Linked List: November 12, 2026

Thursday, 12 November 2026

Reuters Raises the Jensen Huang Affair Tally to Three ★

Reuters:

Ousted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an intimate relationship with a second employee, according to two people familiar with the matter, Reuters has learned.

The revelation follows two other extramarital affairs that led to his resignation Thursday. The two women are Alice Huang, who US intelligence suspects of being a Chinese spy, and Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care.

Reuters is not naming the second employee. Attempts to reach the woman were not successful.

What’s the over-under at? Five?

Trump Weighs in on Huang’s Successor ★

The president of the United States, on his blog:

NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place — TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Nope.

Jensen Huang’s Advice to His Successor: ‘They’ll Just Have to Reshape the Company’ ★

Jenson Huang, in an on-stage interview with Garry Tan at Y Combinator’s “Startup School”, three months ago, on how Nvidia is organized (starting at 17m:00s):

Huang: You’re going to build an F1 racer, but you’re going to build it in a way that you can drive. You should adapt the car to you. Somebody asked me, Jensen, if you don’t use conventional management techniques and organizational techniques, what’s going to happen when you leave the company?

Well, when I die on the job — someday — I told them they’ll just have to reshape the company for the next CEO. And the reason that’s wisdom is because we’re the F1 drivers. We’re the racers. And the world is really competitive, and we’ve got to win. We’ve got to achieve our mission. And so whatever it takes to fit the car to you, whatever it takes to fit the organization to you, that’s what you got to do. And the next CEO, whatever their personality is, they can figure it out.

Tan: Amazing.

It now seems like there are better words than “amazing” to describe this structure and strategy, for what was — at the time of the interview — the biggest company by market cap in the world. As of this morning, they’ve dropped to #2, and I think they’re going to drop to #3 or #4 soon.

By Huang’s own description, Nvidia needs to completely rebuild the car for his successor. And Huang left at least two huge turds in the cockpit of the existing car. (My money says there are more turds yet to be revealed.)

Jensen Huang Resigns From Nvidia ★

Nvidia Newsroom:

Nvidia Board of Directors announced today that Jensen Huang has resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board, effective immediately.

Colette Kress, current Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NVIDIA, has agreed to serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer. Kress will continue to serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer while serving as Interim Chief Executive Officer until a permanent successor has been named. The Board is initiating a search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer and will consider internal and external candidates. [...]

“Colette has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position,” said Harvey Jones, Chair of the NVIDIA Board of Directors. “She is supported by an experienced leadership team that has been instrumental in executing NVIDIA’s strategy and advancing its technology roadmap. The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.”

This might be wishful thinking. Remember all the predictions that Apple would implode without Steve Jobs? That he was the company? I argued, on the day of his resignation, that Apple was likely to continue to thrive post-Jobs, writing, “Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.” He built a great company with a deep bench and a highly distinctive, incredibly strong culture.

I’m not seeing anyone say those things about Nvidia. In fact I’ve only seen the opposite — that Nvidia has a weak board and an executive structure with Huang at the top and 60 direct reports under him. Nvidia sounds like it is the fantasy version of Apple that people imagined when Jobs’s health finally failed.

The press release contains no quote from Huang, and his X account is silent.

Nvidia will report its third-quarter fiscal 2027 financial results on Tuesday, November 17, at approximately 1:20 p.m. PT, as previously scheduled, followed by its earnings call at 2 p.m. PT.

They should sell tickets to this one.