We live in the age of artificial intelligence — an age that Jensen Huang, perhaps more than any other single person, has made possible. The systems we are building with Nvidia’s equipment will transform our society and culture in ways we can’t imagine. But Mr. Huang’s unraveling is not a technology story. It is a timeless tale of masculine hubris, of a man undone by reckless overconfidence. Some things never change.
When I wrote my biography of Mr. Huang, I titled it “The Thinking Machine.” The name referred to the microchips that powered A.I., but also to Mr. Huang’s marauding, relentless intellect, which never slowed down or turned off. In the wake of his stunning departure, spurred by revelations that he carried on at least two affairs, one with a woman who U.S. intelligence determined is a Chinese spy and another with one of his direct reports, I should write a sequel: “The What-Were-You-Thinking?! Machine.”
Let’s start with Mr. Huang’s affair with Alice Huang, an executive who managed a Singapore-based company that owns data centers in Southeast Asia. These data centers are suspected of helping Chinese A.I. developers circumvent U.S. restrictions on sales of Nvidia equipment. A recent report in The Information suggests they were used as a way station to illicitly smuggle some $7 billion of equipment into China. Since U.S. intelligence captured evidence of Mr. Huang in a romantic relationship with Ms. Huang, it’s hard to believe that he did not understand what was going on.
Now consider Mr. Huang’s reported involvement with Kimberly Powell, an executive in the health care group at his company and his direct subordinate. A former Nvidia employee told me this affair was common knowledge in the company — the same company that employs both of Mr. Huang’s children in executive roles. It’s a stunning and disrespectful display of arrogance. I asked the former employee why Mr. Huang would behave this way, right in front of his kids. The former employee said that it got him high — a narcissist’s high.
I started hearing rumors of Mr. Huang’s infidelities earlier but was unable to confirm them. Inside Nvidia, there was a culture of omertà that was difficult to break, and this enabled Mr. Huang to be his worst self. I sensed this deference, at times, in the sycophantic laughter of his subordinates when he was around, and the little things they muttered once he left the room. Ultimately, it took government intelligence to pierce Nvidia’s culture of silence — along with reporters at this newspaper. But now that containment is shattered, and I will not be surprised if more women come forward. No one will be surprised.
Mr. Huang went to considerable lengths to cloak his arrogance. When I first met him in 2023, he and his handlers were pushing the idea that he was a humble man. In our conversations, Mr. Huang was constantly deflecting attention away from his success, always quick to assign credit to his employees and executive staff members. He also liked to glad-hand service people. He was a dishwasher once, a point he never let you forget. He loved visiting small, hole-in-the-wall restaurants and leaving extravagant tips. I’d met him for breakfast at Denny’s, and he tipped our waitress $1,000 in $100 bills. He didn’t make a show of it, either. I had to track her down to ask.