By Balazs Balint
Publication Date: 2026-01-24 16:35:00
When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was asked who the smartest person he’s ever met was, most people expected a predictable answer. A Silicon Valley rival or a Nobel Prize winner, perhaps, but instead, Huang’s response was anything but predictable. It sparked conversation online, and his answer stands to reframe what “smart” means, shifting the focus from status to something more personal.
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Who is Jensen Hung
Jensen Hung is the CEO of Nvidia, owns 3% of the company, and has a personal net worth of over $160 billion. He founded the company in 1993, and since then, Fortune magazine has named him one of the world’s best CEOs for his innovation and leadership. He is considered a member of the 100 most influential people.
What happened
In a recent interview on the “A Bit Personal Podcast” with Jodi Shelton, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was asked a one-sentence question: “Who is the smartest person you’ve ever met?”
His response was, “I can’t answer that question, and I know what people are thinking.” He went on to say that “the definition of smart is someone who solves problems, technical. But I find that’s a commodity, and we’re about to prove that Artificial Intelligence is able to handle that part easiest.”
He paused briefly, then launched into another example of what he meant. “Everyone thought that software programming was the ultimate smart profession. Look what is the first thing that AI is solving. Software programming. And so it turns out that the…