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Jay Puri was in a closed-door meeting with more than 30 Nvidia executives in February when Jensen Huang singled him out, according to people familiar with the meeting. As executive vice president of worldwide field operations, Puri ran the company’s sales and business development.
“I hope you get the flu and I hope it gets worse,” Huang told him. “I hope you die and put us all out of our misery.” Puri endured it in silence.
Huang resigned as Nvidia’s chief executive on Nov. 12. The accounts were first reported by the New York Post two days later. Behind his affable public persona, with black leather jackets and TV interviews about his humble beginnings washing dishes and cleaning toilets, employees, according to insiders, lived in fear of his outbursts at marathon meetings in front of their peers.
“It’s very typical for Jensen to yell at people, but when he said that specific thing to Jay, it was extremely tense and quiet,” one source said. “Everybody was a little bit shocked.”
The Breakdown
- Insiders say Jensen Huang told Jay Puri "I hope you die" in a February meeting with more than 30 Nvidia executives.
- Other accounts describe a thrown water bottle, a sales leader told "You don't know dick about my business," and an executive ordered out for "smirking."
- In August, Huang called CFO Colette Kress "a deer in the headlights." She is now Nvidia's interim CEO.
- The accounts rest on anonymous sources. Huang's spokesman declined to comment, and Huang had long described harsh criticism as coaching.
AI-generated summary, reviewed by an editor. More on our AI guidelines.
The February meeting
Puri had spent 21 years as an Nvidia executive when he notified the company in late June that he planned to retire, according to a company filing. Nicholas Parker was named his successor; Puri stays on as senior adviser.
Nothing in the filing links his retirement to the February meeting. The reports did not say what prompted Huang’s remarks.
The newly described incidents rest on anonymous sources. None of the executives involved has spoken publicly about them. Puri could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Huang declined to comment; Nvidia did not immediately respond.
Water bottles and meeting rooms
During a tense, three-hour meeting in 2025, with about 40 staffers present, Huang allegedly told a senior sales leader: “You don’t know dick about my business.”
Sources described another encounter with a senior leader attending a meeting with Huang for the first time.
“Are you smirking at me? I see nothing but dead faces … Get out!” Huang allegedly shouted before removing the executive from the room.
At Nvidia’s Santa Clara headquarters, Huang allegedly threw a water bottle at a top executive during a meeting. The report did not say whether anyone was hit.
Some employees were surprised the outbursts had not leaked before Huang’s departure, one source said.
Before his resignation, more than 60 top executives reported directly to Huang. He publicly said he held no one-on-one meetings with them. “I write no reviews for any of them,” he said. “I give them constant reviews and they provide the same to me.”
The finance chief who replaced him
An August meeting in Huang’s office about billions of dollars in proposed guarantees to companies that could not afford Nvidia chips was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Huang interrupted Colette Kress’s presentation and called her “a deer in the headlights,” according to a person familiar with the comments. He described her as a “reporting CFO,” rather than someone who could help define strategy or make decisions.
The executive he belittled is now Nvidia’s interim CEO, running the company while the board searches for a permanent successor.
Kress, 59, joined Nvidia as CFO in 2013. In a 2018 awards interview, she described Nvidia’s culture as “essentially egoless.”
At a conference in Berlin described in the same account, Huang lectured half a dozen cloud-company CEOs about pricing and diversifying customers through a fable about a Japanese soup vendor who refused him a second bowl because other customers were waiting, according to people who attended.
“He’s a better businessperson than all of you,” Huang told them. “You are not establishing the value of my products.”
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What his biographer described
Stephen Witt, author of the Huang biography “The Thinking Machine,” had described screaming harangues before the latest incidents became public. He met Huang in 2023. At a breakfast at Denny’s, Huang tipped their waitress $1,000 in $100 bills, which Witt learned only after tracking her down. Witt wrote that Huang “went to considerable lengths to cloak his arrogance” and that he “began to suspect that this was an act.”
“When you contradicted him, even over the most trivial matter, it was like lighting a fuse. Stick to your position, and soon he exploded, screaming at you for your idiocy,” Witt wrote.
A harangue “could last an hour or more,” he wrote, and executive staff “appeared genuinely afraid of him.” He compared the behavior to the music instructor in “Whiplash.”
Huang’s explanation and employee support
At a 2024 fireside chat with Stripe’s Patrick Collison, Huang said: “I’d rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you.”
He called the remark “tongue-in-cheek,” then added: “I think coaches that really believe in their team torture them into greatness.”
At Stanford in March 2024, he said: “To this day I use the phrase ‘pain and suffering’ inside our company with great glee.” He told a Singapore interviewer this year: “You can’t show me something without me giving you some criticism.”
In a Blind survey published before his Nov. 12 resignation, 88% of Nvidia staff who answered said he should stay as CEO. By Nov. 13, internal calls to reinstate him had drawn more than 1,600 comments, the majority supportive. Nvidia has more than 42,000 employees; those comments do not establish the whole workforce’s view.
In the 2024 conversation with Collison, Huang explained why he preferred pushing employees to dismissing them.
“I don’t want you to give up on that, so I’ll just keep torturing you.”
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Jensen Huang allegedly say to Jay Puri?
According to people familiar with a February meeting of more than 30 Nvidia executives, Huang told Puri, then head of worldwide field operations, "I hope you get the flu and I hope it gets worse" and "I hope you die and put us all out of our misery." Puri endured it in silence.
Are the accounts of Huang's outbursts confirmed?
No. They rest on anonymous sources, and none of the executives involved has spoken publicly. Puri could not be reached, a spokesman for Huang declined to comment, and Nvidia did not immediately respond.
What happened between Huang and Colette Kress?
At an August meeting about billions of dollars in proposed guarantees, Huang interrupted Kress's presentation, called her "a deer in the headlights" and described her as a "reporting CFO." Kress is now Nvidia's interim CEO.
How did Huang describe his own management style?
At a 2024 chat with Stripe's Patrick Collison he said "I'd rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you," calling it tongue-in-cheek. At Stanford in March 2024 he said he uses the phrase "pain and suffering" inside Nvidia "with great glee."
Do Nvidia employees still support Huang?
In a Blind survey published before his Nov. 12 resignation, 88% of Nvidia staff who answered said he should stay. By Nov. 13, internal calls to reinstate him drew more than 1,600 comments, mostly supportive, at a company of more than 42,000 employees.
AI-generated summary, reviewed by an editor. More on our AI guidelines.
Marcus Schuler
Editor-in-Chief and founder of Implicator.ai. Former ARD correspondent and senior broadcast journalist with 10+ years covering tech. Writes daily briefings on policy and market developments. Based in San Francisco. E-mail: editor@implicator.ai
