Make New York Post a Preferred Source Jensen Huang, right in black, attends a dinner with Alice Huang, center partially obscured, in Taipei on May 22, 2025, in this screengrab from CTI video. CTI/AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images Jensen Huang is shocked, shocked (rather like Captain Renault in Casablanca) that executives at Nvidia have effectively shoved him out of his own company.
But what was he thinking? Was he thinking? Did he not see that this might be coming given that he was having an affair with a possible Chinese spy and had allegedly broken company rules by getting intimate with a subordinate?
Or did he think that the rules didn’t apply to a genius who had amassed billions and was perhaps the only 63-year-old in the world who could wear a shiny leather jacket without anyone laughing at him?
Actually, don’t answer that one, because we all know the answer, don’t we?
The Ancient Romans had a terrific way to deal with the dangers of hubris, the way that one’s ego can expand to a size such that it starts sucking in intergalactic debris.
Any conquering general riding back into Rome with the people’s cheers ringing in his ears would be accompanied by a slave walking alongside the chariot, whispering in his ear, “Remember you are mortal.”
In this sense, the Huang story is as old as time but it is also — in this age of mega billionaires and global superstars — a modern morality tale. It turns out that Huang, a prodigy who helped to turn sand into ideas via the most sophisticated chips in the world, is as flawed and human as the rest of us.
The Bible warns against worshipping idols and serving mammon. I am not a Bible-believing Christian these days, but I think the Good Book is on to something.
You see, Huang became a modern messiah — always a risky business. He had no external constraints. He could buy anything, do anything. His fellow board members were so in awe of him that they didn’t bother with succession planning (“nobody can replace Jensen,” one insider said). He received rave reviews and was described as a genius. A chap who was considered a geek at college and struggled to meet women had become a star.
Was the leather jacket the giveaway that he was approaching a midlife crisis? If so, the wily honeypot division of the Chinese Communist Party seems to have noticed.
They say this plot could be turned into a Bond movie, but I think Mr. Bean offers a better template. Did the hapless Huang not get a tad suspicious when this beautiful young executive (one might imagine) kept asking about Vera superchips? Did the internal alarm bells not go off when she kept grilling him on loopholes in the CHIPS Act? Or did he think this was her idea of foreplay?
Did his mind not consider the possibility that her motive might be anything other than pure lust for a sexagenarian with the Midas touch? Genius in engineering clearly doesn’t always translate into plain old common sense.
You might remember that L’Oréal commercial with the tagline: “because I’m worth it!” I always think of it when a superrich guy is brought down by their own sense of invincibility. Fame, money, celebrity: all have this effect. You start to think you are worth more than other people; that you don’t have to play by the same set of rules.
Again, the Bible puts it immaculately (Proverbs 16:18): “Pride goes before destruction.”
In a small way, I have experienced this danger (stop snickering at the back!). I used to record a podcast with a couple of other sportspeople (bio info: before becoming a journalist, I was an Olympic table tennis player) and it became moderately successful in the UK. I remember walking along the concourse at Manchester train station and someone asking for an autograph. I noticed a glance from an attractive woman who seemed to recognize me.
I’ve arrived, I thought! My mind projected forward to winning an award at the annual podcast shindig. Perhaps my story would be turned into a Hollywood movie? By the time I stepped onto the train and a conductor informed me I was in the wrong seat, I had surrendered my grip on reality. The wrong seat? The wrong seat!!!? I’ll sit where I like, pal. Don’t you know who I am?
OK, I didn’t quite say that, but I came perilously close. Only a minute later, when the part of my brain not addled by hubris woke up, did I run over to apologize for my abject rudeness. And this is a guy who used to play ping-pong and earned roughly the average wage. One thing’s for sure: it is in our moment of peak success that we are at our most vulnerable.
I don’t want to get all political on you but I think the Founding Fathers grasped all this. They knew that power is not just a risk to liberty but to sanity. We all need constraints. We all need checks and balances. We all need a friend (or the cabinet) to tell us when we are acting like a fool.
I will go to my deathbed believing that Trump launched a war with Iran because the success of the Venezuela operation made him feel invincible.
At least until the midterms showed him what the voters thought.
So, Huang is toast. He’s gone. He still has his mega billions but instead of his personal story being about hard work and enterprise (that bit will always be there, mind you) it is now also about a man whose epitaph might be Oscar Wilde’s immortal line: “I can resist everything except temptation.”
He has humiliated his wife, undermined investors and colleagues and maybe compromised American national security.
Perhaps Monty Python put it best. He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.
