Hurled a bottle, said 'I hope you die': Jensen Huang's outbursts at Nvidia employees

Detailed summary

Huang reportedly displayed frequent outbursts of anger in his office, including dressing down employees and throwing a water bottle at a senior executive. | World News

Former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who recently stepped down amid mounting scrutiny over his extramarital affairs with a suspected Chinese spy and two of his company's employees, allegedly displayed frequent outbursts of anger in his office, including dressing down employees and even throwing a water bottle at a senior executive, according to a report by the New York Post.

The 63-year-old AI pioneer had cultivated a laid-back public persona, sporting black leather jackets and doing TV interviews about his humble beginnings of washing dishes at a diner. However, as he pushed to expand Nvidia's business, employees feared they would be reprimanded viciously at marathon meetings in front of their colleagues, the report cited company insiders as saying.

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Last February, Jensen Huang targeted senior Nvidia executive Jay Puri, then-executive vice president of worldwide field operations, in a closed-door meeting with more than 30 company executives. Huang launched a scathing attack, telling him at one point to "die".

"I hope you get the flu and I hope it gets worse," Huang told Puri in front of stunned executives. "I hope you die and put us all out of our misery."

Puri, who oversaw Nvidia's sales and business development operations at the time, endured the attack in silence as his colleagues watched, according to the NYP report. He was later transitioned to a role as senior adviser to Nvidia.

This was one of many of Huang's outbursts in Nvidia, which were so well-known that some employees expressed surprise that they didn’t leak prior to his public downfall, according to the report.

"It’s very typical for Jensen to yell at people, but when he said that specific thing to Jay, it was extremely tense and quiet. Everybody was a little bit shocked," one of the sources told NYP.

In another instance, Huang lashed out at a senior sales leader at a three-hour meeting in…

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