Usually they are more along the lines of fake apologies like "I'm sorry that you feel that way", or in this particular case I would imagine something like "I'm sorry that I was spied on, I was doing my best and nothing prepared me to deal with a foreign agent".
It's refreshing to see words like "My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility. I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence.".
The corruption in terms of PRC GPU import policy and Huang's relationship with the US administration are important.
This is not a prurient sexual scandal, it's a major corruption and infiltration scandal in one of the most important companies in the world. Huang personal travelled with the US President and advised him on regional strategy, and gave him tens of millions of millions of dollars in gifts.
Huang can handle it correctly and be as contrite as he wants but it won't take away the geopolitical impact created by the operation.
Huang doesn't even admit wrongdoing for the actual important part of the scandal, selling restricted hardware to an adversary!
Besides, taking responsibility is something you DO, not something you say. Stepping down would be taking responsibility, for instance.
Seriously. The letter reads like 100% insincere PR hot air. Don't fall for it.
He would have presumably signed off on it, but refusing to do, or questioning their judgement, would look very bad to the board.
I'm not saying crucify him. We all make mistakes. But he doesn't deserve your sadness. His family does.
He made a horrible mistake which should serve as a cautionary tale and reminder to us ... that's all.
And the spy angle, and how that's being defended? Nauseating ...
If he was goofing around trying to juggle a bowling ball and it slipped and smashed the coffee table next to him, I could feel sorry for him. I'd still expect him to pay for the damage.
Doing stupid things with a bowling ball and cheating on your wife and family are not the same level error. I can still feel sorry for him in his mistake. And I can still expect him to pay for the damage. In this case, it isn't paying for a new coffee table. And it isn't just writing a public letter.
The levels of trust he has violated are deep. Not just for his wife and family. He has been smoozing the President of the U.S. to influence U.S. foreign policy towards China. Do we trust this was for the best interest of the U.S.? The world? So that his company could make more money? Or for his personal gratification?
I believe in second chances. I think he can work to rebuild trust. But rebuilding trust doesn't mean you start over with 100% trust. Put him back in the mail room and trust him with small things. Then trust him with increasingly important things as he earns that trust back. Maybe someday he might earn back enough trust to regain his current position. Ok, maybe don't restart him in the mail room. But don't restart him where he is.
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All of the above is a mostly useless opinion. I am not on the board. I am not in any position to dictate anything about the situation. It is mostly none of my business. I just offer it as some food for thought for anyone trying to form their own philosophy. Consider compassion with consequences.
It's so depressing to see people eat this up.
He's a victim, he apologizes well, he's working with the board on this...
Is HN just this millionare-friendly? astroturfed?
Not that I expect a metaphorical lynching, but it's certainly a take when the news is "one of the most important roles in the US is potentially losing national secrets by absurd oversight".
What do you mean by this, should we be negative about him because he is rich?
I'm implying him being rich is making people blind to this fact.
- he should’ve been more careful? How?
- he should never get into a romantic relationship because they could be a spy?
Assuming the spy angle to be true, He IS a victim as a target of a concentrated effort by a nation state to compromise him.
If all it took to compromise US national security was for a nation state to exploit the oldest backdoor in the human/male psyche, then I’d say there’s something wrong with the national security defense strategy.
Don’t blame the single point of failure, blame the design, maybe the designers.
It should never have been possible.
Having said that, Russia/China wouldn’t use this strategy unless it worked against most powerful men and their psyche.
CEO who gets honey-trapped by stripper agent ... is well meaning smartest person ever.
Say what you want about the Altmans who lucked into a rising tide, but Nvidia has been doing hard engineering, consistently delivered, strategically brilliantly for a couple decades now.
Plus, the primary risk here isn't that secrets were exposed but rather that Huang attempts to hide the thing and makes himself vulnerable to blackmail. The facts leaking (three letter agency off the record?) nuked that possibility.
They lucked into being the available useful product when the transformer dropped. This was not some megabrain multi year preparation they had been doing.
Jensen did attempt to hide the affair. That's why it was an affair. Even now he does not mention the fact that he sold billions of dollars of chips to his girlfriend's shell company, violating export controls and creating a NatSec risk.
Clearly his wife is the victim of him cheating. And he's a victim of a foreign intelligence operation.
It doesn't even mean he deserves sympathy but I see no rational basis for saying he's not a victim of anything here.
He is a billionaire and people here fall over themselves idolizing figures like him. You get the sense reading HN comments that they respect founders they don't know more than their own spouse or kids.
Responsibility implies consequences and as far as I can tell there are none so far, other than minor embarrassment.
Yeah, but how often is a "business person" (a) clearly personally, entirely responsible for a mistake like this and (b) is a significant enough "business person" for such a public letter to even matter?
To put it another way, Huang's apologie is how someone in his position would address a situation like this. It's not very impressive to hear a CEO make a personable apology for making such a personal mistake. Like, how else would it read?
Like, it wasn't that long ago that Bill Gates' got called out for similar things and made a similar apology (https://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-gates-apologizes-to-founda...). Of course, Bill Gates isn't at the center of the world's entire economy while getting caught sleeping with a Chinese spy, so there wasn't as much scrutiny on him.
Look, Jensen got whatever he wanted, China got the GPUs it wanted - China also turned Jensen into a staunch advocate for selling GPUs to China - everything's good - everyone wins.
"Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang challenged US export controls on advanced semiconductors, arguing that continued technology collaboration and access to the Chinese market are ultimately in America’s best interest. Speaking to reporters in South Korea this week, Huang described China as a “singular, vital, important, dynamic market, and nobody can replace that.” He asserted he would continue campaigning for full access to this market, stating he is "optimistic" that China will remain a key consumer of US chips."
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/nvi...
He's not a traitor or a spy he's a capitalist wanting to make money - that's the American way.
I dont get all the Jensen glazing. "we are all human and all of us make mistakes. " . ok so what?
1. take responsibility (by saying you take responsibility, hopefully there is no actual fallout from this). 2. Admit wrong doing (people hate someone who tries to cover up) 3. Talk about how much you love your family and how wonderful they are and you would never want to hurt them (relatable). 4. Write in a tone of sincere regret to avoid any public backlash (stock price depends on this).