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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's letter to staff about affair

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's letter to staff about affair

karimf

Comments (290)

  • cladopa
    If you are one of the most powerful man on earth you are going to be the target of all the secret services of all powerful countries. Period.It is their job. You take decisions that are worth billions, you influence people that take decisions that are worth billions, and affect their countries.They are going to study you for years. Your personality type and that of the people around you. Your weaknesses. Your problems and that of your family.They will employ the most sweet and the most pleasurable and gorgeous honey that there is in the world to create the perfect Honey trap.Normal people just can not imagine how sweet, specially when it has been customised around your needs and desires.It is not just a woman wanting to have sex with you. It will be the woman in your dreams.
  • DeepLogin
  • ilaksh
    Take this with a grain of salt, but my guess is that the board on some level has to judge him as being so high performing that they would try to keep him as long as that doesn't cause too much PR damage to the company, or the deals get them in too much trouble with the government.This is just a total guess, but I assume what a lot of the board want is for him to sell as much to China or indirect channels as he can get away with. So whatever these deals were that involved this woman, they probably want him to get those deals through it he can get away with it (although they wouldn't admit it).I see this more or less as Huang doing his job. And relative to international expectations at that level of wealth, one public affair is probably not something most of the board (presumably largely male) is going to (privately) judge him for.So if the board is investigating, I assume what they are trying to figure out is if the US government is going to do anything (probably not) or waiting to see if there is going to be some kind of public demand for him to be removed. Or it there is something likely to come out that will cause either of those things.
  • ionwake
    I feel uncomfortable asking in a thread like this but why would a CEO talk about his private life publically?I know others have said this is a carefully written statement, but in my culture I would feel it would be rude not to keep it private? Sorry if this sounds autistic.
  • flowerlad
    Now we have to re-evaluate all his statements in favor of selling to China. For example, we want China to build on "our stack". On the face of it, that seems correct. If China has multiple stacks to pick from why wouldn't we want them to pick our stack? But do they have such a choice?
  • danpalmer
    How integral is Huang to the success of Nvidia? As much as he seems to have done a good job, he appears less integral than with some companies like Bezos/Amazon or Zuckerberg/Meta (whether these are/were or not is besides the point, they are seen as such).I'd expect a board to fire a CEO over this, so he will have to be critical to the business, more than a normal CEO is critical, to survive. The market reaction to him going would also be interesting. Seems like the markets are starting to figure out what the value is here.
  • oumua_don17
    Is Jensen most likely on his way out? I think yes, more interesting times ahead and will his exit eventually help in reducing Nvidia's dominance which might be a desirable result though there're quite a few conditions to be met so that it indeed is one.
  • iambateman
    I heard a guy I respect say “there’s a short list of things people will ruin their lives for.”I’m not sure if this will ruin Jensen’s life or not, but it’s a good opportunity for us all to remember that the short-term high is usually not worth it.
  • w10-1
    I've never seen a more direct statement, with the right priorities, in such a case.As always, recovery under stress is more telling than speed on the happy path.The other name founders - Bezos, Zuckerberg, Jobs - fell into the guise of their own image propagating down their leadership chain; Huang seems to be actually leading, often by example. I'd expect his team to do ok without him, but believe only he could make some of the hard decisions, particularly now that their success is bounded by their customers'.
  • shock-value
    Incredibly sad and demoralizing to see the rationalizations and excuses people are making for this behavior in the comments here (or for the likely lack of professional consequences). But I guess these are the times in which we live.
  • shrubble
    In parts of Asia it is "expected" that a successful politician or businessman will have a "second family". I'm thinking the spying part (Huang is from Taiwan and was possibly leaking info to China) is considered worse than the cheating part by everyone involved.
  • anon
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  • anon
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  • method_capital
    I'm not sure what actual letters like this are supposed to achieve (besides protecting his ass I mean). Are employees supposed to stand beside their fallen leader, are they supposed to go about their business differently? Anybody having affairs with subordinates can't be trusted to make good judgement calls with respect to internal leadership / delegation, at least it wouldn't seem so to me.
  • janalsncm
  • anon
    undefined
  • net01
    are there trainings on honey traps, like waht can a company do to prevent this ?? i just feel bad for his wife and also him
  • dzonga
    or sometimes - you shed the image of being a family man & embrace being a 'player'the reason bond was made - was the guy who the novel was based on - being a double-agent couldn't be honey-trapped as he was already womanizing.
  • tetrisgm
    His private life is irrelevant. He’s an adult and can do what he wants. It only matters if he spilled secrets to the spy
