Nvidia's post-Huang succession test could be tougher than those at Apple, Alphabet and Uber

Jensen Huang is hardly the first chief executive to exit a company he helped create. But experts told CNBC that his sudden resignation from Nvidia comes at a uniquely delicate moment, handing his eventual successor an unusually difficult assignment at the company powering the artificial intelligence boom.

Huang resigned on Thursday amid reports of extramarital affairs, including with a woman U.S. intelligence believes is a spy for China. Over 33 years, he turned the company he co-founded into the world's most valuable. Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein wrote on X that Huang was "indispensable," while noting that "the graveyards are filled with indispensable men," a line attributed to French leader Charles de Gaulle.

While Nvidia's board searches for a new CEO, CFO Colette Kress is filling the role temporarily. Analysts say Huang's charisma and relentless drive will be hard to reproduce. "I'm not sure we've seen a situation quite like this, where the founder and CEO of one of the world's largest companies faces such a sudden departure amid scandal," said Michael Withers, a management professor at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business. Whoever takes over will "face challenges that go well beyond those of a typical CEO replacing a founder," he added.

History offers a few comparisons, though each falls short. Apple's identity was fused with Steve Jobs when he stepped down in 2011, but the company had been led by other CEOs before and had an internal successor ready. Tim Cook had built Apple's chip strategy and services business, managed its supply chain and served as a corporate diplomat with the U.S. and Chinese governments. Cook had "considerable preparation" for the job, Withers said, and Apple's market value climbed from roughly $350 billion to $4 trillion during his 15-year tenure.

At Alphabet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin exited their executive roles in 2019, 21 years after founding Google. Their departures were anticipated, with Page calling it the "natural time" to simplify management. Alphabet shares have gained more than 300% since then under Sundar Pichai. Uber's Travis Kalanick left in 2017 under pressure from scandals and governance concerns, but that exit "unfolded over several months, and while it certainly attracted attention, it pales in comparison to what Nvidia is currently facing," Withers said. Former Expedia chief Dara Khosrowshahi went on to repair Uber's organization and steer it to profitability.

Withers noted that successor CEOs often struggle even "under normal circumstances" to preserve what made a company work while establishing their own authority. "It becomes considerably more difficult when the transition follows such a high-profile scandal involving the company's founder," he said. Nvidia appears to have no succession plan for Huang, who ran a flat organization with an extraordinary 60 direct reports and is widely seen as inseparable from the company.

Beyond having to "step out of his shadow," the next CEO must manage the fallout from Huang's conduct and "the extent to which it sticks with Nvidia," Withers said. The successor will also inherit long-term strategy and a web of relationships Huang personally managed. Huang cultivated close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump, accompanying him to China in May, and consistently lobbied Washington to relax export restrictions that block Nvidia chip sales to the world's second-largest economy. He also maintained direct relationships with the heads of key suppliers, from SK Hynix to Samsung.

Storm Uru, co-head of the Global Innovation team at Nvidia investor Liontrust Asset Management, identified two urgent priorities for new leadership: reshaping company culture and managing the supply chain. The supply chain was "where Jensen was able to provide a vision for the future and able to bring people to the table and to expand capacity to enable the build-out of this technology," Uru told CNBC, a task that matters especially "when supply chains are already so tight." Nvidia also faces intensifying competition from rivals such as AMD and from hyperscalers accelerating efforts to design their own chips.

Investors emphasized that the incoming CEO will inherit a product roadmap stretching several years out, unaffected by Huang's removal. "We have to look beyond Jensen .. there are thousands upon thousands of engineers," Joanne Feeney, partner and portfolio manager at Advisors Capital Management, told CNBC on Thursday, as pressure was building for Huang to go.