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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s trademark leather jacket raises nearly $1 Million at charity auction — bidding makes $60,000 valuation look like pocket change
‘The Jensen Jacket: Jensen Huang's Tom Ford Leather Jacket’ achieved a hammer price of $960,000 this weekend. High-end auctioneer Sotheby’s listed the leather garment, which was claimed to have been worn at least once by the Nvidia CEO, with a far lower price estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. Happily, the bountiful proceeds of the auction are going to charity.
Bidders could be quite confident that this Tom Ford jacket was genuinely worn by Jensen Huang at one or more landmark product launches, thanks to the work of the PSA [Professional Sports Authenticator]. Specifically, PSA photomatched this jacket and its unique leather wrinkles to the Hon Hai (Foxconn) Tech Day in Taipei on October 18, 2023, where Huang wore it on stage and met with other execs. Various close-up photos in the sales catalog showed telltale signs that this was/is the real deal. Separately, a signature on the garment was authenticated by James Spence Authentication.
The near $1M hammer price achieved is many multiples of the estimate. In our earlier reporting on the sale, we guessed this would happen for a number of reasons. Firstly, we thought Sotheby’s ‘low’ estimate was intentional to draw in the crowds and stoke excitement. Secondly, we mustn’t neglect the importance of the not-so-secret ingredient - Jensanity. And, right now, the AI boom with Nvidia at its center is still growing apace.
You can buy a brand new Tom Ford SS2023 menswear collection jacket, like the one shown, without any infusion of genuine Jensanity, for around $9,000. However, we can’t begrudge the success of this auction as the proceeds are earmarked for charity. The Sotheby’s page says that the auction was organized by Long Journey Ventures to benefit the Edge Institute, a non-profit that convenes people working at the frontiers of tech, science, culture, and society in pop-up villages (Edge Cities) to live together and experiment towards a brighter future. Fellowships, grants, and residencies for the next generation of young builders will be funded by this bumper lump of cash.
Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
Could be one of his own employees who adores him, or just a random collector. Jensen is iconic and a true innovator. Not a people pleaser, but extremely influential and has really shaped the modern age. This isn't all that surprising from that point of view.
Could be one of his own employees who adores him, or just a random collector. Jensen is iconic and a true innovator. Not a people pleaser, but extremely influential and has really shaped the modern age. This isn't all that surprising from that point of view.
Not a people pleaser? Seriously? Why does he constantly try to ham it up for the media and constantly try get into the public eye then? How exactly is he a true innovator? Nvidia does purely iterative design and plays it super safe. They never make large technological leaps. They didn’t even come up with the concept of using GPUs for compute. Other people had to show them that their GPUs could be used that way.
Not a people pleaser? Seriously? Why does he constantly try to ham it up for the media and constantly try get into the public eye then? How exactly is he a true innovator? Nvidia does purely iterative design and plays it super safe. They never make large technological leaps. They didn’t even come up with the concept of using GPUs for compute. Other people had to show them that their GPUs could be used that way.
True innovation in tech is execution. Others saw the potential of GPU compute but only Jensen built the foundation when it was considered a massive gamble and kept pushing when many left the space. CUDA is still king.
He is definitely not a people pleaser. He has actively angered plenty of people in the tech community over the years, including Linus Torvalds. But he has incredible business sense.
Nvidia's ballooning $4.8+ trillion valuation and $215+ billion revenue speak for themselves. You don't dominate the global market like this by playing it safe. His vision was lightyears ahead.
