Could have just powered through it. I'm surprised he decided to resign.

He is at retirement age and a zillionaire. So he is going to start cashing and he is no longer required to report the sale of the stock. He is going to liquidate.

Whether he can do that might be determined by any divorce proceedings, I guess.

He's not going to be left with zero from the divorce proceedings.

The criminal ones might, though.

Also, there are signs that the bubble is weakening. Probably a good time to leave that specific game.

Pushing the sale of the chips into circular ecosystem was a sign that it was topping too.

I know. But the legacy story looks pretty bad at this point. He's been running it for decades.

Gates did it too and they still think he is guru which he never was by the way; all of them are into this stuff when the hit their 50s feeling left out of the game while accumulating zillions.

I'm not sure he decided to resign. "X has decided to step down" is often PR speak for "X was forced to step down".

Both of these scandals individually are usually pretty rough to weather, together they were essentially guaranteed to have him forced out by the board. He's choosing to resign the same way a cop under investigation resigns to avoid more public consequences and to hope to sneak away to a new job.

Can't help but wonder if he is also getting out while the getting is good.

He didn't resign because of two affairs. He resigned because there were a LOT more than two affairs. I'm sure they wouldn't stop coming after enemies and the press smelled blood in the water.

Yeah, it's the treason-y bit that the affairs revealed.

The "nVidia are selling chips to China" thing wasn't exactly a secret though. It was all over Twitter and the tech/investment communities I was in. And in the gamer communities (as we're pissed at how nVidia and the rest of tech have screwed us).

Lots of things exist as open secrets, but once they become official news reports with lots of coverage the need to address the issue increases.

What you know and what you can prove are not the same.

What we can prove in the near future likely changed a bit when Congress went to the Dems a few days ago. Republicans weren't gonna make a scene about their $25M donation to the ballroom project.

It was reported on at the time:

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/14/us-clears-h200-chip-sales-to...

I need to find the links but the reporting in Europe was that this was part of a deal where Trump got given a 20% fee for it (I believe those were his own words!).

It was reported together with the victim statements of the children Trump allegedly raped. I understand that the US media aren't allowed to publish any of these stories though so I can understand why few people would know about them.

It's not just that they were selling through China, but that they bribed their way through the Trump admin's efforts to investigate it. But even that was partly known, it's just everything is now coming up all at once, making it so obvious he had to take a fall.

The emporer was naked the whole time. Someone finally pointed it out. This is the fallout.

Not particularly new situation in the recent US times. Far from the last time this will happen.

..and because American culture is really prudish about that.

The French and Italians wouldn't blink an eye. Us Brits, we'd talk about it, he's get a slap on the wrist but wouldn't be sacked.

It seems to be a uniquely American thing that the CEO can basically do anything (lie, cheat, fraud etc) just as long as he doesn't get caught with his pants down.

Prudish about affairs with spies? Or about affairs with people who, if they break off the relationship could lose their jobs (or if they continue it they could get promoted)?

These aren't just affairs.

Also, fraud remains to be seen, and shopping chips to China sure seems like questionable judgement.

I think you are too narrowly focused.

When you engage in an affair with a superior you have more leverage than you think. Yes you could lose your job, but if you lose your job you have nothing left to lose and can fuck up their life if you have the right evidence.

If you lose your job you lose your source of income. Your way of paying for your children, your house, food. You're left broke financially and mentally while the other party remains at the top with all the power to control the story and to further threaten you.

Assuming this is correct, it's even more reason that a board shouldn't tolerate this from a CEO.

Have you seen how women are treated when they are part of an affair? The mocking, excoriating, debilitating media coverage? Heck, in this forum of probably more decent than average people you have posters describing the women involved as "holes" and "sides".

Do you remember how Monica Lewinsky was treated? Decades of jokes at her expense, mockery of her and her features, jokes about dresses and semen and blowjobs. Can you imagine how hard it still must be to deal with all that shit day to day?

Bill Clinton still has enormous power. He's had to face nowhere near the burden she has, and yet he's the one who cheated and he's the one who did so with a report.

I don't think that the US *care* about spies? Look who has been put in charge of the NSA, FBI. There's even someone who is strongly suspected to be a Russian spy working in the Pentagon.

