Will Jensen Huang leave as Nvidia CEO?

Chance that something improper happened and comes to light

My gut feeling is that an affair between a chief executive and an executive of one of his company's customers more likely than not leads to something improper coming to light. It has to be found and made public, not only to have happened, which is why this is not higher.

Chance he leaves, if something improper comes to light

Keeping his job after that would be a long shot. Given the stakes of the AI race with China it should be higher than the base rate for chief executives with findings against them, but 95% felt too high. This one is uncertain, and the low and high values are placeholders.

Chance he leaves over the scandal, if nothing more comes to light

If the dealings were above board, he has a very high probability of staying. I put this below the base rate, given his commitment, founder status, long tenure and relative youth.

Median days until the decisive finding or report

85 days is a starting point: the median in my count of 11 past board investigations of a sitting chief executive. The list is not yet published. It feels long to me: the board would want to move rapidly, and the press will. Against that, there is no known successor, which is a reason to take time. The low and high values are placeholders.

Days from the decisive finding or report until he has actually left

Placeholders, not yet estimated.

Chance per year he leaves for a reason unrelated to the scandal

Low single digits. He is a co-founder with more than three decades in the job who says he will stay "for as long as I deserve it".⁵ This covers mortality and the tail risk of extremely poor performance.

• An exit caused by the scandal follows the same clock whether or not something improper comes to light.
• Half of the decisive findings come by the median, three quarters by twice the median, and so on.
• Unrelated exits happen at a constant yearly rate, independent of the scandal.

• The critical question is a gut estimate. No count of past cases supports it yet.
• There is almost no precedent. A chief executive tied to an alleged agent of an adversary state has few earlier cases to compare with.
• The board has already said it "has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised".¹
• The President's backing. He has said Huang should stay.³ If the tide turns against Huang, I expect him to go with the tide.
• Only an actual departure counts. An announced future exit does not, and the contract terms do not address a leave of absence or an interim chief executive.⁴

• The board committee naming its members, its counsel or a timeline, or reporting a finding.
• Nvidia starting to put a succession plan in place.
• Huang's answer to the House chairs' request for a closed briefing on Nov 18.⁶
• Public hearings, a subpoena, a review of Nvidia's export licences, or charges in the Megaspeed case.
• New reporting on what he knew, or on what passed.

• How long did the relationship last, and what access did it give her?
• Did the board know of it before Nov 8?
• Did Megaspeed receive anything other customers did not?
• What is the FBI examining?
• How long from a decisive finding to him actually being out? The values in the model are placeholders.
• Would a leave of absence count as leaving?

Suggest a change on GitHub, or copy the repository and send your version (how to contribute). The same calculation as a short script: forecast_curve.py.