  • vkaku
    I respect the guy. It takes guts to admit when something like that is up.
  • goodcake3963
    With all the money he has, he fell to this
  • augment_me
    Apart from his direct family, who cares? Why is this an issue? It's 2026, we literally had a human child trafficking ring with multiple presidents involved and it didnt lead to anything or move the needle on stuff.
  • anuptalwalkar
    Would this lead to him stepping down or dialing it up? NVDIA will be fine with either way, but how much does he really adds to its value?
  • wewewedxfgdf
    I don't give a shit about affairs - that's personal business.However if you lack the common sense to not fall for Chinese spies then your judgement really must be questioned.
  • calvinmorrison
    If you're the CIA, wouldn't you want to plant employees, or 'hire' employees at major firms like this? I guess I assume they do already. Probably each major corporation has 10-50+ employees getting kick backs from the government.
  • axegon_
    At this point, we can safely start treating South Park as a documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V2HxWrlqqE
  • portmanteur
    This is all very distressing, but I say: Let he who has not built the linchpin company of the industry the entire global economy is levered to and not risked it all in an extramarital affair with a chi-com honeypot cast the first stone!
  • yunnpp
    > My family bears no responsibility for my choices. I do. Please give them privacy.Props up the surveillance state with Palantir, requests privacy.
  • tgma
    Given what we have seen happen at Supermicro, for example, CEO smuggling NVIDIA chips to China, it seems unlikely that no one at NVIDIA suspected a thing. Why wouldn't they want to bolster their China business?An "exposure" of affair[1] could very well be the best coverup: "couldn't control my dick" is the ultimate plausible deniability. Timing also makes sense. Better open an investigation and get it closed while this Congress is still in power, as the next one is going to be more in bed in LLM companies than hardware.[1]: The other party is overtly a customer, not some random individual.
  • dietr1ch
    PSA: Don't tell your wife that you are now technically cheating on the other woman
  • matteoraso
    Pangram says that this letter is partially AI-generated. Hilariously, it's the part where he's sorry that he cheated on his wife that's AI-generated, while the part about cooperating with the investigation and affirming his love of America is real.
  • plant-ian
    I feel like every thing requires a tin foil hat now. Is this some last ditch ploy to stimulate noncompetitive regulation from the US government? I find it more difficult to trust anything these people say everyday.
  • readthenotes1
    I don't know if this is Jensen himself or his advisors, but if you're going to make an apology, this is the way to do it.There was, no deflection "this is not who I am", No blaming the spy.He owned up to his mistakes
  • the_duke
    The most interesting part might be that this is coming out so publicly.Someone leaked intelligence assessments to the New York Times.Maybe this was just a regular leak ... but ...Jensen/Nvidia has not been playing ball with other parts of the AI industry and the administration, pushing heavily against export bans and promoting open source models/companies , which is clearly against the interests of SpaceX/OpenAI/Anthropic.This is conspiracy theory territory, of course, but I wouldn't be too surprised if this was an intentional leak.
  • xyst
    Probably time to step down and take the golden parachute, Huang. Your AI generated letter is doing nothing.His fate will probably follow the Boston tech company CEO that got caught cheating with HR executive at a Coldplay concert.
  • gigatexal
    Would be hilarious if a man thinking with his dick and not his head causes the next US recession.
  • jgalt212
    Is he known to talk in his sleep?
  • anon
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  • ChrisArchitect
    Related:Statement from NVIDIA Board of Directorshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50416801
  • Yajirobe
    first Ethan Klein, now Jensen Huang...
  • TheRealPomax
    Given the entire thing's paywalled, what's the tl;dr, and is it actual tech news or just drama?
  • Noaidi
    $NVDA down 2% pre-trading.
  • dnw
    At the end of the day we are all human.
  • anon
    undefined
  • holdingunsteady
    Full text:Subject: A message to our companyBody: "I owe my family and all of you an apology.I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.Throughout my life, my family has given me love and support. They deserve my honesty and loyalty. Instead, I let them down and damaged the life we built together. I take full responsibility for what I did and the hurt I caused, and I accept the criticism that comes with it.To my wife and family: I love you. I know an apology cannot undo what I have done. I hope our family will heal and that, over time, I can earn back your trust.To my colleagues at NVIDIA, including those I have worked alongside for decades, and to our board, partners, and shareholders around the world: you deserve better from me. Leading NVIDIA is the privilege of my life. My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility. I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence.Regarding the national security concerns raised in news reports, NVIDIA's Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company, and I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America's national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.My family bears no responsibility for my choices. I do. Please give them privacy."
  • vscarpenter
    [flagged]
  • sick_of_slop
    [dead]
  • myway93
    [dead]
  • carlos-menezes
    > To my wife and family: I love you.No, you do not.
  • kittikitti
    This is a humiliating incident for everyone in AI.