These shipments to China - I remember there being a deal made with the President which allowed these sales to happen contingent on some kind of "risk fee" being paid.. to the President.

[delayed]

Americans really don't care that much either. It's drama, but no one was shocked and appalled to the point of calling for his resignation.

Now cheating on your wife with a FOREIGN SPY, yea that's a big deal no matter what the country.

[delayed]

Oh, like about 50% of them not batting an eye when their president sleeps with a porn star while being married, and probably worse.

[delayed]

Union of Clinton voters and Trump voters covers a vast majority of voters (at least old enough to live through both).

[delayed]

absolutely not true.

he resigned because there's some proof that he knew that nvidia was selling cards/chips to china -- the affair only made that extremely public.

Hasn't that been known for at least 6 months?

The French would not blink with an eye about a spy spying on the top tech company of the country? The French intelligence would probably got her killed.

My appraisal as well. There's a reason French Foreign Legion soldiers get a fake name and DOB.

Downvoters are too young for Greenpeace vs. the French security apparatus.

in italy you'd get a promotion if you are married and manage to show you have been with multiple lovers without getting caught

> American thing that the CEO can basically do anything

American CEO would get meetoed. Any sort of sex (even consensual) is illegal, if you have no way to prove it!

You're wrong. Having sex with your employees is not just an American faux pas. Hopefully you're not a leader of a company.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/06/lululemon-ceo-laurent-potdev...

https://fortune.com/europe/2024/06/11/bp-managers-given-ulti...

By the same token, why are you disenfranchising the choices made by a married woman to sleep with her boss?

Probably because of the power dynamic makes it really hard to see how free that "choice" really is.

And also puts doubt on any decisions by the boss that affect the employee - companies don't want people "sleeping their way to the top" as that's not putting the business' needs first.

"All men command women, we command all men, and our women command us." - Cato

This is a very successful woman, career wise. She’s clearly not incapable of navigating high stakes power dynamics and you shouldn’t just absolve her of responsibility in this.

(Your second statement carries far more weight)

We don't really have the ability to judge the power dynamic without intimate knowledge of the people and their personal lives, we don't even know when things started and what place their lives were in then.

It's why we generally frown upon relationships if there's any direct business link.

Because a boss has the power to reward the otherwise lesser competent women he is sleeping with over someone else who is otherwise better at the job but not sleeping with the job. If I'm a shareholder of the company I care about that, and the person wronged also cares.

As an aside, the above applies to any one of any gender sleeping with their boss (again of any gender)

Didn't we have a whole movement a couple years ago, "me too", where everybody was up in arms about men abusing power to sleep with women?

You think the women that have caused Jensen to come undone this week are passive and powerless victims of him abusing his power? Except for his wife, it seems like it’s the opposite.

I am not talking about the spy, but the women who reported to him. Being powerless or weak is irrelevant. He had power over her and that was what "me too" was calling out.

I think the power imbalance is actually quite slight. Has she lost her job and her husband today? Hard to say.

If she didn't sleep with him would she have had the same position, received the same bonuses, etc? We don't know. Even if he wouldn't have gone after her if she refused she may have thought it could have happened.

Why should anyone care about that?

Because it’s actually misogynistic to cast women as passive and subservient victims of power abusing men, when for millennia women have been doing all they can to get as close as they can to men with the most power, money and status. This is the most recent example.

> it’s actually misogynistic to cast women as passive and subservient victims

What the hell are you talking about? Why are you even bringing culture war garbage into this conversation?

Obviously over your head. Please don’t flame and cast peoples takes as “culture war garbage”. I was responding to the OP’s framing as the women as passive participants in this saga. Hard to believe that’s the case.

> Please don’t flame and cast peoples takes as “culture war garbage”

You're the one that's flaming by introducing culture war garbage where none is necessary.

> I was responding to the OP’s framing as the women as passive participants in this saga.

I don't know who you think you're talking about, but you responded to my comment, and I didn't say or suggest anything like that.

Seems like a narrow-minded take.

He wasn't getting sacked yesterday. It only changed when the second affair leaked.

Narrow-minded? I don't know, given the levels of insanity and in-your-face corruption we've seen pretty much every day coming from the US and particularly from the entire tech ecosystem it's really hard to understand the "norms".

