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.)

★ Thursday, 12 November 2026