'I'm A Piece Of Sh*t': Inside Jensen Huang's Final Hours As Nvidia CEO

At the end, Jensen Huang looked broken and shattered, his legendary energy depleted. After weeks spent denying the allegations of infidelity and fighting to remain in his job as Nvidia Corp.'s chief executive officer, his surrender late Wednesday night was unconditional.

Huang's usual take-charge demeanor had evaporated, according to a person familiar with the situation, and he'd started using phrases like "whatever" and "I don't care." For the decades he spent building Nvidia into a multitrillion-dollar AI chip behemoth, Huang was famous for his attention to the tiniest of details, from chip architecture to the compensation packages of even the most junior employees at the company. Now, in the eyes of the people in the room, he had given up.

According to people who've spoken with him in recent days, Huang has already taken a penitent turn, castigating himself as a "piece of sh--."It was a stunningly quick fall for a billionaire and tech titan who two weeks ago was the face of artificial intelligence around the world.