I've read about how the US President raped a young girl (13) and multiple other victim accounts. I've watched how we've shown consequences to Prince Andrew, Mandelson and many others. I also see on Twitter the owners of this very site standing behind the disgusting people on the US.

I can't square that with the Jensen situation.

I should add that I'm personally in the camp of leaders who cheat on their wives or who make or accept bribes should be removed from their position. I don't agree with the British (or French/Italian) takes at all.

Just because tabloid news are full of usgov garbage doesn't mean every single human in the world accepted such behavior as new norm. There are still decent folks out there, dare I say a majority.

But yeah how can US folks stomach child rapists at the top of their power is beyond me, I've met plenty of folks with flexible spines while working in banking but this is on completely another level and that level is whole nation.

I agree - and I still believe that the vast majority are decent people. The issue is being ill informed.

The problem is that a whole layer of society have been completely and utterly corrupted to an extent which makes say a country like India seem to be a paradise.

Americans are prudish, but not such that he would lose his job over an affair. A few Americans would boycott his company - but not enough to matter. There will be general disapproval, but that is as far as it will go.

However he will lose is job over an affair with someone that he has any form of business relationship with. He can have an affair with a nurse in the local hospital of the waitress of a local cafe and we will ignore it. However the girls he had an affair with are off-limits, and should be for any culture for reasons that we think should be obvious.

Isn't there a thing that when it's consensual, tell HR and done? Or you have to be on the level at the org? It is not a law, but in my previous not big, but ~ 1K international org, many marriages and many babies.

Did he do anything besides infidelity, as it seems that the "board" knew about that anyway.

In any case, he fell on his sword, and I wish him well in the afterlife, nothing is black and white.

Not tell HR and done. Tell HR so they can ensure you are never in a place where you can influence her business success. It happens all the time and the rules about what companies do are very complex. As CEO I doubt he can every avoid the conflict of interests that HR is concerned about in these cases and in turn he can't be both CEO and have these affairs. (but the nurse or waitress down the street would be okay, even the CEO down the street so long as they are not competitors and careful to avoid any interaction with each others as customer/supplier - this is often possible since the CEO doesn't decide which widget to buy)

Hi. I was musing, not pro / con. I mentioned the power imbalance, and I am shrugging at his "wisdom" given his status, but hear me out, it's that everyone seems to have know and kept the fact as an ace in their sleeves. I am sure he didn't fly himself and his mistresses commercially, there is a crew, and gossip spreads. The truth is elsewhere, regardless of each's view on infidelity. I give you Gates, Bezos. Cheers.

This isn't about affairs. It's about knowingly violating export controls and misleading investors

Yah, the UK has an odd practice of ignoring sexual abuse, especially with regards to men in power and young women or children

Considering the antics that Elon gets up to, there seems to be a double standard.

The second one was a direct report to him, and I wouldnt be surprised if he granted her favors in exchange for the sex (whether it was "promised" or not) typically no executive 'survives' having an affair with a direct report and stays in the company.

Who you have an affair with matters more, in this case a Chinese spy wasn't enough, which almost makes you think, he was not the only one at Nvidia who knew.

Eh, I think they wouldn't care except that both affairs are potential conflict of interest issues. If it were like a random person with no connection to the business that he had an affair with it'd be treated as less of an issue I think.

I think he was forced out

[delayed]

Comments moved thither. Thanks!

god the bean counters are running the company now. queue amd

Jensen's other biz, but with a different outfit, possibly alternate days of the week

I thought they were cousins, but now that you mention it, I don’t remember seeing them in the same room…

that leather jacket was a givaway.

Jensen, even after decades, remained deeply involved in many operational decisions with 40+ direct reports. He had a long-term mindset, investing heavily in Tegra and CUDA in 2009-2010, even as he was plagued by write-offs from faulty chips.

This is a terrible decision for NVIDIA and the broader economy. Jensen gets to retire with $100B+ and not deal with the crap.

Thousands and thousands of employees played a more direct role. And in fact, many would've done things different, like not violating export controls and having affairs with reports. Don't simp for a CEO, you're weird

Good leadership 101: Take the blame, leave the credit

The employees would likely agree with their comment: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/nvidia-emp...

Something is not right here and I wonder who is trying to sabotage Jensen/Nvidia.

