How AI visionary Jensen Huang was undone by his own bad decisions

If I'd told you this time last week that Jensen Huang was about to leave Nvidia, you would not have believed me.

The man who co-founded this enormously successful AI chip company, working tirelessly to build it from the ground up and steering it through some disastrous times with endless energy and ruthless determination, has ultimately been undone by his own love life.

It's an extraordinary tale and a strangely old fashioned one for a tech firm with its sights set on the future.

It spawned a plethora of viral memes, seeing Huang as the man caught by the Coldplay kiss-cam with a married colleague, or singing along to George Michael's classic hit about betrayal, Careless Whisper.

Both were ironically AI-generated using the very tech he was helping to build.

This week I met two Silicon Valley execs and I asked them how they were processing the news - "in memes", was the response.

But they didn't seem to think Huang would be forced out by his alleged adultery.

The stakes were too high, they said, the entire AI industry relies too heavily on Nvidia chips to break a winning formula.

In as many words, "the Valley" was on his side.

But that was before rumours of a second affair surfaced, this time with a colleague, and the board decided he had gone too far.

His behaviour suddenly cast him in a different light: a man who could make bad decisions and cover them up.

Huang always made a point of standing out from the crowd.

During the coronavirus lockdowns, he streamed keynote speeches from his kitchen (which gained internet fame in its own right, but were later revealed to have been AI-generated).

He is rarely seen without a leather jacket – he has joked that he only owns one suit, and he borrows his daughter's partner's tie.

Huang rubbed shoulders with the elite, with a network including Donald Trump, Elon Musk and King Charles.

The last time I saw him was at St James' Palace last year, where he was receiving the prestigious Queen's Prize for Engineering.

I was told he would not talk to the press - but he wandered over by himself and we spent about 10 minutes having a chat while press officers hovered nervously in the background. He was articulate and optimistic about the progress of AI and the UK's role in it.

For many people, Huang was Nvidia. He had as many as 200 people directly reporting to him.

He expected high standards – in his book about its inner workings, the Nvidia Way, author Tae Kim wrote the office hours were long

Huang's feedback could be both brutal and public, and he thought nothing of pointing out individuals' mistakes in all-staff meetings.

Now it is his own shortcomings which are on very public display, and he has been forced into a brutal ending of his own career.

Colette Kress, who takes over for now, will be a familiar face internally and that must feel reassuring to some at Nvidia.

She's worked at the firm for 13 years and for those who follow the firm's considerable finances, she is often present on earnings calls. She is a billionaire in her own right and a high-flying tech exec.

But she's not an engineer and Nvidia's products are highly technical.

She will have to convince investors that it is business as usual for Nvidia, that the innovation for which it is renowned can continue at its existing pace, and that the top talent won't leave with Huang.

A wobbly Nvidia would be bad news for the entire AI industry because its ever-advancing chips drive the most powerful AI models.

As for Huang himself, we assume for now that the investigation into his relationship with the woman accused of being a Chinese spy will continue, and the results of that may well determine what he does next.

He probably won't be short of offers despite his conduct – and I expect Nvidia's rivals can't believe their luck that their formidable rival has taken himself out of the game. Elon Musk has already said it would be "an honour" to work with him at SpaceX.

It's important though to remember that even if Huang turns out not to have betrayed his company or his country, he still betrayed his wife of 41 years, Lori Huang.

And for her, it's not a story of tech, temptation and trillion-dollar-valuations.

It's a painfully personal matter.