--- author: House of El - AI date: '2026-11-13' guest: '' layout: post.njk source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juc7CpJO9HA speaker: House of El - AI tags: - artificial-intelligence - semiconductor-industry - corporate-governance - export-control - market-crash title: 黄仁勋辞职风波与AI泡沫论：丑闻、芯片管控与行业单点故障分析 summary: 视频梳理了英伟达CEO黄仁勋因婚外情及涉华间谍指控辞职的传闻与风波，分析了英伟达管理结构中的单点故障与循环融资风险，指出引发市场重挫的实质因素包括选民对数据中心的抵制，并探讨了AI芯片供应链的多元化走向。 insight: '' draft: true series: '' category: tech-trends area: tech-engineering project: [] people: - Jensen Huang - Alice Huang - Kimberly Powell - Colette Kress companies_orgs: - Nvidia - Mega Speed - CoreWeave - OpenAI - AMD products_models: [] media_books: [] status: evergreen --- ### 黄仁勋风波与“AI泡沫破裂”论 互联网似乎又认定AI泡沫已经破灭了，而且这次既不是因为利率、基本面走弱、糟糕的财报电话会议，也不是因为机器人终于联合起来组成了工会。显而易见，泡沫破裂据说是由于黄仁勋的下半身惹了祸。 说实话，当我最初读到英伟达首席执行官与妻子以外的人有染时，我的第一反应基本就是：好吧。显然我并不赞同这种行为，但我完全不知道那个人的婚姻状况究竟如何，坦白讲我也不在乎。我从黄仁勋那里想听到的词无非就是GPU、AI、数据中心、钱、更多的钱、皮夹克，大概还有鳄鱼皮夹克。我与他的关系仅此而已，而且我敢肯定世界上绝大多数人也是同样的感觉，对吧？
Original English So, the internet has decided that the AI bubble is over again, and that it wasn't popped by interest rates or bad fundamentals or a bad earnings call or the robots finally unionizing together. [gasps] Apparently, it was popped by Jensen Huang's peepee. And look, when I first read that the CEO of Nvidia had been with somebody other than his wife, my reaction was basically, okay. I mean, I don't condone it obviously, but I have no idea what kind of marriage that guy is in, and frankly, I don't really care. All I want from Jensen Huang are the words GPU, AI, data center, money, more money, leather jacket, and I think crocodile leather jacket. That's the whole relationship I'm in with him, and I'm pretty sure most of the world feels a similar way, right?
但随后事态不断升级。首先，据称涉事女子被美国情报部门指控为中国间谍；接着股东起诉了他；随后美国总统证实联邦调查局已介入；然后到了昨天，又曝出第二起婚外情，这次的对象是他的一名下属；接着在一阵万众瞩目中，他辞职了。于是我深入调查了整件事，以下是我的结论：我不认为黄仁勋的私人丑闻戳破了AI泡沫，但它可能成为引发死结的创口。因为黄仁勋不仅在掌舵英伟达，他还是大半个AI行业的推销员、游说者，以及正如我所发现的——资金提供者，而且所有人都没有B计划。 所以，现在我们大家都能看清楚，AI行业的哪些部分实际上全靠他一人撑着。
Original English But then the story just kept escalating. First, the woman in question is alleged by US intelligence to be a Chinese spy, then shareholders sued him, then the president of the United States confirmed that the FBI is involved, then yesterday a second affair, this time with somebody who works for him, and then drum roll, he resigned. So, I dug into the whole thing, and here's where I've landed. I don't think Jensen Huang's peepee popped the AI bubble, but it might turn out to be the sore that caused the Gordian knot because Jensen wasn't just running Nvidia, he was the salesman, the lobbyist, and as I found out, the banker for a big chunk of the AI industry, and nobody had a plan B. So, [snorts] now we all get to find out which parts of AI were actually leaning on just this one guy.
### 事件脉络与四大核心议题 这里先做个免责声明，因为事情进展得实在太快了。我录制这段视频是在11月12日星期四，当我录到一半时他就辞职了，所以多亏了黄仁勋，我全得重录一遍。当你看到这期视频时，天晓得，可能整个市场又崩盘了——现在好像每逢周四都会崩一次——所以请把这当作一个即时切片。但我保证，这里的分析是有价值的。 考虑到这些，在今天的视频中我想探讨几个问题。第一，他究竟做了什么？除了你知我知的那点事之外，是否有任何证据表明那位涉嫌为中国间谍的人获取了任何有价值的信息？第二，如果间谍造成的损害尚未被证实，那他为何下台？失去他之后英伟达还能撑得下去吗？第三，他的丑闻真的戳破了AI泡沫，还是在大家都在关注他的私生活时，其实是别的因素造成了破坏？最后，也是最令我吃惊的部分：到底是谁真正离不开黄仁勋，他们接下来会怎样？
Original English Now, one disclaimer because this story is moving literally ridiculously fast. I'm filming this on Thursday, the 12th of November, and I'd literally filmed half of this video when he resigned, so thank you Jensen. I got to do it all again. By the time you watch this video, who knows, the whole market may have crashed again as it seems to do every Thursday now, so just take this as a snapshot. I promise you the analysis is valuable With all of that in mind, in this video, I want us to cover a couple of things. First, what did he actually do? Is there any evidence that a Chinese spy got anything worth having other than you know what? Second, if the spy damages unproven, why is he gone? And can Nvidia even survive without him? Third, did his scandal really pop the AI bubble or did something else do the damage while everyone else was looking at his love life? [snorts] And finally, the part that surprised me most, which is who actually needed Jensen and what happens to them now?
