Can Nvidia Survive the Jensen Huang Spy Scandal? | E2361

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Stripe: https://stripe.com/startups Northwest Registered Agent: https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain Upwork: https://www.upwork.com Plaud: https://Plaud.ai/twist Today’s show: Nvidia’s board is investigating CEO Jensen Huang after he admitted to an affair with Alice Huang (no relation), the leader of Singapore cloud computing and data center interest Megaspeed. US officials now believe that Alice Huang may have been recruited by Chinese intelligence to spy on the Nvidia chief or use him as an asset. Jason’s take: benching Jensen would be the wrong move, and play precisely into the Chinese government’s hands. On a Monday all-news special, Jason and Lon dig into the unfolding Nvidia scandal: what it means about Jensen’s past statements regarding Chinese AI, the seemingly intractable chip diversion problem, and whether or not the China hawks were actually right all along on the issue of GPU exports. Plus: is Sequoia vs. Roelof Botha really happening, or is it just a media narrative? Why Apple CEO John Ternus wants to get more aggressive about using Siri as an agent. And why Jason thinks Democrat will focus more on slowing the spread of self-driving cars and humanoid robots rather than stalling new data centers. Relevant Links Nvidia investigates Jensen Huang's relationship with alleged Chinese spy (CNBC): https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/08/nvidia-jensen-huang-investigation-china-spy.html What is Megaspeed? The Nvidia chip buyer at the center of the story (CNBC): https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/09/megaspeed-nvidia-jensen-huang-alice-huang.html What the Nvidia board's probe could look at (Fortune): https://fortune.com/2026/11/09/nvidia-board-probe-jensen-huang-affair-suspected-china-spy-statements/ Shaun Maguire on nation-state kompromat: https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/2119582151985574371 Sequoia hits rewind, undoing 20 years of expansion (TechCrunch): https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/04/sequoia-hits-rewind-undoing-20-years-of-expansion/ FT: Sequoia partners blindsided by Botha's SpaceX board seat (summary): https://mlq.ai/news/sequoia-partners-were-blindsided-when-roelof-botha-joined-spacexs-board-ft-reports/ Ternus presses Federighi to move faster on an agentic Siri (The Next Web, via Bloomberg): https://thenextweb.com/news/ternus-federighi-agentic-siri-apple-ai-bloomberg https://thinkingmachines.ai/news/inkling-2-small/ Timestamps: 0:00 Jason's in his Jay Gatsby era 1:28 Plaud - If your work depends on conversations - interviews, meetings, calls - you need a Plaud NotePin S. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off! 2:45 How much damage does this scandal do to Nvidia? 5:20 Corporate espionage and Shaun Maguire's thread 10:12 Stripe - Stripe Startups offers early-stage, venture-backed startups access to Stripe fee credits and more. Apply today on https://stripe.com/startups. 14:43 Winning the superintelligence race 17:06 Time to buy the Nvidia dip? (Not investment advice) 22:18 Northwest Registered Agent - Got a new business idea? Northwest Registered Agent helps you bring it to life. Get a free domain, email, phone number, and more - with no purchase required! Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twistdomain 23:07 Sequoia closes London office, but why? 27:08 Why Roelof's SpaceX board seat matters. 31:36 GoDaddy - GoDaddy helps founders seek out the perfect domain and will work through brokers if the name you want is already owned by someone else. Find out more at https://GoDaddy.com. 33:38 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more. 37:25 Apple CEO wants Siri to get more agentic 41:29 Lon got a new iMac! 45:07 Upwork - Upwork helps businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work. Post your job for free at https://www.upwork.com 46:19 New models from Thinking Machines + Nous 51:33 Local first, then on the cloud: how agent should run 56:23 Gov. Gina Hinojosa and robotaxi rules 1:01:03 Where to put the new data centers 1:15:31 Refusing the "exponential time hypothesis" Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack: TWiST: https://twistartups.substack.com/ TWiAI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/ TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/ Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/