Jensen Huang has a 30% chance of staying as Nvidia CEO, according to betting markets. That odds figure comes from Kalshi. The situation arrived after he admitted to an extramarital affair. Details remain unclear on Wednesday afternoon. One woman in question is Alice Huang, a Chinese executive suspected by US intelligence of spying for her country. Another is Kimberly Powell, an Nvidia executive who reports to him. Five sources told The New York Times that Powell was also a paramour.
Succession questions
Nvidia board members made very rich by Jensen Huang are unlikely to cut him loose entirely. They could keep him on as chairman. Nvidia does not currently have that role. Someone still has to run the company. There is no apparent succession plan. This leaves us to speculate while we wait to see what happens next. Huang has 60 direct reports. They undoubtedly get a closer look. Consider this our own parlor game. It features some obvious and less obvious candidates.
Lisa Su
The AMD CEO runs Nvidia’s most credible rival. She is also a distant cousin of Huang. The Information floated her name this week. Why would she leave her job for his? Her company stands to benefit from every day that Nvidia spends distracted by an investigation. Congressional briefings and mini dramas are sure to follow. Her best move might be to send a nice note and keep her current corner office.
Eric Schmidt
He was the pick of Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. Sonnenfeld is senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management. We talked with him earlier this week. Schmidt could parachute in tomorrow and do a very good job, Sonnenfeld said. Perhaps he could. He ran Google from 2001 to 2011. He chaired the National Security Commission on AI from 2018 to 2021. He now runs the rocket company Relativity Space. Chips, software, government, rockets — it is an impressive range. Then again, Schmidt would bring a lot of baggage when it comes to his own extramarital dalliances. It is hard to see him clearing the board for that reason.
Lip-Bu Tan
Intel’s CEO knows chips. Right now he might welcome a very soft landing. Last month Intel reported third-quarter revenue up 21% to $16.5 billion. Then it warned its fourth-quarter results would fall short of Wall Street’s forecasts. The AI boom has caused a memory-chip shortage. This pushed up PC prices and cut PC sales. That hurt Intel. PC chips are a big part of its business. Its stock plunged 20% in after-hours trading on the warning. The share price had already slid more than 30% since September. A move to a company that is eating everyone’s lunch would be a pretty amazing escape hatch.
Bret Taylor
The former Salesforce co-CEO and OpenAI board chair now runs the AI startup Sierra. His resume includes a lot of the biggest brands in Silicon Valley. He co-created Google Maps. He served as Facebook’s CTO. He chaired Twitter’s board through its sale to Elon Musk. He then took over as OpenAI’s board chair after the Blip. The Blip was Sam Altman’s firing and fast return. When companies need an unflappable, likable adult in the room, they call Taylor. He probably knows nearly every customer Nvidia has, too.
Ian Buck
If the board feels strongly about having a builder at the helm, they could do worse than the Nvidia VP who helped develop CUDA. CUDA is the chip software that has become central to Nvidia’s dominance in AI. Analysts and former employees have floated him as a possible successor. Kalshi traders give him a middling shot. He is no household name. The Stanford PhD seems more viable if Huang can keep that chairman title and push for a successor he can work with.
Someone else down the hall
Andrew Bell is Nvidia’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. He arrived 25 years ago as a fresh Cornell grad. He has been on an upward trajectory at the company ever since. Like Buck and dozens of other executives who are presumably getting a harder look right now, he reports directly to Huang. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress is the insider most often named. Analysts say she is not necessarily a natural successor as an innovator and visionary. Bell has the chip pedigree.
The wild card
Lori Huang. Nobody has floated her. Hear us out: Jensen met his wife as lab partners at Oregon State. She has been working with him since before Nvidia existed. After graduating, she worked at Silicon Graphics as a micro chip engineer. She made more money than her husband, he has said. She then scaled back to raise the couple’s family. She now co-leads the family trusts. If the board wants continuity, they could do worse than a humbler Huang who is also a brainiac. There is a reason they say that behind every great man is a great woman and vice versa.
Whatever happens next, we will know soon.
