Re:NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition
by quixoticaxolotl on Thursday November 12, 2026 @10:43AM
(#50469270)
Lots of HNers chiming in that consent is all that matters, so the affair with a subordinate is totally fine.
Perhaps this may help explain why it's unethical to date a direct report to those HNers:
- It's unfair to the coworkers of the subordinate, because the affair can give the impression of influencing promotion, personnel and monetary decisions you make in favour of the subordinate.
- It places your direct report in a compromising position. Such a relationship is potentially coercive, because the direct report may fear reprisal, rendering any consent invalid. Many have commented that imputing coercion to any power imbalance leads to the absurd conclusion a rich person shouldn't date at all - however, this use of "slippery slope" doesn't offset your ethical duty as a leader. As the boss, you have to protect your employees, and placing them in this situation in the first place violates that commitment.
tl;dr you violate your duty of care, plain and simple, to everyone underneath you by doing this.
A pragmatic, ethical workplace policy is to instead date people not in your reporting chain. If that means you shouldn't date your employees as CEO, then that's responsible behaviour, not a chafing limitation.
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Others have commented that Jensen's affair is plausibly fine because "we don't know his private affairs". Jensen has made an unambiguous statement about hurting his wife and family - if they were non-monogamous, Jensen has had the opportunity to disclose it. Absent that, you have to assume this was an illicit affair. Moreover, none of this changes the fact that having an affair with a direct report was entirely unethical.
Still others have attempted a whataboutism by asking why "other CEOs" haven't had this level of blowback for having an affair with a subordinate. Unfortunately, not every tragedy gets the same level of public reaction, for no other reason than timing, luck, or lack if engagement. We should be equally upset about all the other cases as a general rule, rather than relying on normalized apathy to lull us into complacence.
Perhaps this may help explain why it's unethical to date a direct report to those HNers:
- It's unfair to the coworkers of the subordinate, because the affair can give the impression of influencing promotion, personnel and monetary decisions you make in favour of the subordinate.
- It places your direct report in a compromising position. Such a relationship is potentially coercive, because the direct report may fear reprisal, rendering any consent invalid. Many have commented that imputing coercion to any power imbalance leads to the absurd conclusion a rich person shouldn't date at all - however, this use of "slippery slope" doesn't offset your ethical duty as a leader. As the boss, you have to protect your employees, and placing them in this situation in the first place violates that commitment.
tl;dr you violate your duty of care, plain and simple, to everyone underneath you by doing this.
A pragmatic, ethical workplace policy is to instead date people not in your reporting chain. If that means you shouldn't date your employees as CEO, then that's responsible behaviour, not a chafing limitation.
---
Others have commented that Jensen's affair is plausibly fine because "we don't know his private affairs". Jensen has made an unambiguous statement about hurting his wife and family - if they were non-monogamous, Jensen has had the opportunity to disclose it. Absent that, you have to assume this was an illicit affair. Moreover, none of this changes the fact that having an affair with a direct report was entirely unethical.
Still others have attempted a whataboutism by asking why "other CEOs" haven't had this level of blowback for having an affair with a subordinate. Unfortunately, not every tragedy gets the same level of public reaction, for no other reason than timing, luck, or lack if engagement. We should be equally upset about all the other cases as a general rule, rather than relying on normalized apathy to lull us into complacence.