Matthew Sitman

Matthew Sitman Verified account @MatthewSitman · Sep 19

Still unopened new place on 9th Ave. Max turns to me and says, “Think it’s a gay bar?”

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www.commonwealmagazine.org Thinking Latinly Through his renowned Latin classes, Fr. Reginald Foster taught students new ways to understand time and connect with others.

John Byron Kuhner @johnbyronkuhner · Mar 18, 2021

True story: Reginald Foster used money he got from digging graves to buy his first Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary, at age 16. It cost $50. An online inflation calculator tells me $50 in 1956 would be $486.29 today.

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Melvin Verified account @MelvinInvests · 17h

This might be one of the saddest and most shocking downfalls we’ve ever seen in the technology industry.

Bloomberg just published a detailed account of Jensen Huang’s final hours as NVIDIA CEO, and some of these details are genuinely hard to believe. According to people familiar with the situation, Jensen was a completely different person during his final hours at NVIDIA. The same man who spent 33 years building one of the most valuable companies in the world, who was known for his relentless energy and obsession with every little detail, reportedly looked completely defeated. His usual commanding personality was gone. He reportedly started responding to things with “whatever” and “I don’t care.” This is someone who was famous for managing around 60 direct reports and personally reviewing employees five biggest priorities, often responding to emails at all hours of the night. Bloomberg says even those responses had started slowing down as the scandal intensified.

And the way everything unfolded is even crazier. When reports first emerged about Jensen’s relationship with Alice Huang, who has been accused of having connections to Chinese intelligence, NVIDIA’s board was initially reluctant to take action. Jensen had reportedly denied being unfaithful for months, including when questioned internally. But after additional reporting surfaced, NVIDIA’s general counsel confronted him at his home, where he admitted to the affair. The board eventually launched an investigation, and Jensen publicly apologized to his family and employees. But things took another turn Wednesday when reports surfaced about another relationship involving NVIDIA executive Kimberly Powell, who reported directly to him. That appears to have been the final straw.

NVIDIA’s directors held an emergency meeting that stretched late into Wednesday night. According to Bloomberg, Jensen was ultimately given no choice but to resign, ending his 33 year association with the company he co-founded. And perhaps the most heartbreaking part of the entire report is what happened afterward. Jensen has reportedly been calling himself a “piece of sh–” and telling people he no longer cares what happens to him. His biggest concern now is his wife and making sure the women linked to him don’t have their lives destroyed by the scandal. Think about how quickly everything changed. Just two weeks ago, Jensen was arguably the most influential person in the entire AI industry. He was meeting with world leaders, influencing American technology policy, negotiating enormous partnerships, and helping shape the future of computing. Now he’s out of the company he spent more than three decades building.

And the situation isn’t necessarily over. Jensen is expected to testify before Congress about his relationship with Alice Huang and whether any sensitive NVIDIA technology or information could have been compromised. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. I genuinely believe Jensen is one of the greatest technology CEOs of our generation. What he accomplished at NVIDIA changed the trajectory of the entire AI industry, and nothing that happened this week erases those contributions. But being an extraordinary CEO doesn’t excuse serious personal misconduct or potential national security concerns. It’s just incredibly disappointing watching someone who built something so extraordinary potentially destroy his own legacy in a matter of weeks. NVIDIA will survive and I still believe the long term AI infrastructure story remains intact. But I don’t think people fully appreciate just how difficult replacing Jensen is going to be.

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