### 间谍指控背后的真正筹码与走私疑云 好，我们先从网络迷因完全略过的一个问题谈起：间谍到底能从黄仁勋身上得到什么？我知道他已经辞职了，但我们得弄清楚这里造成的具体损害到底是什么。我知道他们之间很可能交谈频繁，但黄仁勋总不可能把芯片设计图随身装在夹克里吧？那件夹克确实又大又漂亮，但依然不可能。 首先，这位女士是谁？10月29日，《纽约时报》报道称，美国情报机构认为一名名为Alice Huang的女商人（与黄仁勋无亲属关系）曾试图接近他，以打探英伟达的技术。她是Mega Speed的高管，那是一家新加坡公司，也是英伟达的大客户，据报道曾向英伟达采购了约48亿美元的设备。北京方面否认了这一切；需要明确的是，她并未受到任何指控。喜欢皮夹克目前还不算犯罪。那么，她究竟能获取什么呢？半岛电视台采访的专家列出了几点：英伟达专供中国芯片的规划、未来产品计划、客户名单、黄仁勋本人与特朗普总统的关系，以及英伟达与美国政府的闭门对话——这能揭示出口管制的发展方向以及英伟达与华盛顿产生分歧的地方。如果你不清楚什么是出口管制，不用担心，它们基本上就是美国规定哪些芯片不能出售给中国的规则。实质上你可以把它们想象成边境上一位身价昂贵的保镖。所以，真正处于风险之中的并不是设计图纸，而是政治博弈，仔细想想，这反而是更有价值的情报。
Original English Right. So let's start with a question that memes seem to have skipped entirely, which is what a spy could actually want from Jensen Huang? I know that he resigned, but we should see what the damage is exactly here. I know they probably must have talked a lot, but Jensen doesn't exactly carry the chip design around in his jacket, right? I mean, it is a big beautiful jacket, but still. So first, who is this lady? On the 29th of October, the New York Times reported that US intelligence believed a businesswoman called Alice Huang, no relation to Jensen, had tried to get close to him to learn about Nvidia's technology. She was a senior executive at Mega Speed. That is a Singapore company that is a big Nvidia customer and reportedly bought about $4.8 billion of equipment from them. Beijing denies all of this and to be clear, she hasn't been charged with anything. Liking leather jackets isn't exactly a crime yet. So what could she actually have gotten, huh? The experts Al Jazeera spoke to listed a couple of things. Nvidia's plans for its China-specific chips, its future products, its customers, Jensen's relationship with President Trump himself, and its private conversations with the US government, which could reveal where expert controls are heading and where Nvidia disagrees with Washington. If you don't know what expert controls are, don't worry. They're basically America's rules on which chips can't be sold to China. So essentially think of them as a very expensive bouncer at the border, right? Basically, what was at stake is not the blueprints, but the politics, which when you really think about it, is kind of the more valuable thing to know, right?
接下来是有具体确切数字的部分。《The Information》报道称，Alice Huang涉嫌与丈夫及妹妹联手的公司网络，自2023年以来协助了至少价值75亿美元的英伟达芯片流入中国企业。这大约相当于24万颗芯片，其中大部分正是那位“保镖”本应拦截的类型。还有一个细节让我记忆极其深刻：一家与其妹妹有关联的上海云服务公司，在成立仅四个月后就正式成为了英伟达的优选云合作伙伴，从而获得了芯片的优先供应权。这速度实在太惊人了，四个月？举个例子，我觉得我等待能源供应商回复的时间都比这久。 英伟达表示其自身的审查实际帮助揭露了走私行为，而这一切消息均来自匿名消息源，所以我并不能完全确定。
Original English And then there is the part that actually has a legit number on it. The information reported that Alice Huang's network of companies, which allegedly involved her husband and her sister, helped at least $7.5 billion of Nvidia chips reach Chinese companies since 2023. That is roughly 240,000 chips, mostly the kind that bouncer is supposed to stop, right? And one detail really really stuck with me. A Shanghai cloud company linked to her sister became an official Nvidia preferred cloud partner just four months after it was funded, which gave it priority access to chips. That is pretty fast, right? Four months? I mean, I think I've waited longer for a reply from my energy supplier just as an example. Nvidia says its own checks actually helped uncover smuggling, and all of this comes from an anonymous source, so I'm not really sure.
