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In business, you expect any corporate message to put the best possible spin on anything, including any comments about company leaders. Nvidia’s corporate blog has really taken this to heart, though, by giving CEO Jen-Hsun Huang such a glowing description that you’d be forgiven for thinking you were on a fan-fiction site.
The post in question is about how Huang will lead a keynote speech at the Las Vega CES 2025 event, in January. This year, it was the likes of Intel and Qualcomm, and that’s because they had a whole raft of new products and technologies to announce and discuss. Although it’s not explicitly mentioned in the blog, it’s safe to assume that Nvidia will be announcing its Blackwell gaming GPU architecture and graphics cards.
Perhaps because there wasn’t much that could be said in the announcement, the blog went wholesale on highlighting Huang’s attributes, starting with the pithy “Tech Leader, AI Visionary, Endlessly Curious” opener. To paraphrase a line from a certain old British TV show, it starts okay, tails off a little in the middle, and the less said about the end the better—but apart from that, it’s excellent.
But then the writer really gets going. “Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang—with his trademark leather jacket and an unwavering vision—will step onto the CES 2025 stage.” Better than having a leather vision and unwavering jacket, I suppose, but just in case you were on the fence about how far the blog was willing to go with its CEO-love, it continues with “From humble beginnings as a busboy at a Denny’s to founding Nvidia, Huang’s story embodies innovation and perseverance.”
Oh, I know this will make me sound like I’m jealous or being churlish by highlighting these remarks, but I’m honestly not: Huang has worked extremely hard throughout his life and Nvidia, by any measure, is a major success story and has repeatedly produced milestones in tech history.
But the CES keynote isn’t about Huang. It’s not about his humble beginnings, his unwavering vision, or his endless curiosity. It’s about Nvidia’s technology, specifically graphics and AI. The blog does eventually mention this, almost as a token ‘well okay, fine, here’s what it’ll be about’ remark.
The idolisation of CEOs in the tech industry is a risk because while it’s inconsequential when things are all going well, the moment revenue, stocks, and reputation take a hit, the first person in the metaphorical firing line will be the CEO. Just look at Pat Gelsinger to see what I mean.
So here’s my quiet plea to the team or individual that produces that corporate blog: drop the flowery fawning and just focus on what the company does best—hardware and software. They speak for themselves perfectly well.
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Kurt Indovina
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