Marks says Huang's affair can cost the whole family business

Marks says owner’s children are watched as closely as their parents

The Guardian columnist Gene Marks opened the column by placing former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in a long historical line — Profumo, Petraeus, Gary Hart, Bill Gates and Bill Clinton — of “older men in positions of great responsibility” having affairs with mostly younger women that put their jobs, businesses and reputations at great risk. Marks described those men as “smart, respected, powerful” yet prone to decisions that simply baffle the rest of us, and wrote that the answer is that they are men: when a younger woman shows interest, they do not see how things were going to end up.

Marks allowed that readers love a bit of schadenfreude now and again, but wrote that it is not so fun for the employees, shareholders, partners and others who work alongside these men, and deeply unpleasant for their families — particularly when they work in the same business.

Jensen Huang’s family is feeling that now, Marks wrote. Huang’s son, daughter and son-in-law all have prominent positions at his company, and Huang’s daughter is married to another Nvidia executive. “And they’re not alone,” Marks added, writing that when it happens at a smaller business, the impact is even worse.

Huang’s company is so well known that the world knows of his indiscretions, Marks wrote, but people live in their own worlds, and in the world of his own clients, “pretty much everyone in the company knows what’s going on with the cheating spouse.”

Marks wrote that some surveys claim that as many as 20% of people have admitted to cheating on their partners, and that there are 34 million small businesses in the US with almost a third being family owned. So the odds are, Marks wrote, that there are other moms and dads — probably dads, given that 61% of businesses are still owned by men — making the same mistakes. “I have clients in this position,” he wrote, and their children working in their businesses are going through the same horrible experience.

Marks wrote hopefully that children working in family businesses have positions where they are not directly reporting to mom and dad, with an organizational structure and policies in place that separate them from ownership and treat them as any other employee. Whether the owner of the company — even if it’s the mom or dad — is having dalliances on the side should be of no matter, he wrote: “They’re doing a job in the company. They’re not a part of this.”

But unfortunately they are, Marks wrote: “It’s still their parents.” There is still an unsaid thing amongst the rest of the employees that not only are they the kids, they are also likely to be the future owners of the company, and their behavior inside the company walls is being watched as closely as their parents’. “Suddenly, their parents’ behavior is now reflected on them. Can they also be trusted?” Marks asked.

And yet Marks wrote that he does not feel entirely sorry for “the Jensen kids or any kids working for their parents where a similar situation occurs.” They have enjoyed the perks of being the owners’ offspring, and they have likely been given opportunities they would not necessarily get if they worked for someone else. “They know what they signed up for.”

Marks wrote that the hope is that Huang’s children, and the children of any business owner going through the same situation, learn and turn it to their favor. He then made the reputational argument: “When a responsible CEO cheats on their spouse, it calls into question their overall ethics.” When the affairs become “a circus like Jensen’s – or even in the smaller world of my clients – the ridicule it creates undermines their authority.” “People look at my cheating clients like they’re a joke,” Marks wrote, adding that people wonder how his clients “could do something so blatantly stupid like having an affair with an employee in an environment where their children work.” They question the judgment of the very leader who runs the company that provides their livelihood, he wrote.

Marks closed with advice for the next generation inside such firms: the kids should stand by both their parents, accept that mistakes were made, but show the world that it is still their family and that they love them — while also taking the opportunity to show their fellow employees, and the world, that they would not behave the same way.