然而在周日，黄仁勋本人向全公司发送了一封电子邮件，上面写着——我原话引用：“我对妻子不忠。”他把邮件发给了全公司，数万人周日打开收件箱，本以为会是一份产品更新之类的通知，结果却收到了这个。可能是我观念有点守旧吧，但听起来这封道歉信应该寄给他妻子，而不是采购部门的员工，对吧？我也曾遇到过类似的事，我部门主管的前任身边的人发过这样的邮件，我可以告诉你这极其令人尴尬，面对这种邮件我绝对会回一个呕吐表情而不是点赞手势。 董事会随后展开了独立调查，并表示没有理由认为国家安全或英伟达的商业机密遭到了泄露。我想这确实让人非常非常安心，毕竟来自一个包含多位自90年代起就与他共事成员的董事会。都是非常独立的董事，完全不偏不倚，没什么好查的，对吧？特朗普也称他为正派体面的人，并表示黄仁勋完全不知道涉事人员是间谍。 所以，梳理一下目前的进展：造成的损害有被量化吗？并没有。截至今天，没有任何公开可得的证据证明Alice Huang获得了敏感信息或左右了黄仁勋的决策，美国情报部门也尚未公布证明她是间谍的证据。唯一明确的大数字是有芯片绕过了我们刚才提到的“保镖”，甚至连那也属于指控。因此在我看来，至少到目前为止，丑闻的传播远跑在了证据的前面。
Original English But then on Sunday, Jensen himself sent an email to the entire company that said, and I quote, "I was unfaithful to my wife." To the whole company, tens of thousands of people opened their inbox on a Sunday expecting a product update, for example, and just got that instead. Maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned here, but that sounds like an apology his wife should be receiving, not the people in the procurement department, for example, right? And having once been on the receiving end of that sort of an email from somebody close to my head of department's ex, I can tell you it is wildly uncomfortable, definitely something that I would react to with the puke emoji instead of a thumbs up. The board then opened an independent investigation and said it had no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, which I suppose is very very reassuring coming from a board that includes several people who've worked with them since literally the '90s. Very independent people, totally unbiased, nothing to see here, right? Trump also called him an honorable guy and said Jensen had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy. Okay, so to be clear about where we stand so far, has the damage been quantified? Not really. As of today, there is no publicly available evidence that Alice Huang got sensitive information or influenced Jensen's decisions, and US intelligence hasn't yet published its evidence that she was a spy at all. The only big number is about chips getting past that bouncer that we talked about, and even that is an allegation. So in my view, at least so far, the scandal is running way ahead of the evidence.
### 导致下台的第二起丑闻与管理单点故障 好，既然损害尚未坐实，那他究竟为什么离开？有意思的地方就在这里，因为事实证明，让他丢掉职位的其实不是间谍事件。不敢相信我竟然大声把这句话说出来了，但事实确实如此。昨天，《纽约时报》报道了第二起婚外情，这次是与英伟达医疗保健副总裁Kimberly Powell，她是黄仁勋的直接下属。 五名员工向该报透露了此事，而且据说有一段今年早些时候两人在圣何塞一次会议期间于酒店举止亲密的视频。几小时内，《华尔街日报》报道称董事会正准备罢免他，现在他已经离职了。因此董事会可能并不在乎CEO和谁睡觉，但正如我认为合理的那样，大多数公司（包括英伟达）都有规定，不提倡上级与向其汇报的下属发展恋情。显而易见，这不是纯粹的道德问题，而是管理制度问题。如果你和团队里的人发生关系，你就掌握着他们的薪酬和升职决定权，这对于团队里的其他所有人来说当然是个问题。 芯片行业对此也有先例。2018年，英特尔在得知CEO布莱恩·科兹安尼克（Brian Krzanich）曾与一名员工有过违反公司规定的过往恋情后将其免职。而在寻找接任者期间他们安排了谁代管？首席财务官。这非常有意思。那猜猜英伟达选了谁？在他甚至还没辞职之前，英伟达内部就有人向《金融时报》透露，最简单的方案就是让财务总监科莱特·克雷斯（Colette Kress）出任临时CEO，有点像美剧《继承之战》里安排Jerry担任临时CEO一样，还记得吗？而现实中事情正是这么发展的。她同时兼任财务主管职务，所以现在是一人挑两副重担，顺便提一句，这两项工作职责都极为庞大。而她的首场大考，就是在五天后宣读英伟达的财报业绩。毫无压力对吧？一切都会顺顺利利的。目前我在网上看到的普遍情绪是：只要财务人员一插手英伟达，所有事情就会一团糟。
Original English Okay, so if the damage is still unproven, why is he actually gone then? So this is where it gets interesting because it turns out the spy isn't what actually cost him the job. I mean, I cannot believe that I said that sentence out loud, but here we are. Yesterday, the New York Times reported a second affair, this time with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of healthcare, who reports directly to him. Five employees told the paper about it, and apparently there is a video of the two of them being affectionate at a hotel in San Jose during a conference earlier this year. Within hours, the Wall Street Journal reported that the board was preparing to oust him, and now he's gone. So the board might not necessarily care much who the CEO sleeps with, but like most companies, as is right in my opinion, Nvidia has rules discouraging bosses from having relationships with the people who report to them. Duh. And that's not necessarily a moral thing, it is a management thing, you know? If you're sleeping with somebody on your team, you are now in charge of their pay and their promotions, and that is a problem for everyone else on the team, of course. There is a precedent for this as well from another chip company. In 2018, Intel removed its CEO, Brian Krzanich, after learning he had had a past relationship with an employee that broke company rules. And who did they put in charge while they looked for a replacement? The chief financial officer. Now, this is interesting. So guess who Nvidia picked? Before he had even resigned, one person inside Nvidia had told the Financial Times that the easiest option would be to make the finance chief, Colette Kress, interim CEO, kind of like when they made Jerry the interim CEO in succession. Remember that? And this is exactly what happened in reality. She's keeping her finance job as well, so she's now doing two jobs at once, and these jobs are massive, by the way. And her first big test is presenting Nvidia's results five days later. No pressure, right? Everything is going to be totally fine. The general mood online that I've seen so far is that the moment a finance person gets their hands on Nvidia, everything just goes to hell.
