting a more direct apology

I never said that. Both things can be true at the same time.

Well, usually the source of information isn't U.S. intelligence agencies via the NYT

I assume in those cases that's because they're up against constraints about what they can say without incurring legal liability.

The PR agency writes what one of the world's most powerful CEOs tells them to write. They can strongly advise sounding sincere, but it's not their decision.

Sounding sincere doesn't mean they actually are, but it does mean they didn't let their ego get in the way of it, which is more than can be said about many who would be caught in a position like this, rich or not.

They played you like a fiddle. Your comment will end up on some PR agency's pitch deck.

It's so depressing to see people eat this up.

Curious what you think would be the 'correct' course of action in such a scenario

The GP isn't saying Jensen took the wrong action, he's saying that this is a carefully crafted message from a top PR firm, and that the posters saying how its "genuine and heartfelt, I can see he really cares" are just eating it up. Those lines will become advertising for the agency as they land the next big client, like book reviews, but for the "publicly vulnerable executive" PR package.

Its not that Jensen is wrong, its a good play, the GP is just saying how sad it is to watch people eating this up like they think Jensen cracked open his laptop and drafted a note, pushed it up to the public web site, then forwarded it to axios or something.

There were lots of people involved in a carefully crafted rollout, the wording of which has nothing to do with how Jensen or his family are handling this. We will never know how he personally feels or how any of this really played out behind closed doors. For all we know he and his wife are talking divorce and shouting it out and this piece is just crafted damage control.

I can definitely see where you're coming from, but I think both can be true at the same time: Jensen regretting genuinely what happened and taking responsibility, while the PR department also steered and approved the message.

GP's take seems to assume bad faith, regardless of the message. Mu question was aimed at finding out what GP would actually consider a "genuine" response in this situation.

The problem is precisely that there is no reliable way to discern "genuine" from "competently synthesised".

Many social situations have this signalling problem -- in fact I would say it's the rule, and the exception is the case where it's rational to believe another person's signals because it's known to be costly to generate them.

"The most important thing in show business is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made"

> GP's take seems to assume bad faith, regardless of the message. Mu question was aimed at finding out what GP would actually consider a "genuine" response in this situation.

We have no way of knowing what he feels genuinely regardless of the words which doubtlessly were crafted by experts and approved by him. We do know his actions that caused this though. And the only real and verifiable thing will be future actions. Rest is fluff.

<For all we know he and his wife are talking divorce and shouting it out and this piece is just crafted damage>

...just like Bill Gates and Bezos, both were found to be "foolin around" behind the backs of their spouses. A pic of a young Russian babe appears on the net with Gates. Money = power and corrupts most of us. But to Huang's credit, it likely was not he that "chased down" this Chinese spy. The Spy was the one coaxing him into an affair.

It's sort of like 1st degree versus 2nd degree. If you kill a person in cold blooded murder it is 1st degree, but if you have a good reason, or, are "lured" into the act, it's 2nd degree. I would argue for 2nd degree in this case.

Acknowledging that he compromised US national security by selling billions of dollars of chips to the shell company his spy girlfriend worked for.

What do you genuinely believe that a person looses if they choose empathy? And what does a person win if they choose the opposite?

Let's say there was a false apology. And a person here on HN fell for it. What exactly have they lost by falling for it? Let's say a person here on HN didn't fall for it. What exactly did they win?

People get to caught up in being right and "not being a sucker" that they forget if it's worth their time and worry. It seems people are most competitive when stakes are the lowest and there's nothing to gain.

None of us here have any stake in this.

So said every adulterer ever, after the event ... fuck that bullshit.

I'm not saying crucify him. We all make mistakes. But he doesn't deserve your sadness. His family does.

He made a horrible mistake which should serve as a cautionary tale and reminder to us ... that's all.

I think it is proper to have compassion. It is ok to be sad for him as well as his family. That doesn't mean you absolve him of consequence.

If he was goofing around trying to juggle a bowling ball and it slipped and smashed the coffee table next to him, I could feel sorry for him. I'd still expect him to pay for the damage.

Doing stupid things with a bowling ball and cheating on your wife and family are not the same level error. I can still feel sorry for him in his mistake. And I can still expect him to pay for the damage. In this case, it isn't paying for a new coffee table. And it isn't just writing a public letter.

