1993年，红杉资本和Sutter Hill Ventures主导了一轮200万美元融资，投资初创公司Nvidia，该公司当时生产用于视频游戏的芯片。红杉资本投资人Mark A. Stevens和Sutter Hill投资人Tench Coxe随后加入Nvidia董事会。他们目睹公司在烧钱、早期产品失败中挣扎求存。
In 1993, Sequoia Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures led a $2 million funding round for Nvidia, a startup that made chips for video games. Mark A. Stevens, an investor at Sequoia, and Tench Coxe, an investor at Sutter Hill, then joined Nvidia’s board of directors. They watched the company struggle as it burned cash and its earliest products failed.
“Nvidia是否真的能获得‘逃逸速度’（摆脱困境），当时并不清楚，”Stevens在2023年的一档播客节目中回忆道。“我们非常担心，会不会失去这家公司？”三十年后，在联合创始人兼CEO黄仁勋的领导下，Nvidia已成为全球最有价值的公司之一。其芯片是推动美国经济发展的巨大人工智能项目的核心组件。
“It wasn’t clear if Nvidia was ever going to, sort of, have escape velocity,” Stevens recalled on a podcast in 2023. “We were very concerned about, are we going to lose this company or not?”Three decades later, under the leadership of Jensen Huang, its co-founder and CEO, Nvidia is one of the most valuable companies in the world. Its chips are an essential component of the giant artificial intelligence projects that are driving the U.S. economy.
如今，Nvidia这家由10名成员组成的董事会——成员包括早期投资人、长期合作伙伴及其他企业高管——面临一项艰巨任务：调查他们这位明星CEO。周日，黄仁勋承认与一名商界人士存在婚外情，美国情报机构认定该人是为中国从事间谍活动的特工。
Now, Nvidia’s 10-member board of directors — a collection of early investors, longtime partners and other business executives — faces a daunting task: investigating their celebrity CEO. On Sunday, Huang admitted to an extramarital relationship with a businessperson whom U.S. intelligence agencies have determined was a spy for China.
Nvidia董事会成员在着手调查时，带着对黄仁勋长期忠诚和顺从的记录，这使他们面临批评：他们未做好准备，应对黄仁勋成为这家硅谷公司最大弱点的局面。
Nvidia’s board members are coming into this investigation with a track record of both loyalty and deference to Jensen Huang, exposing them to criticism that they were unprepared for him to become the Silicon Valley company’s biggest vulnerability.
“丰富的经验并不总能转化为提供全面监督的意愿，尤其是当长期任职建立了与CEO的紧密联系时，”西北大学凯洛格管理学院管理与组织学临床助理教授Allison Henry表示。
“Substantial experience does not always translate to willingness to provide full oversight, especially if that long tenure has built strong connections to the CEO,” said Allison Henry, a clinical assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Nvidia似乎甚至没有为黄仁勋制定继任计划，也没有明显的内部人选可接替他。黄仁勋现年63岁，他在2023年表示，相信自己还能再经营公司三四十年。
Nvidia does not appear to even have a succession plan for Huang, and it does not have an obvious internal candidate to replace him. Huang, 63, said in 2023 that he believed he could run the company for three or four more decades.
周一，针对英伟达和黄仁勋的股东集体诉讼已提交至美国加利福尼亚北区联邦地区法院。
A class-action shareholder lawsuit against Nvidia and Huang was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
周一，英伟达董事会成员均未回应置评请求，公司发言人拒绝置评。
None of Nvidia’s board members responded to requests for comment Monday, and a company spokesperson declined to comment.
前英伟达高管表示，多年来公司内部曾讨论过为黄仁勋制定继任计划，但黄仁勋对此表示抵制。
Setting up a succession plan for Huang was internally discussed over the years, former Nvidia executives said, but Huang resisted.
芯片设计公司Arm Holdings首席执行官雷内·哈斯说：“他不喜欢这个想法。他觉得这会在高管之间制造竞争，造成分裂。”哈斯曾在2006年至2013年任职于英伟达，他在2024年的一次采访中谈到了黄仁勋的管理风格。
“He didn’t like the idea,” said Rene Haas, CEO of chip design company Arm Holdings, who worked at Nvidia from 2006 to 2013. He discussed Huang’s management style in a 2024 interview.
英伟达许多董事会成员在董事会任职时间合计达161年，他们与黄仁勋渊源已久。黄仁勋已经证明，他的重大押注通常能为公司和支持他的人带来回报。
“He felt it would create competition among executives and be divisive.”Many of Nvidia’s board members — with a combined 161 years of serving on the board — have a long history with Huang, who has shown that his big bets usually pay off for his company and the people backing him.
最早的例子之一是Synopsys，这家硅谷公司提供芯片设计所需的关键软件。上世纪90年代，两位前Synopsys领导人加入了英伟达董事会：曾任该软件公司首席执行官的哈维·C·琼斯和前首席财务官A·布鲁克·西韦尔。截至6月，这两位前Synopsys高管持有的英伟达股票合计价值18.6亿美元。
One of the first examples was Synopsys, a Silicon Valley company that supplied key software needed to design chips. Two former Synopsys leaders joined Nvidia’s board of directors in the 1990s: Harvey C. Jones, the software company’s onetime CEO, and A. Brooke Seawell, its former chief financial officer. The Nvidia shares of the two former Synopsys executives were worth a combined $1.86 billion as of June.
黄仁勋是英伟达迄今为止最大的个人股东，持股比例为3.56%，这使他成为世界上最富有的人之一。
Huang is by far the largest individual shareholder in Nvidia, with a 3.56% stake, making him one of the wealthiest people in the world.