我认为在这点上，历史给出了截然不同的先例。例如，蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）是运营出身，苹果运转得非常好；而英特尔由临时财务主管转正为正式CEO后，却陷入了数年的困境。所以财务主管一定会搞垮公司算不上什么必然定律。我认为更大的问题在于英伟达的组织架构方式。黄仁勋手下大约有60名直接向他汇报的高管。你能想象每年的绩效考核得怎么做吗？想想都头大。 这意味着没有任何一个人能够接管他身兼战略家、游说者和推销员于一体的综合工作。而且公司根本没有接班计划，因为黄仁勋曾说过他不相信接班计划那一套。我觉得在真正需要接班计划的那一周到来之前，这么说确实很轻松。瞧，这一周不就来了。顺便看看这个小可爱，我敢打赌它根本不知道什么是接班计划，而且正因如此它可能比我们快乐得多。言归正传，这个人究竟价值几何？Yorkville Evs的分析师此前估算，由黄仁勋掌舵时英伟达目标股价为300美元，没有他则是225美元。用通俗的话说，他们认为单单这一个人就占据了公司大约四分之一的价值。而这可是一家市值数万亿美元的公司，四分之一的体量基本上超过了大多数国家的财富总和。一位分析师告诉《金融时报》，投资者早就知道这是英伟达面临的一大风险，而现在市场上已经嗅到了血腥味。在计算机科学领域，我们对此有一个专有名词，叫做**单点故障**。也就是说，系统中的某个单一组件损坏，就会导致整个系统全盘崩溃。在构建任何正规系统时，工程上都会特意消除单点故障，因为硬件会坏，人同样也会崩溃。事实证明，AI领域最关键的公司之一，过去全部寄托在一个人的身上，维系在他掌管的60名直接下属，以及他在酒店里引发争议的判断力上。
Original English History, I think, on this particular one goes kind of both ways. For example, Tim Cook was an operations guy, and Apple did absolutely fine, while Intel's interim finance chief became its permanent CEO, and Intel had a rough few years as a result. So the CFO will ruin it is, I guess, not necessarily a law of physics, you know? I think the bigger problem is how Nvidia was built. Jensen had roughly 60 executives reporting directly to him. Can you imagine the performance reviews each year? I mean, yikes. [clears throat] And that, of course, means no single person is ready to take over his combined job as strategist, lobbyist, and salesperson. There is no succession plan either because Jensen has said he doesn't believe in one, which is, I think, pretty convenient to say until the week you actually need one. And voilà, this is that week. Look at this cutie, by the way. I bet he has no idea what a succession plan is either, and he's probably way happier than us for it. Anyway, how much was the man actually worth? Analysts at Yorkville Evs had put Nvidia's shares at $300 with Jensen in charge and 225 without him. So in just in plain English, very quickly, they thought one man, this guy, was worth about a quarter of the company. And this is a company worth trillions of dollars, right? A quarter of that is more than most countries, basically. One analyst told the Financial Times that investors had always known this was a risk for Nvidia and that there is blood in the water now. Now, as a computer scientist, we have a name for this. It's called a single point of failure. That is basically when one part of a system breaks down and takes everything down with it. You design that out of every serious system on purpose because things break. People break as well. And it turns out one of the most important companies in AI was resting on one man, his 60 direct reports, and his judgment, which is arguably questionable in hotels.
好了，我知道刚才讨论了太多公司治理的内容。如果接班计划、临时CEO这类词汇让你觉得有点眼花缭乱，你绝对不是一个人。我正在为非AI背景、但又想弄懂身边究竟在发生什么的人筹备一门AI素养课程。这样下次再看到头条新闻报道某家芯片公司因一人而蒸发四分之一市值时，你就能明白这背后真正的含义。课程尚未上线，但如果你通过下方简介中的链接注册，上线时可以享受折扣。 既然我们已经弄清楚英伟达此前在毫无备用方案的情况下全部寄托于一人，而现在那个人离开了。接下来要面对的问题是大家都在做成迷因调侃的核心：他的丑闻真的戳破了AI泡沫吗？为了回答这个问题，我逐日梳理了市场走势，而日期线索正是整件事最有意思的地方。
Original English Okay, that was a lot of corporate governance, I know. And if words like succession plan and interim CEO major eyes glaze over a little bit, you're definitely not alone. I'm putting together an AI literacy course for people who don't have a background in AI, but want to understand what's actually going on around them. So the next time a headline says a chip company lost a quarter of its value because of one man, you know what that really means. It's not out yet, but if you sign up with the link in the description below, you'll get a discount when it launches. So we figured out that Nvidia was resting on one man with no backup plan and now that guy is gone, right? Now for the question everybody is miming about, which is whether his scandal actually popped the AI bubble, right? To answer that, I went through the market day by day and the dates are where this actually gets fun.
