Eric Newcomer at Cerebral Valley: Jensen's exit diffuses power across the chip ecosystem and opens lanes for challengers

Eric Newcomer covers Jensen Huang's departure from Nvidia on the sidelines of the Cerebral Valley AI Summit, an event he co-founded that he describes as running its "top 100 AI companies" list release alongside appearances from Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst, Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks, and an Etched co-founder.

“I think people are saying there's been an overemphasis on the affair angle and an underemphasis on the China piece. Nvidia had such centralized power that this does open up some room for other chip makers. He was such a deal maker in AI — so it diffuses power a little bit.”

Jensen's exit opens the chip stack

The early read from conversations at the summit is that Nvidia's power was so centralized in Huang that his departure diffuses control across the ecosystem. Newcomer says attendees are flagging an underappreciated dimension: the China revenue angle has received less scrutiny than the domestic regulatory story, and that imbalance matters for how the fallout gets priced.

For chip challengers — Cerebras, Etched, and others — the opportunity is real. Newcomer notes these companies were never beneficiaries of what gets called "Jensen bucks," the preferential deal flow and supplier relationships Huang cultivated. With that centralizing force gone, scarce supply relationships may open up. The caveat, implicit rather than stated, is that Nvidia's market position doesn't dissolve with one executive departure.

VC politics after the midterms

The political realignment in venture is real but overstated. Newcomer points to donation data showing Silicon Valley shifted from roughly 90% Democrat to around 70% Democrat — a meaningful move, but the valley is still predominantly blue. The louder shift was vocal rather than structural: pro-Trump voices dominated podcasts and X while left-leaning investors stayed quiet. Newcomer's read is that firms are now absorbing the lesson from defense contractors — maintain relationships across both parties rather than making a hard partisan bet.

On data centers specifically, Newcomer says the prevailing view at the summit is that the political backlash is manageable. The likely outcome is higher taxes that compress margins modestly, not a halt to construction.

Jensen's next act

Newcomer declines to make a firm prediction but flags the Bob Iger parallel as the most plausible scenario — an executive of Huang's stature finding it hard to fully separate from the company he built. He's clear that whatever happened, the full picture isn't yet known, and a clean "next act" landing in the near term looks unlikely.