‘How would you position this?’: The Silicon Valley veterans now steering Nvidia

{"text":[[{"start":8.98,"text":"Jensen Huang recalled his earliest interactions with board member Harvey Jones as a profound moment."}],[{"start":15.08,"text":"“I was 30 years old at the time and Harvey said, ‘Jensen, how would you position this?’” about an upcoming product launch, Huang told the audience at an event at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 2023."}],[{"start":29.4,"text":"“It was a simple question. The answer is supremely deep. You will spend your whole career answering that question.”"}],[{"start":36.2,"text":"More than three decades later, Huang has found himself confronting a crisis he could not position: revelations about affairs he had with an alleged Chinese spy and at least one Nvidia employee. The company lost about $200bn in market value on Thursday after he announced his resignation."}],[{"start":52.52,"text":"Meanwhile, Jones, who helped mentor Huang as a young chief executive, was among those involved in the Nvidia co-founder’s ousting this week."}],[{"start":60.4,"text":"Now, alongside chief financial officer Colette Kress, who has been named interim chief executive, the newly appointed board chair — a position Huang resisted for several decades — is faced with steadying the company at the heart of the AI boom."}],[{"start":74.56,"text":"“Nvidia is the centre of gravity for the AI moment,” said Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies. “These two people are being tasked with bringing balance and equilibrium back to the system.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":86.4,"text":"Neither lacks experience, although their long careers at Nvidia under Huang’s leadership could hamper them in trying to start a new era with a clean break."}],[{"start":95.02,"text":"Jones, 73, was appointed to the Nvidia board at its inception in 1993, having been an early investor in the company. The tech executive came to know Huang and several of the company’s founding engineers through Synopsys, a chip design software company he helmed for several years through the late 1990s."}],[{"start":113.64,"text":"The Connecticut native was also present when the company was on the verge of bankruptcy in the mid-1990s."}],[{"start":118.96,"text":"“[Nvidia] had more than one near-death experience along the way,” Jones said in a 2009 interview with the Computer History Museum. “It’s a credit to the entrepreneurs that they not only survived those near-death experiences, but built truly a fabulous company.”"}],[{"start":135.88,"text":"One longtime associate said: “Harvey is a polished product of New England in both character and style with a hard-nosed understanding of what it takes to do business.”"}],[{"start":146.02,"text":"The associate added Jones understood the business well and had been invaluable to Huang and other tech founders for several decades. He is one of only three directors who have served on the board for more than 25 years, and now sits on Nvidia’s audit, nominating and corporate governance committees. He holds more than 7mn Nvidia shares, worth in excess of $1bn. In December, the chip group invested $2bn in Synopsys as part of an expanded partnership."}],[{"start":176.02,"text":"Kress, meanwhile, joined Nvidia from Cisco in 2013 and has overseen the company’s strategy of investing tens of billions of dollars in the broader AI ecosystem. This has included neoclouds such as CoreWeave and Nebius alongside investments in start-ups such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Although Huang was directly involved in many of these investments, his finance chief also played a role in shaping them."}],[{"start":202.56,"text":"Kress will take a leading role when the besieged company reports its quarterly earnings next week."}],[{"start":207.76,"text":"She has challenged Huang on several decisions, including a $250bn deal to support data centre developments for OpenAI, according to two people familiar with the matter. Nvidia ultimately agreed to provide a $100bn backstop with an option to provide the remainder over time. The move was first reported by The Information."}],[{"start":228.08,"text":"“She understands what it takes to lead through major market transitions, build strong teams, and execute at scale,” said John Chambers, former Cisco chief executive."}],[{"start":237,"text":"Kress, who is married to former Microsoft executive David Kress, splits her time between the west and east coasts and has a home in southern Georgia. She holds roughly 4.8mn shares in the company, worth about $800mn."}],[{"start":251.22,"text":"“Colette is always on a conference call . . . including when she’s walking the dog or out on the beach,” said one close friend. “She is incredibly focused.”"}],[{"start":258.8,"text":"Kress will work with Jones to identify a successor to Huang. They will receive input from other board members and executives, including Ian Buck, who leads Nvidia’s critical data centre business and invented the company’s Cuda software platform."}],[{"start":274.3,"text":"Buck has been widely touted as the favoured internal candidate for chief executive, but Nvidia could turn to a more experienced outside leader such as Arm boss Rene Haas."}],[{"start":286.02,"text":"“There is a lot weighing on them,” Bajarin said."}],[{"start":294.54,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1794548365_1983.mp3"}