### 股市暴跌溯源：政治选举与数据中心抵制 真正的市场暴跌发生在11月5日星期四。当天纳斯达克指数下跌5.5%，英伟达同日下跌超过9%。而在那个时间点，黄仁勋对其个人生活只字未提，他的全员信是在三天之后才发出的。那么除了英国历史上的盖伊·福克斯试图炸毁议会大厦之外，11月5日究竟发生了什么大事？基本上是类似性质的事件，只不过发生在由美国中期选举产生的结果中。民主党横扫国会，许多当选者正是利用了公众对AI和数据中心的担忧而获胜。反AI如今实质上已经成为一张可以赢下选举的王牌。在跨越12个州的公投表决中，有44项涉及限制数据中心建设的提案在总共45项公投中获得通过。数据中心本质上是AI实体的落脚之处，如果无法建造数据中心，即便坐拥全世界所有的资金，也不一定能换来更多的AI。一项出口民调显示，近八成的选民表示反对在自家社区附近建立数据中心。简而言之，西方大多数人似乎对AI抱有抵触情绪，没人真正希望那座运转时嗡嗡作响的巨大仓库坐落在自家孩子的学校旁边，对吧？
Original English The real crash happened on Thursday, the 5th of November, right? That day the Nasdaq fell 5 and 1/2% and Nvidia fell more than 9%, same day. At that point, Jensen hadn't said a word about his personal life. His email went out 3 days later. So what blew up on the 5th of November other than the guy Fox trying to blow up the British Parliament? Well, basically the same thing except in the USA, also known as the results of the American midterms. Democrats swept Congress and a lot of them won by on people's fears about AI and data centers. So being against AI is now something you can win an election on essentially. In local votes across 12 states, restrictions on data centers passed in 44 out of 45 referendums. Data centers are essentially where AI physically lives. So if you can't build them, you can have all of the money in the world and still not necessarily get more AI. In one exit poll, nearly eight in 10 voters said they would oppose a data center in their own neighborhood. So basically, most people in the West appear to hate AI, and nobody really wants the giant humming warehouse that runs that next to their kid's school, right?
现在来看我认为非常耐人寻味的一个现象。在5号那天，下跌的并不仅仅是英伟达。其最大的竞争对手AMD下跌了17%，跌幅几乎是英伟达的两倍，CoreWeave下跌了约10%。所有制造或出租AI芯片的企业全线下跌。再来看黄仁勋发送全员信后的首个交易日——11月9日星期一：英伟达再次下跌，但芯片行业的其他公司均出现反弹；英伟达是当天主要芯片指数中唯一下跌的股票。可以说，市场在实质上为我们做了一次对照实验。当选民对数据中心群起而攻之时，整个行业全线下跌，因为这是目前所有构建AI的人共同面临的难题；但当黄仁勋的婚外情曝光时，下跌的只有英伟达一家，因为这只是一家公司的问题。用计算机科学的术语来说，**这桩丑闻只是英伟达内部的一个缺陷（bug），而投票结果则是整个系统层面的缺陷**。当然，丑闻确实造成了伤害，我不否认这点。英伟达在周一跌幅超4%，周二又跌了5%，这绝非小事，随后他辞职了，股价再次下跌。老实说，我只能猜测英伟达是在提前为“黑色星期五”大促做准备了。据《金融时报》估算，如果这轮跌势持续，英伟达在短短两周内市值已蒸发约1.4万亿美元。所以，他是踢了原本就在晃动的泡沫一脚，临走出门时又狠狠踹了一脚。
Original English Now here's the bit I actually found very interesting. On the fifth, it wasn't just Nvidia that fell. AMD, its biggest rival, fell 17%, almost twice as much, and Corwe fell about 10. Everyone who makes or rents out AI chips went down together. And the look at Monday, the 9th of November, the first trading day after Jensen's email, Nvidia dropped again, but the rest of the chip industry went up. And Nvidia was the only stock in the main chip index that fell that day. So basically, the market ran the experiment for us in essence. When voters turned on data centers, the whole industry fell because that's just a problem for everyone who builds AI right now. But when Jensen's affair came out, only Nvidia fell because that is a problem for one company. To put it just in plain computer science terms, the scandal is a bug in Nvidia specifically, but the vote is a bug in the whole system. The scandal still hurt, of course. I'm not saying no. Nvidia fell more than 4% on Monday, another five on Tuesday. That's not a small deal, but then he resigned. It's now down again, blah blah blah. I can only assume Nvidia is getting ready for Black Friday, honestly. And if that fall holds, the Financial Times reckons around $1.4 trillion will have been wiped off Nvidia in just two weeks. So he kicked a bubble that was already it and then he kicked it again on his way out.
