company
2026-11-12 08:55
The last time a founder and CEO of a technology company faced such a level of eviction was Apple in 1985.
Jobs, who was only 30 years old at the time, faced off in Cupertino with John Sculley, whom he had personally hired from PepsiCo. The board ultimately sided with the professional managers and kicked the founder out of the company he had founded.
40 years later, Huang Renxun found that it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to stand firm on the cusp of the storm.
What's even more troublesome is that Huang Renxun's extramarital affair rumors now involve sensitive business transactions and even so-called intelligence activities. The situation is developing in the direction that is most difficult for him to control.
But the suffering and trial are far from over. From November 11th to 12th, several pieces of news came out, once again using more trump cards against Huang Renxun:
First, "New York Times" reporter Ryan Mac and others reported that Huang Jen-Hsun's affair was with "someone else", and it was within the company, a company executive who had reported to him.
Secondly, "Wall Street Journal" Robbie Whelan and others reported that Nvidia's board of directors will hold an impeachment meeting on Jensen Huang as early as Wednesday, U.S. time (more than half way through the publication of this article) to decide whether he will continue to serve as CEO. Yesterday, the probability of betting on Polymarket that Huang Jensen would be removed from the board of directors was still 13%. Today, it has jumped to 77%, and there are already bets on the next CEO candidate, which is enough to show how quickly things are changing.
The final message comes from Axios, which describes an exchange that took place in the White House this week:
Around 5 p.m., people including technology adviser Musk, Secretary of State Rubio, trade negotiator Greer, Treasury Secretary Bessent, Commerce Secretary Ratnik and others went to Trump's Oval Office to talk about expanding sanctions on domestic and foreign companies that may violate the U.S. ban on shipping Nvidia processors.
Almost everyone present supported the new sanctions, including Trump himself, who had been close to Huang Jen-Hsun; only Commerce Secretary Howard Ratnick, who had previously supported Trump's trade war policies and was not friendly to China, stood on the opposite side of everyone this time.
Ratnik warned that this would trigger a new trade war.
But Ratnik can't stand up to a room full of people who have more say than he does. After everyone left the room, Ratnik said: Give me some more time, I can come back with more plans to discuss.
The Axios report quoted an insider describing the situation at the scene: "Other people said, no, no, the decision has been made, go fucking execute. (Go fucking execute.)"
This tidbit that happened in the Oval Office depicts the scene that Huang Jenxun may least want to see:
Trump, who has always been close to him—and who is still willing to support him despite the fact that the entire Republican Party is not optimistic about him and is investigating him privately—has finally betrayed him.
From the private ethics trial by the mainstream media, to the board of directors being pressured from outside the business and political circles and having to consider impeachment, to the loss of all of its political allies.
We are witnessing the most serious case of forced abortion in the history of technology since Steve Jobs.
What Jobs faced back then was mainly liquidation at the business logic level. At the time, Apple was in deep trouble because the sales of Macintosh computers were seriously below expectations. The stubborn and irritable Jobs exhausted the patience of the board of directors and investors.
Are you willing to sell sweet water for the rest of your life, or are you willing to change the world with me?
John Sculley was a professional manager that Steve Jobs hired from PepsiCo. But in the face of pressure from the board of directors, Sculley, who may have never truly understood the essence of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, chose capital between capital and changing the world.
Of course, from today's perspective, this is just a "family matter" that happens purely in the boardroom.
What Huang Renxun encountered today may be an unprecedented geopolitical level of forced marriage.
NVIDIA is at an unprecedented peak in the history of human business: its performance is generally impeccable, its market value has risen again and again, and its GPU computing power monopolizes the world - especially in 2025 and the first half of 2026 through a set of "cyclical transactions" established through chain investments and holdings in almost all mainstream AI and cloud computing companies, making every gear of the AI wave create wealth for it.
In other words, business and technology alone cannot defeat Huang Renxun at all.
Because of this, the leverage that can bring him down can only come from the outside - it can only elevate personal ethics to a "geosecurity risk" and use a political stick to crush the founder's authority.
Compared with what happened to Steve Jobs, this time's push to force the throne no longer depends on the directors in the conference room, but on politicians in Washington, the wolves of Wall Street capital, and all parties eager to re-divide the chip's interest territory, strategizing.
The root of the danger lies in Jen-Hsun Huang's absolute personal dominance over Nvidia. This situation has created the myth that a multi-trillion-dollar company can have relatively "flat governance" over the past many years, but today it has become Huang Renxun's Achilles' heel.
Today's NVIDIA adopts an extremely rare and highly flat structure: up to 60 senior executives report directly to Huang Renxun, and the company's major strategies and technical routes are almost entirely in his hands. He is NVIDIA's highest-level evangelist, architect and soul.
This architectural design gives Nvidia unparalleled efficiency and innovation, but it also exposes its most fatal weakness at this moment - Nvidia does not have a "number two person", and there is no internal executive succession system that can smoothly and directly take over the crown when Huang Renxun encounters an accident.
When Jobs left, Apple still had abundant cash flow from the Apple II and a relatively mature team to keep it running. If today's NVIDIA forcibly kicks out Jen-Hsun Huang, not only will NVIDIA's strategic execution face an instant shock, but the supply chain of the entire Silicon Valley and even the global AI industry is expected to suffer a cliff-like shock.
To put it more directly: Huang Renxun's departure may trigger in advance a bubble that we know will definitely happen, but we are just waiting for when it will happen - the bubble bursts.
From this perspective, trying to push back Huang Renxun's power is actually a dangerous gamble that can affect the West and even the global economy.
In the face of the grand narrative of state machinery and geopolitics, even the technology giants who defined the era may become hostages in the game at any time.
Du Chen
Chief writer
Ai Fan'er is the main writer, former PingWest/Silicon Star reporter in the United States, and former producer of "Technology Knows Already". For news tips, contact WeChat LichtSpektrum or email [email protected]
A total of 78 articles have been published
This article comes from the column
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Morning Post｜Apple Support Community will be shut down/Revealed that Nvidia’s board of directors is considering removing Huang Renxun/Yu Chengdong officially announces Huawei’s sub-brand OSTA Starlight
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