The public opinion within NVIDIA right before Jensen Huang’s resignation was… 74% of incumbents “oppose resignation”

With Nvidia CEO Jensen Hwang stepping down due to a series of allegations of adultery, opinions regarding the resignation of Nvidia employees posted on Blind, an anonymous community for office workers just before the announcement of his resignation, showed that 74% of Nvidia employees were opposed, far exceeding those in favor.

Nvidia's board of directors announced on the 12th (local time) that CEO Hwang had immediately resigned from his position as president, CEO, and board member. The board of directors appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Colette Kress as interim CEO and began a search for a successor from internal and external candidates.

According to Blind on the 13th, from the 6th of this month, when the first suspicion of affair related to CEO Hwang was raised, to the 11th (US local time) when additional suspicions were reported, 74% of the opinions regarding resignation left by Nvidia employees were against it.

During the same period, 75% of Nvidia shareholders opposed the resignation, while 56% of office workers opposed it.

Blind used the interactive artificial intelligence (AI) service ‘Blind Claire’ to analyze 3,687 related posts posted on Blind’s public channels in the U.S. from July 1 to November 11.

The authors of all posts subject to analysis were 1,932, including 896 Nvidia employees.

Of the positive comments from NVIDIA incumbents, 77% supported or defended CEO Hwang's retention.

It was 32% points higher than the proportion of the same type (45%) in positive comments by all authors.

Many of the posts by incumbents contained opinions that there was no manager to replace CEO Hwang or that he should be given one more chance.

The opinion that suspicions related to personal life and company management should be viewed separately accounted for 9% of the positive comments made by incumbents.

Among the negative comments by incumbents, those that mentioned the possibility of resignation or dismissal or succession issues were the most common (49%).

This was followed by concerns about the impact of falling stock prices or stock compensation at 22%, concerns about security and the risk of technology leaks at 17%, and moral criticism at 12%.

Among the neutral comments, 33% said they should reserve judgment until the facts are confirmed.

A blind data analyst said, "In this case, despite several suspicions being raised one after another, the fact that NVIDIA employees showed high support for retaining the CEO suggests that trust in CEO Hwang's management performance and leadership has been accumulated for a long time."

He also said, “Looking at many cases, public opinion of incumbents in risk situations tends not to be determined solely by the nature of the incident.”