### 循环融资体系与“黄仁勋枷锁”的解除 然而，市场随后进行了第三次检验，而这一次的结果略有不同。随着黄仁勋离职的消息传出，英伟达的竞争对手AMD和博通（Broadcom）与周一一样上涨，但这次像CoreWeave和戴尔（Dell）这样的公司却跟随英伟达一同下跌。因此，泡沫并没有彻底破裂，但显然发生了别的事情，因为某些公司对黄仁勋的依赖程度明显远高于其他同行。这引发了我强烈的好奇。当我深入探究原因时发现：黄仁勋不仅是英伟达的销售员，他实质上还扮演了整个行业大批企业的“银行”。 你个人为什么要在意哪些公司离不开黄仁勋？因为如果你拥有退休金、指数基金，或者从事与科技稍微沾边的工作，你的部分资金很有可能就捆绑在由这个人亲手编织的交易网络之中。老实说，这也是最令我震惊的部分。据《金融时报》报道，在黄仁勋执掌下，英伟达将其巨额利润投向了资助AI初创公司、其供应商以及采购其芯片的客户本身。尽管黄仁勋有数十名直接下属，但他仍亲自参与了许多价值数十亿美元的交易。 自今年1月以来，英伟达及其风险投资部门已完成超过120笔投资，大约每两天半就有一笔，数量极为惊人。上个月在伦敦的讲台上，他指着台下的创业者大喊：“我要投资你，我要投资你，我还要投资你！”场面堪比奥普拉脱口秀现场，只是奥普拉送的是汽车，而他送的是GPU。随后，他还分享了自己曾从一位投资人那里得到的建议：“如果你亏了我的钱，我就干掉你。”真是个正派体面的人，对吧？而且他的动作远不止针对初创公司。
Original English However, the market also ran the experiment a third time, and the result was slightly different this time. As news of his exit broke, Nvidia's rivals AMD and Broadcom went up just like on Monday, but this time companies like Coreweave and Dell went down with Nvidia. So the bubble didn't pop exactly, but something else is clearly going on because some companies seem to need Jensen a lot more than others. And that got me very curious. When I looked into why, I find out that Jensen wasn't just Nvidia's salesman, he was essentially a bank for a lot of the industry. So why should you personally care which companies needed Jensen, right? Because if you've got a pension, an index fund, or a job anywhere near tech, I really mean that, there is a decent chance that some of your money is tied up in the web of deals that this guy personally built. And honestly, this is the part that surprised me the most. According to the Financial Times, with Jensen in charge, Nvidia plowed its huge profits into bankrolling AI startups, its suppliers, and the very customers buying its chips. And despite those dozens of direct reports that he has, Jensen was personally involved in many of those deals worth billions of dollars. You know, since January, Nvidia and its venture arm have made more than 120 investments, roughly one every two and a half days. That's a huge amount. Last month on stage in London, he pointed at founders in the crowd and shouted, I'm going to invest in you, I'm going to invest in you, I'm going to invest in you, which is basically Oprah if Oprah gave out GPUs instead of cars, right? And then he gave them some advice he had once received from an investor himself. If you lose my money, I'll kill you. Great, honorable guy, right? And he goes way beyond startups as well, right?
还记得CoreWeave吗？就是那家出租英伟达芯片的公司。去年该公司上市首发受阻时，黄仁勋安排英伟达出面下了基石订单。当OpenAI需要支持在俄亥俄州建设庞大的数据中心园区时，英伟达为其高达1050亿美元的租金和电力支出提供了担保；作为交换，该园区在20年内只能运行英伟达的硬件。此外，英伟达还承诺出资360亿美元，在较小型AI云服务公司找不到其他客户时代为采购算力，而这些公司便能凭这些担保协议借入资金以购买更多英伟达芯片。如果这听起来有些循环往复，那是因为它确实带有**循环融资**的性质。如果你不懂什么是循环融资，完全不必介意，简单来说它就像一盘意大利面：英伟达给合作公司注资或承诺兜底，而该企业再用这笔钱购买英伟达的芯片。因此，对英伟达芯片的部分需求实际上是由英伟达自己支撑起来的。 黄仁勋对此的回应（我引用他的原话）是：“这是循环融资吗？不是。OpenAI会支付租金的。”我认为这种回答听起来让人很宽心，但类似的自信表态我们以前听过太多次了。在我看来，这正是CoreWeave今天早盘下跌而AMD没有下跌的原因。CoreWeave本季度营收增长了168%，所以需求是真实存在的，我并未否认这一点；但它同时背负着约470亿美元的债务，上季度支付的利息已经超过了营业利润。如果你不理解这意味着什么，打个比方，这就好比你获得了大幅升职，但信用卡账单的增长速度却超过了涨薪幅度。只要永远不出任何差错，你在理论上可能是安然无恙的。这是一种极其不稳固的处境，而顺便提一句，那个过去在出问题时出面摆平的人，刚刚辞职了。 某家云服务公司的高管向《金融时报》透露，他们预计在尘埃落定之前，英伟达的此类交易撮合将基本陷入停滞。这是关键所在：这就是所谓的死结，也是为什么这件事的影响远超出个人私生活范畴的原因。不过，整件事中也有一点让我感到相当乐观，那就是并非所有人都被卷入其中。许多小型云服务公司过去之所以只从英伟达采购，是因为担心如果货比三家，下次拿到的芯片配额就会变少。甚至有投资人称之为“黄仁勋枷锁”，而且一些公司不愿与英伟达抗衡，部分原因正是出于对黄仁勋本人的顾忌。因此，过去让所有人对英伟达保持忠诚的并不单纯是芯片本身，还在于他这个人；而如今他已离职，这座大门或许真的会稍微敞开一些。 而且市场上现在有了其他选择。谷歌已经开始向其云平台之外的公司销售自研AI芯片，亚马逊也正在洽谈推行相同的做法。一项行业预测显示，这类定制芯片今年的增长速度几乎是传统GPU的三倍。十年前，英伟达如果出现这种动荡，AI行业确实会随之一同摇晃，因为当时市场上基本上只有这一个选项。制造尖端芯片依然异常困难，我并不否认，你依然无法凭空下载一座半导体晶圆厂；但这已不再是一家公司的独角戏，更绝对不再系于一人之身。所以我们探讨的死结确实存在。黄仁勋亲自撑起来的那些公司，此刻确实理应感到惶恐；如果我是其中一员，我知道我也会感到焦虑。但对于AI这项技术本身而言，获取芯片的渠道更多，意味着因任何单个人的情感纠葛所遭受的冲击就会更小。至于下一任英伟达掌门人，我想他们得花大量时间来解释这一切，而且最好是穿着一件便宜一点的皮夹克去解释——先懂得看清周围局势再说。
