Commentary: Jensen Huang may prove that the ‘irreplaceable CEO’ is a myth

A REAL FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP?

None of that necessarily means Huang can’t be replaced. There was no finding another Jobs or Bezos either – they were both singular leaders. But what they did, which appears to be missing at Nvidia, was methodically build companies designed to carry on their doctrines without them.

Both created internal structures that institutionalised their ways of operating and thinking that allowed their successors to thrive: Apple’s stock returned nearly 2,800 per cent during Tim Cook’s 15-year tenure as CEO that ended in September; Andy Jassy has overseen a roughly 50 per cent increase since he took over at Amazon in 2021.

At Apple, Jobs was a micromanager who was involved in every detail of the company. But he also taught employees to anticipate how he would solve problems. “The organization has been thoroughly trained to think like Steve,” Fortune reported in 2009. “People could envision, ‘This is what Steve would do.’” 

He also had a clear number two in Cook, a manufacturing and supply chain guru, who had a trial run as CEO when Jobs was out on medical leave. Jobs made sure it wasn’t always the Steve Jobs show either. Cook and other executives were given public exposure by appearing alongside him on stage and on earnings calls. (It’s worth noting that Cook is being floated as a possible replacement for Huang, including by President Trump.)

At Amazon, Bezos turned his management philosophy into an actionable way of operating – a set of leadership principles that Jassy and other executives helped him write. Bezos picked Jassy as his first shadow, a role in which he followed around the CEO for about 18 months. That’s when the two came up with the idea for Amazon Web Services, and then Bezos gave Jassy a wide berth to run it. By the time Jassy was tapped as CEO, he had already run a hugely important and valuable business.

Part of the genius of both Bezos and Jobs was that they figured out how to turn their personal capabilities into corporate culture and competencies. 

The parallels are hard to find at Nvidia, which is a real failure of leadership by Huang. His successor will have to figure out how to run a company built around someone who is no longer there. That should be one part of Huang’s legacy that no one tries to replicate.