Nvidia's founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, has been spotted acclimatizing in Taipei in the run-up to the big Computex show. Far from his now settled home life in San Francisco's Billionaire's Row area, the Taiwanese American tech boss was enjoying the atmospheric sights, sounds (and smells?) of one of Taipei's many night market areas. Huang lived in Taiwan until age nine, when his family moved to Portland, Oregon.
Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) walking through Taipei's night market last night as Nvidia's market cap reaches 1T.#taipei #taiwan pic.twitter.com/8WZSv1k2p8May 26, 2023
In the tweet embedded above, you can see Huang was snapped pondering over dried fruits at a night market. CW Lin, who took the photo, mused over the sight of the CEO walking through such a humble market, carrier bag in hand.
Earlier this week, we reported on Nvidia's extraordinary stock surge. Investor speculation about the fortunes of AI technology businesses has fuelled this explosive valuation growth, and Nvidia is one of the linchpins of this business. Holding 3.51% of company stock (over 86M shares), Huang's net worth has ballooned from just over $26 billion a fortnight ago to over $34 billion today.
CW Lin's image of Huang doesn't appear to show evidence of a security detail with the Nvidia CEO. However, the latest financial statements published by Nvidia show that the chief executive's security expenses were up over 750% in the last year, totaling $700,000. Does he not need security personnel in Taipei, or are they so good we don't even know they are there?
The last time we saw Huang on the streets of Taipei was last November when he was captured 'video-bombing' some bemused karaoke singers and making a Lady Gaga song request. He was in the city for the WirForce 2022 eSports Carnival.
On Monday, Nvidia's CEO will take to the stage at Computex 2023 to deliver a special keynote address. As a PC-centric consumer show, we hope to hear some exciting details about new and upcoming GeForce hardware and software technologies. However, it was made clear in the most recent set of financials that gaming now brings in approximately half the revenue the data center business generates.
