On November 9, Roula Khalaf, editor-in-chief of the UK's Financial Times (FT), published a personal opinion article in the FT, directly addressing the current global tech industry's excessive reliance on NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. Using the personal scandal Huang has recently become embroiled in as an entry point, the article profoundly reveals the structural hidden dangers in corporate governance at a tech giant with a market value of $4.5 trillion.
At the opening of the article, Khalaf points out the severity of the problem—a CEO who behaves improperly is a big trouble for any company, but the scandal that has erupted at NVIDIA's top level affects far more than this one company itself. Huang himself recently publicly admitted to being unfaithful to his wife. Given the enormous value of NVIDIA's intellectual property, this incident has raised a large number of serious questions that require the board of directors to commission an investigation by outside counsel.
From a broader perspective, NVIDIA's problem is by no means an internal affair of one company. The company accounts for nearly 7% of the weight of the S&P 500 index, and its every move affects the nerves of the entire market. At the same time, Huang has also become deeply involved in the growth chains of numerous AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic through shareholding, guaranteed loans, and financing for data center builders, becoming an important supporter of the entire AI ecosystem.
Khalaf's core argument is: the world's dependence on Jensen Huang personally has become too deep, and NVIDIA must seriously consider reducing "single-CEO risk". She clearly states in the article that "a single point of failure is never good for a large company," and proposes a series of practical reform suggestions.
01 Behind the Scandal: How Deep Are NVIDIA's Governance Hidden Dangers?
Khalaf points out in the article that Huang's current management burden is already quite heavy—he directly oversees as many as about 60 reporting lines, and there is no obvious successor. This highly centralized power structure is itself a potential risk.
Even more worrying is the current state of NVIDIA's board of directors. According to data from consulting firm Spencer Stuart, the average tenure of NVIDIA's board members is as long as 18 years, more than twice the S&P 500 average. Five of the directors have served for about thirty years, and this phenomenon has apparently not triggered effective resistance from shareholders.
Khalaf believes that such a board structure cannot be called "robust," and whether it can play an effective supervisory and corrective role at critical moments is doubtful.
02 NVIDIA's "Systemic" Status: Why Does One Move Affect the Whole Body?
So why does NVIDIA's problem become a "global" problem? Khalaf provides a clear logical chain.
First is size. NVIDIA has a market value of as much as $4.5 trillion and accounts for nearly 7% of the S&P 500 index, so any slight disturbance will directly affect the overall performance of the market. Second is ecosystem penetration. Huang is not only a chip seller but also the "endorser" of the entire AI industry chain—through shareholding, guaranteed loans, and financing for data center builders, he has deeply bound NVIDIA's fate to leading AI institutions such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Third is sentiment support Khalaf specifically mentions that when confidence among tech investors wavered, Huang has repeatedly acted as a "cheerleader," most recently during the sell-off in software stocks known as the so-called "SaaS doomsday."
For this reason, Khalaf believes that NVIDIA has already acquired a certain "systemic" characteristic, quite similar to the status of large Wall Street banks. "NVIDIA is far less complex than Wall Street banks, but it is becoming equally systemically important," she writes in the article.
03 How to Break the Deadlock? There Are Plenty of Ready-Made Templates
Faced with this dilemma, Khalaf does not merely raise the problem; she also offers specific solutions.
She first cites several successful precedents. Companies such as Morgan Stanley, Amazon, and Apple have all transferred highly accomplished CEOs to the role of chairman while leaving room for successors to grow. Demis Hassabis, founder of Google DeepMind, recently also stepped back from the CEO position to the role of chairman, "giving himself more space to think about the macro picture of AI." These cases show that a smooth transition of power is not impossible to achieve.
Even if NVIDIA does not temporarily consider having Huang step down as CEO, Khalaf also suggests that the company establish a substantive "number two"—such as a president or chief operating officer—so that investors clearly know that if "the boss has an accident," someone can take over. She directly names it: "NVIDIA should do the same."
04 At the Regulatory Level: Should Big Tech Companies Be Constrained Like Banks?
Khalaf also raises a more forward-looking question in the article: should the regulatory pressure long borne by the banking industry, which has been regarded as "basic social infrastructure," also apply to large tech companies?
She points out that banks like JPMorgan, under the close watch of regulators, have no choice but to establish comprehensive emergency plans. By contrast, NVIDIA does not yet face similar external constraints. But as its systemic importance becomes increasingly prominent, this situation may not last long. Khalaf predicts that this issue is very likely to appear on the agenda of the new Congress in 2027.
This judgment is not groundless. When the rise and fall of a company are enough to shake the entire market, and when its CEO's personal behavior may involve national security, the logic for external regulatory intervention has already been established.
05 The Market Is Already "Voting with Its Feet"
Interestingly, the capital market's reaction to this incident seems to be quietly validating Khalaf's judgment.
Shares of NVIDIA competitor AMD rose 12% in a single day on the Monday after the incident was exposed; emerging chipmaker Cerebras also rose 5%. This market reaction shows that investors have begun to actively think about a world that is "less NVIDIA-centric."
Khalaf also acknowledges that customers usually react more slowly than the market, but she believes that Huang's "misstep" this time has also given customers an opportunity to re-examine their supply chain dependence. Regardless of the final outcome, this turmoil is a valuable warning.
Returning to the core argument of the article, Khalaf's conclusion is concise and powerful: "A single point of failure is never good for a large company." This sentence is both a diagnosis of NVIDIA's current situation and a warning to the entire tech industry.
This article comes from the WeChat public account "Hard AI," author: focused on tech industry research
