The Linjiang Night Market in Taipei.Credit...
When the news broke in Taiwan on Thursday night that Jensen Huang had resigned as Nvidia’s chief executive, Ray Wang was too upset to sleep. He drank a whole bottle of red wine and prayed for Mr. Huang.
A hairstylist, Mr. Wang, has been cutting Mr. Huang’s hair, watching it change from salt-and-pepper to silver, for nearly a decade.
“Maybe they’ll bring him back,” Mr. Wang said, “the way Apple brought back Steve Jobs.”
Mr. Huang has many well-wishers like this in Taiwan. An American citizen, he moved to the United States when he was 9 years old, but he was born on the island and enjoys a godlike status there. Fans mobbed him at night markets and lined up for autographs. Restaurants where he has eaten hang his photo, Hollywood-celebrity style.
He has been hailed as the “pride of Taiwan” and affectionately called “the people’s dad.” The frenzy around his visits became known as “Jensanity,” a play on the “Linsanity” that followed Jeremy Lin, the Taiwanese-American professional basketball player.
Mr. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993, and it became one of the world’s most valuable companies in recent years by making advanced chips for artificial intelligence. Over the decades, Mr. Huang made Nvidia’s relationship with Taiwan personal.
Taiwan is home to TSMC, the premier semiconductor chip maker that produces roughly 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chips and is the main reason Taiwan’s economy is projected to grow around 12 percent this year. It is Taiwan’s most important company, and Nvidia is TSMC’s biggest customer.
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