Original English Remember Coreweave, the company that rents out Nvidia's chips? When its stock market debut faltered last year, Jensen had Nvidia step in with an anchor order. When OpenAI needed help building a giant data center campus in Ohio, Nvidia guaranteed up to $105 billion of its lease and power payments, and in exchange, that campus will run only Nvidia hardware for 20 years. And Nvidia has promised $36 billion to buy computing power from smaller AI cloud companies if they cannot fight other customers, and those companies can then borrow against those promises to buy more Nvidia chips. Now, if that sounds a bit circular, it is because it is a bit circular. And if you don't know what people mean by circular financing, really don't worry, but quickly, it's a bit like this. Think of spaghetti, essentially, right? Nvidia gives the company money or promises to cover it if things go wrong, and that company uses the money to buy Nvidia chips. So some of the demand for Nvidia's chips is being propped up by Nvidia itself. Jensen's answer to that, I'm quoting him here, was is this circular financing? No. OpenAI will pay the lease, which is, I think, a very comforting thing to say, but we've heard that kind of confidence before, right? And that's why CoreWeave fell this morning, in my opinion, and why AMD didn't. CoreWeave's revenue grew 168% this quarter, so the demand is real. I'm not saying that it isn't, but it's also carrying about $47 billion of debt, and it paid more in interest last quarter than it made in operating profit. If you don't know what that means, just very quickly again, it's like getting a very big promotion while your credit card bill grows faster than your own pay raise. You might be fine technically as long as nothing ever goes wrong. It's a super precarious situation, and the person who used to step in when things went wrong, by the way, just resigned. One executive at one of those cloud companies told the Financial Times they expect Nvidia's deal making to mostly come to a halt until all of this is resolved. Now, this is an important bit. That is the Gordian knot, and that's why this matters more than just one guy's love life, right? But there is a part of this as well that makes me pretty optimistic, and that is that not everyone was tied into this. A lot of smaller cloud companies kept buying only from Nvidia because they were scared that if they shopped around, they would get fewer chips next time. One investor even has a name for it, the Jensen jail, and apparently companies avoided challenging Nvidia partly out of concern for Jensen himself. So part of what kept everyone loyal to Nvidia wasn't just the chips, it was this specific guy, and now that he is gone, the jail door might actually swing open a little bit. And there are other doors now. Google has started selling its own AI chips to companies outside its cloud, and Amazon is in talks to do exactly the same. One industry forecast has these custom chips growing nearly three times faster than GPUs this year. 10 years ago, if Nvidia had wobbled like this, AI would have wobbled with it because there was basically just one option on the market. Making cutting-edge chips is still incredibly hard. I'm not saying no, you still cannot just download a semiconductor fab, but it is no longer one company's job, and it's definitely no longer one man's job. So the knot that we discussed is real. The companies Jensen personally propped up are the ones that should be nervous right now. I know that I would be nervous if I was one of them, but for AI itself as a technology, more places to get chips means less damage from any one person's love life, for example. And as for whoever runs Nvidia next, I think they're going to spend a lot of time explaining all of this, ideally in a slightly cheaper leather jacket. Just read the room for a second.