The levels of trust he has violated are deep. Not just for his wife and family. He has been smoozing the President of the U.S. to influence U.S. foreign policy towards China. Do we trust this was for the best interest of the U.S.? The world? So that his company could make more money? Or for his personal gratification?

I believe in second chances. I think he can work to rebuild trust. But rebuilding trust doesn't mean you start over with 100% trust. Put him back in the mail room and trust him with small things. Then trust him with increasingly important things as he earns that trust back. Maybe someday he might earn back enough trust to regain his current position. Ok, maybe don't restart him in the mail room. But don't restart him where he is.

--

All of the above is a mostly useless opinion. I am not on the board. I am not in any position to dictate anything about the situation. It is mostly none of my business. I just offer it as some food for thought for anyone trying to form their own philosophy. Consider compassion with consequences.

Uh, Do you feel sad for his family or sad for him, because I think he's a real POS. We men should lead by example. He's a leader, but behaves like a weak coward.

It's not hard to keep it zipped up in the pants.

you sound sheltered. Everyone is tested with that which could possibly take them out.

Cheating is not "being tested", no one made him fuck a spy.

You rather confirm the OP's point.

Mr Huang was tested, and failed that test.

He was weak when he should have led.

I've said before. He doesn't deserve crucifixion, but he doesn't deserve your/a defence.

Save your words for his family.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I judge and I expect others to judge me. Like a normal person. But you do you.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Jensen Huang isn't a Christian as far as I know, so the logical conclusion of that (famously rather challenging) Biblical passage is that Christians shouldn't judge him.

It’s interesting the lengths people here go to blame the victim, but not the Chinese CCP.

You know, the ones that actually did the spying.

That’s an odd take. The CCP was literally doing their job, just like US and other spy agencies also engage in espionage. Whether or not they “should” be doing so is a geopolitical debate that it’s easy to moralize about but difficult to change.

Huang had many responsibilities that he failed to live up to. Sure, he’s a victim of sorts, but he also failed everyone.

Sorry, pathetic.

It was the Mr Huang's personal weakness that enabled the spying.

I've said before. This was a private matter, and I will not crucify him for his mistake / weakness - though it does speak somewhat to his character.

However, the spying element of this is absolutely deserving of blame. The personal weakness he's shown has enabled a national security risk. That's no small thing.

Let's pretend I took drugs and got caught. That's a personal matter.

Now let's pretend I took drugs and then ran over a family while driving. It's no longer 'just' a personal matter, despite my having zero intent to harm. But I bet you'd still, and should, blame me as my personal failing led to significant harm. Manslaughter is different to murder, but it's still blaming me for what I'd done. Rightly.

that is a good point in the strict POV of the "spy" problem.

most people seem to be mad with the fact he cheated on his wife. That does not draw him as a "great guy, friend of the pc gaming community" but cheating on his wife is barely a scratch given everything else he also did.

tl;dr: gpu man put his thing into a chinese honeypot.

I agree he is a real POS. But this “we, the men” discourse is insane to hear/read in the 21st century.

I've heard Bill Gates had two affairs. It's hard for me to be sympathetic for his actions. Jensen being targeted by a spy agency and fell for it could be a little more nuanced than that. I want to learn about what exactly happened. I'm not denying his failure in any case.

Bill Gates is a good example. If you’ve heard him talk about it it’s pretty clear he still loves his ex wife and would get back with her if he could. People make mistakes. People with that much money and power are dropped into situations most of us can’t imagine.

Of course he would like to have his wife back and also maybe some cute blonde with nice rack.

They're just words, brother. Don't get fooled by anything a CEO says. They say whatever people want to hear.

I’m so tired of the rote cynicism. If he doesn’t apologize, it proves a sociopath billionaire who cares for nobody. If he apologizes, it proves he’s a sociopath billionaire who cares for nobody. I’m reminded of Life of Brian.

We can’t know what he really thinks, but as apologies go, this is a good one. And it’s not healthy to see every piece of evidences as further proof of one’s own unshakable beliefs.

It's entirely logically consistent: these are just words, any combination of them doesn't change that.

When people say that the implication is they expect to see some action beyond issuing a statement.

It's not a good apology. It's boilerplate to save the stock price. It's not from the heart; it's vague by design. It's meant to get as many shareholders as possible to say: "ok." That's not genuine.

He used a good prompt to generate the text. So good it impressed you.