The even odds are one professor's estimate

TechCrunch published an interview on Sunday night. The page time is 2026-11-09T05:26:29+00:00, which is 13:26 in Beijing on 9 November. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management and founder of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute. That institute has hosted Jensen Huang at its chief executive summits. The article says Sonnenfeld likes Huang, called the career salvageable, and put the odds of keeping the job at about 50-50.

Those odds are his estimate, not a board vote. The article sets the scene this way: Nvidia's board announced an independent investigation on Sunday after Huang told staff he was unfaithful to his wife. The article names the other person as Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, whom U.S. officials believe is a Chinese spy. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington dismissed the allegations in late October as groundless smears and slanders, and no one has been charged. The article also reports that the board sees no sign that national security or company secrets were compromised. Nvidia said Sunday that Huang will keep running the company.

Sonnenfeld called the episode remarkably poor judgment. He said that until now Huang had been revered and trusted by everybody in technology. Even if Huang was merely naive, he said, any employee at Nvidia other than Huang would be fired over this, and the recklessness alone would mean an irretrievable loss of confidence. He suggested the remaining latitude depends on showing that Huang was being duped. The article says that latitude has been accumulating since Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993.

The structural points stay separate from the estimate. The article says Huang has kept the company flat, with about 60 direct reports by his own account, which makes a successor hard to name. It says his children both work at Nvidia and are sometimes the subject of succession speculation. That is the article's account, not an appointment. Sonnenfeld said boards in a crisis often look outside, and he floated former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. That is his suggestion, not a list the board has published. The article says Huang does not own the super-voting stock that would cement his power. Three House chairmen want a closed-door briefing on 18 November. Nvidia reports its newest earnings on 17 November. Sonnenfeld expects that even if the title stays, some day-to-day decisions would have to be handed off.

The article does not say the board has decided whether Huang stays. It does not say secrets were taken. The even odds are one professor's estimate from a Sunday interview.