### 总结：公司治理反思与AI未来演进 那么黄仁勋真的戳破了AI泡沫吗？我倒不会这么武断地认定。最大的重挫其实来自选民，间谍造成的损害在法律层面上也尚未被证实，但我们确实见证了当核心支撑者被免职时会发生什么：英伟达以及它过去资助的公司承受了沉重打击，但AI领域的其余力量大体上依然向前演进。 作为一个对任何形式的行政管理工作都提不起兴趣的人，我某种程度上能理解为什么会把撰写接班人计划拖延上33年。但当我拖延我的行政事务时，最坏的后果无非是一封措辞委婉中带有不满的邮件和一点滞纳金；而当你掌管着整个AI产业赖以生存的企业、并且个人充当了半个行业的资金后台时，我的朋友，行政管理职责本身就是你工作的一部分，没人能因为擅长发表主题演讲就逃避这部分责任。 顺便说一句，我对他的私生活也是同样的看法。我通常不在乎他在家里做什么，完全不了解他处于怎样的婚姻安排中。我自然始终希望人们少承受痛苦，而且评判他是别人的职责。但一旦你在运营一家拥有股东的上市公司，这就不仅仅关乎你个人了。企业文化自上而下形成；如果老板在做出这类事情后可以全身而退，下属员工就会开始质疑：既然他能不受惩处，为什么我不能？公司的价值观就是这样慢慢瓦解的。因此，良好的领导力确实始于最高层，这包括了枯燥的管理工作和私德层面。 然后还有芯片问题。黄仁勋一直主张，中国AI实验室基于美国芯片开发，总比他们自主研发要好。以我个人的角度来看，这听起来很像是在促使中国依赖美国，可以说这符合美国的利益；而主张加强管控的人则持相反看法，认为中国现在获得的每一颗芯片都会帮助其在未来迎头赶上。我认为这两派观点并非没有道理，都有其依据。但我确实认为，如果你制定了规则，就必须有能力去执行。而据称有24万颗受管制的芯片绕过了那道关卡，这表明执行力度显然还没到位。 从我个人而言，我最希望看到的是大家都能和睦相处、携手共同构建AI。我知道这种想法非常天真，但如果做不到这一点，我退而求其次的愿望，是无论AI最终在世界何处建成，都能得到妥善的管理引导。我希望看到它尽可能深入地发展，用于切实改善我们的生活，并得到充分规范以减少不良行为者的利用；同时我希望支撑AI的庞大资金，不再仅仅依赖于单一某个人的判断。 不论如何，我认为AI这项技术实在太有用、太强大了，不可能因为某个人的感情私生活而走向终结。我认为英伟达的基本面依然稳健（这不构成投资建议），无论CEO在和谁约会，大家依然需要GPU。但即便英伟达摔了跟头，AI也不会随之倾覆，这只是我的看法。人都会做出糟糕的决定，亿万富翁也是凡人，这算不上什么爆炸性新闻。所以，如果我对大家有一点期许的话，那就是保持好奇心。我知道过去这一周的精彩程度超过了大多数真人秀，我非常理解，我自己也一直在刷新新闻；但在这些八卦传闻之下，隐藏着关于谁在AI领域掌握实权与资本的核心事实，而那才是真正值得保持敏锐观察的部分。 如果你能在评论区留下你最精彩的皮夹克笑话，我绝对会非常乐意看到，当然大家随意就好。如果你想跟随我开启一段文献研读之旅，我正在探讨递归式自我提升的发展现状，也就是据称可能会毁灭全人类的那部分AI技术，这也是我建议大家接下来观看的内容。它现在就显示在你的屏幕上了。非常感谢大家观看本期视频，我们下期再见。
Original English So did Jensen Huang pop the AI bubble? I wouldn't necessarily say that. The biggest crash came from voters, and the spy damage is still technically unproven, but we did find out what happens when the person so much of this was resting on is getting kicked out. Nvidia takes the hit along with the companies it's been bankrolling, but the rest of AI, I think, mostly moves on. [gasps] You know, as somebody who doesn't enjoy admin in literally any form, I kind of get why you would put writing a succession plan for say 33 years. But when I put off my admin, the worst that happens is a passive aggressive email and maybe a late fee. When you're running a company that the whole AI industry is built on and you're personally the bank for half of it, that admin, my friend, is part of the job. Nobody gets to skip it just because they're very good at keynotes, right? I feel the same way about his private life, by the way. I generally do not care what he does at home. I have no idea what kind of arrangement he's in. I'm always, of course, going to root for people to be in less pain and judging him for it is definitely somebody else's job. But once you're running a public company with shareholders, it stops being only about you, right? Culture comes from the top. If the boss can get away with something like this, people further down start asking, well, if he can get away with it, why can't I, right? And that is how a company's values slowly come apart. So good leadership really does start at the top and that includes the boring bits and the private bits. Then there are the chips as well. Jensen has always argued that it's better for Chinese AI labs to build on American chips than to build their own. From where I'm standing personally, that sounds a lot like encouraging China to depend on the USA, which is arguably in the USA's interest. The people who want tighter control see it kind of the other way around and say every chip China gets now just helps it catch up later. I don't think either of these sides is crazy. I think they both have merit, but I do think that if you make rules, you have to be able to enforce them. And 240,000 banned chips allegedly getting past that bouncer, so just we're not quite there yet, right? Personally, what I'd love is for everyone to just get along and build AI together, ideally holding hands. And I know that that is a very naive take, but if we can have that, I would settle for AI being stewarded properly wherever in the world it ends up being built. I want to see it developed as far as it can go, used to actually make our lives better and regulated well enough that fewer bad actors get to exploit it, and I want the money behind it to rest on more than one man's judgment. Either way, I think AI is far too useful and far too powerful to die because of one man's love life, right? I think Nvidia's fundamentals are still strong, not financial advice, and everyone still needs GPUs regardless of who the CEO is dating. But even if Nvidia does stumble, AI will just not fall with it. That's just my view. People make bad decisions. Billionaires are people. This is not exactly breaking news. So if there is one thing I would ask out of you guys, it is to stay curious. I know this week has been better than most reality TV, and I really get it. I've been refreshing the news as well, but underneath the gossip, there is a real story about who holds the power and the money in AI, and that is the bit worth keeping a very keen eye on. If you can leave your best leather jacket joke in the comments, I would absolutely love that, but of course no pressure. And if you'd like to embark upon an adventure across one of my literature studies, it's on how far along we are with recursive self-improvement. That is the part of AI that is allegedly going to kill us all, and it's what I would actually watch next. It's right there on your screen right now. Thank you so much for watching this one. I'll see you in the next one.