> He had a long-term mindset, investing heavily in Tegra and CUDA in 2009-2010, even as he was plagued by write-offs from faulty chips.

He didn't seem to have a long-term mindset when he knowingly violated export control laws (the feds are, in general, super serious about export controls) and securities laws (the feds are also, in general, super serious about whatever they consider securities fraud) over the course of at least the last six months.

It's frustrating because it was so easily avoidable. Just don't do crimes with nation-states.

[delayed]

There is a competition in the market share for AI chips and R&D money. Including with China.

By the way, do we actually know if Alice Huang is actually Chinese spy, or just merely sees good money in reselling NVIDIA chips to them? Because you don't really need to be the former to do the latter.

> He should be thankful he's not in prison. Even without the spy and affair scandals, his lobbying to sell chips to China is treasonous due to how geopolitically critical AI will soon become. (That alone is not criminally treasonous,

He should be thankful he's not jailed for advocating something which is not even declared illegal yet? Is that the famous "rule of the law" I heard so much about?

> Is that the famous "rule of the law" I heard so much about?

We're in the find-out phase of the merger of the corporation and the state, where everything is permitted as long as you send some considerations to the dear leader...

Until it's not. :)

> Is that the famous "rule of the law" I heard so much about?

Yes, the famous "rule for thee, not for me".

The jail part is assuming the woman is in fact a spy and did in fact influence him to do this. Neither are proven.

The other part is me subjectively calling him treasonous, unrelatedly; not in a criminal way.

I should've said "depending on the results of the investigation, he may end up just being thankful he won't get a prison sentence". (Or maybe he will get a prison sentence, depending on what the investigation finds. We'll see.)

The 1st Amendment has something to say here.

> 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.

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.

Sounds more and more like he had a "me" mindset, not a long-term one. Not exactly mind blowing that the board wouldn't love that.

Yeah the whole “long term mindset” idea is definitely just hagiography done with the benefit of hindsight. Indistinguishable from luck empirically!

because of a spy?

The spy affair was probably going to sink him eventually because she was also tied to a company that was redirecting chips to China where NVidia is banned from selling chips above a certain capability. Another affair came out this time with a subordinate inside the company which is also something that CEOs normally don't survive, the combo of them helped hammer in the nearly inevitable conclusion of each of them.

Financially, this is probably the best thing that could’ve happened to him…even with the almost assured impending divorce. Wonder if he’s gonna start a new chip company.

What a sham, the loss of aura is incalculable. A Coordinated effort by those who disagree with him.

He had two back to back scandals that would normally oust any other CEO. Don't fall for the story this is some targeted thing he screwed up twice and they came out very close together ensuring his ouster but both of these individually are tenure enders.

He cheated on his wife and family, got done by a spy, and you're a simp

It might be a coordinated effort (given the back-to-back timing of the reveals), but he still made his bed.

If others want him out, it was still Huang who loaded the gun and handed it to them.

Why did the senior exec rat out on him?

There are lots of reasons to do this. Many of the work in the favor of the the person ratting. There are strong whistleblower protections for some of the reasons that work against that person.

It is unfortunate it can't just be a strong romantic connection.

There are five posts on Jensen Huang resignation on the front page, have the moderators also resigned?

We do sleep sometimes :)

Is it weird that there were no Jensen stories on HN's front page Mon-late Weds? The scandal was deepening and yet it wasn't showing up here. Flagging?

There were two on Wednesday, from WSJ and NYT. You probably just missed them.

WSJ at least was late Weds. What time was the NYT one?

Late? Both were posted midday PT.

Stories drop from the front page (ie. penalized) if they attract a high comment to upvote ratio, indicating an overheated comment thread.

the front page is heavily censored, best to use /active or hckrnws

This is the reason no other ceo projects an image of being good guy. One affair and everything you build just collapses. And on the other side rich people can be doing anything and nothing moves markets for their deeds lol

As a CEO, you can sleep around. Just don't f** with the business.

Sleeping with a spy or sleeping with a subordinate are both f**ing with the business.

The biggest layoff because of AI :xD.

Lets see if suddenly loosing a CEO has an impact.

Maybe as a little test of the necessity of CEO's.

Maybe plug in an AI CEO to see what happens.

10 Israeli waiting for ... Jiw did