Nvidia 공동 창업자이자 CEO인 Jensen Huang이 즉시 사임했다.

We pulled today's planned review because there is major news in the technology world: Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of NVIDIA, marking the end of an era.

In a brief press release published shortly before 6:00 a.m. PT, NVIDIA announced that Jensen Huang, the company's co-founder and CEO, has resigned effective immediately. Colette Kress, NVIDIA's current Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will serve as interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement.

**Jensen Huang's Resignation**

Officially, NVIDIA and its board have not commented on why Huang is resigning. However, his reputation has been publicly damaged in recent weeks by allegations of multiple extramarital affairs with significant geopolitical implications. The first involved a Chinese citizen and drew the attention of the U.S. government due to concerns that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. Huang and the company confirmed that affair on Sunday, when Huang sent an email to the company apologizing for his actions.

The events behind that letter had already prompted NVIDIA's Board of Directors to launch an independent investigation. The company hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and former acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon H. Kim to lead it.

More recently, the New York Times reported on a second affair. This one involved an NVIDIA employee, Kimberly Powell, NVIDIA's Vice President of Health Care. Following that report, media outlets indicated that NVIDIA's Board of Directors held a same-day meeting to discuss the fate of Huang and the company.

Whatever the underlying reasons, the situation escalated to the point where Huang is resigning effective immediately. The Board is also taking several steps to ensure the company's continuity and stability.

For now, CFO Colette Kress will lead the company on an interim basis. Kress has been a steady presence at NVIDIA for over a decade, though her primary focus has been financial matters at the rapidly growing company. NVIDIA is scheduled to report its Q3 2027 earnings next week, on Tuesday, November 17, and Kress will now lead that call.

The Board has begun a search for a permanent CEO to replace Huang. With no clearly defined successor within NVIDIA, the Board has said it will consider candidates both inside and outside the company.

Huang's resignation has also prompted the Board to appoint a chairperson for the first time in its history. Harvey C. Jones, Managing Partner at Square Wave Ventures and former CEO of Synopsys, will serve as Chair of the Board.

**Replacing a Singular Leader**

Huang's resignation leaves NVIDIA trying to replace a CEO who has been its singular leader since its founding. As one of NVIDIA's co-founders, and the only one still involved in the business, Huang has been with the company from the beginning and has been central to defining its vision. He is well known for a hands-on management style, with over 60 direct reports and a highly centralized structure with himself at the top. This approach has allowed Huang to steer the company in the direction he wanted and make risky bets on initiatives such as CUDA and automotive. However, his unplanned departure leaves a large gap in NVIDIA's management structure.

To ensure stability, the NVIDIA Board has stated that it has "full confidence in Colette and the leadership team," and expects "the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption." In her first comment as NVIDIA's CEO, Kress said that under her leadership, NVIDIA "will continue advancing the work that has made NVIDIA a leader."

Whatever the circumstances behind Huang's resignation, the company is publicly parting ways with him on friendly terms. The announcement included a brief note thanking Jensen "for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry."

That said, it is difficult to imagine who will, or even could, take over from Jensen as the company's leader. Patrick is out on assignment this week, but when I asked him for his thoughts, he summed it up succinctly: "Jensen is a singular leader in the industry who made a big bet on, and then inspired the industry to develop the current advancements in AI. These will not be easy shoes for NVIDIA to fill."

I have covered NVIDIA's products for 21 years and have met with Huang periodically for almost as long. NVIDIA has always been Jensen's company, with all the good and bad that come with having a strong but demanding leader at the top. A Steve Jobs comparison might be apt here, but even though Jobs was a co-founder, he was never as deeply integrated into Apple as Huang is at NVIDIA. Both were visionaries in their respective industries, so recent events have cost NVIDIA its leader and cost the AI and graphics industries one of their most important driving forces.

**Final Words**

The speed of the events surrounding Huang's resignation means that, even with today's announcement, many questions remain. Beyond who will become permanent CEO, what changes will that person make as they put their own stamp on the company? Will Huang's departure change NVIDIA's dual focus on hardware and software, which has been driven in large part by having a business-savvy and highly capable engineer at the top? And how will this affect the AI industry, on which NVIDIA's modern fortune is built and of which it is currently the de facto leader?

Answers will take longer to arrive than the turmoil surrounding Huang's departure. But as the company's investigations proceed and the Board narrows the field, those answers will come. Replacing Jensen Huang will be an extraordinarily difficult task, but Silicon Valley has a wide pool of talent, and somewhere in it is someone who will be up to the challenge.