在其他个人股东中，他的早期投资者兼董事会成员史蒂文斯和考克斯位列第二和第三。史蒂文斯上次出售公司股票是在9月，当时他的持股价值62.2亿美元。考克斯上次赠予股票是在11月，当时他的持股价值56.2亿美元。其他董事会成员包括：—— Dawn Hudson，美国国家橄榄球联盟（NFL）前首席营销官；—— Stephen C. Neal，律师事务所 Cooley LLP 前首席执行官；—— John O. Dabiri，工程学教授；—— Aarti Shah，制药商 Eli Lilly 前首席信息官；—— Melissa B. Lora，Taco Bell 前总裁；—— Suzanne Nora Johnson，高盛前副董事长。
Among other individual shareholders, Stevens and Coxe, his early investors and board members, are second and third on the list. When Stevens last sold shares in the company, in September, his stake was worth $6.22 billion. When Coxe last gave away shares, in November, his stake was worth $5.62 billion. The other board members are:
据三名前员工透露，黄仁勋主要将 Nvidia 董事会视为一项治理要求，而非公司战略或执行的重要组成部分。
— Dawn Hudson, the former chief marketing officer of the National Football League;— Stephen C. Neal, the former CEO of law firm Cooley LLP;— John O. Dabiri, an engineering professor;— Aarti Shah, the former chief information officer at drugmaker Eli Lilly;— Melissa B. Lora, the former president of Taco Bell;— Suzanne Nora Johnson, the former vice chair of Goldman Sachs.
他在组建高管团队时也采取了同样的单打独斗方式，强调反官僚的管理理念，旨在快速做出重大决策。他拥有 60 多名直接下属，使他处于公司日常运营的中心位置，尽管他行程繁忙，经常在加利福尼亚、华盛顿和亚洲之间往返。
Huang has viewed Nvidia’s board primarily as a governance requirement, rather than as an important part of the company’s strategy or execution, according to three former employees. He has taken that same go-it-alone approach to building his executive team, emphasizing an anti-bureaucratic management philosophy designed to make big decisions quickly.
但 Nvidia 目前的困境，给一家如此依赖单一个人的公司带来了巨大挑战。Nvidia 的独立董事将选聘外部律师进行调查。公司发言人表示，黄仁勋不会参与选聘过程，但他将在调查期间继续领导 Nvidia。
He has more than 60 direct reports, putting him at the center of the company’s day-to-day operations, despite a hectic travel schedule that often takes him from California to Washington to Asia and back. But Nvidia’s current predicament presents considerable challenges for a company so dependent on one man. Nvidia’s independent board members will choose an outside counsel to investigate.
“在舆论界应对这类风波的最佳方式，是让 CEO 或陷入麻烦的当事人公开道歉，并至少暂时将控制权移交给另一方，”圣克拉拉大学 Leavey 商学院管理学副教授 Jo-Ellen Pozner 表示。
A company spokesperson said Huang would not be part of the selection process, but he will continue to lead Nvidia during the investigation.
据五名现任和前任员工透露，黄仁勋还赋予了其子女在 Nvidia 相当大的权力和职权。
“The best way to weather this kind of storm in the world of public opinion is to have the CEO or whoever is caught out apologize publicly and cede control at least temporarily to another party,” said Jo-Ellen Pozner, associate professor of management at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.
他的儿子斯宾塞是产品管理总监，在英伟达的机器人业务中发挥主导作用。他的女儿麦迪逊是产品营销高级总监，也从事机器人相关工作，以及传播和营销。他的女婿尼科·卡普雷斯负责公司的业务发展。这给公司里一些人留下了这样的印象：他正在培养子女，以便他们最终接替他。
Huang has also given his children substantial power and authority at Nvidia, according to five current and former employees. His son, Spencer, is a director of product management and plays a leading role in Nvidia’s robotics efforts. His daughter, Madison, is a senior director of product marketing who also works on robotics, as well as communications and marketing. And his son-in-law, Nico Caprez, works on business development for the company.
在上个月的一次采访中，当被问及麦迪逊是否有可能接替他时，黄仁勋说：“我不希望她承担这份工作。”
That has created the impression among some at the company that he is nurturing his children to eventually succeed him.
“如果CEO不按照12或15名董事的要求履行职责，CEO就会被解雇，”黄仁勋在1月表示。但他补充说，“永远不会再有像我这样的人，原因是我是在公司里成长起来的。”高管猎头公司Christian & Timbers的CEO杰夫·克里斯蒂安表示，在英伟达内部挑选一位能够暂时运营公司的管理者并不容易。该公司经常与硅谷企业合作。
In an interview last month, when asked whether Madison was in line to succeed him, Huang said: “I don’t wish the job on her.”“If the CEO doesn’t do his job according to 12 or 15 board members, the CEO is let go,” Huang said in January. But, he added, “there will never be one like me, and the reason for that is because I was raised by the company.”It wouldn’t be easy to pick a manager inside Nvidia that could temporarily run the company, said Jeff Christian, CEO of Christian & Timbers, an executive recruiting firm that frequently works with Silicon Valley companies.
大多数现任高管负责特定的产品或技术领域，而不是拥有数千名下属的广泛职责。他说，问题在于董事们是否会在某个时候感到不得不要求黄仁勋让位。“他的个性太强了，”他说。“这几乎就像试图解雇老板一样。”
Most current executives have responsibilities for specific products or technology areas, not broad responsibilities with thousands of people reporting to them. The question is, he said, is whether directors will at some point feel compelled to ask Huang to step aside. “He’s such a big personality,” he said. “It’s almost like trying to fire the owner.”