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# Nvidia Loses Its Leather Jacket
- URL: https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/nvidia-loses-its-leather-jacket/
- Published: 2026-11-13T13:42:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-13T13:41:59.000Z
- Author: Jose Kont
- Tags: The Daily Dealflow

Hi, and welcome to a new edition of [The Daily Dealflow](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/tag/the-daily-dealflow/) — the 5-minute briefing that gives you clear context on capital flows and market-moving trends across the Americas, from Silicon Valley to Buenos Aires. Let's dive in.

## 🏆 Headline of the Day

Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993, resigned on Thursday as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately. CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO and keeps her CFO job while the board weighs internal and external candidates, and Harvey C. Jones became the board’s first chair. The exit follows reports of two extramarital affairs, including one with a Chinese businesswoman U.S. authorities suspect of spying for Beijing, which led to a board investigation.

**Why This?:** Nvidia sells the chips behind the AI trade, and its stock sat at roughly 6.25% of the S&P 500 at the start of the week. A leadership vacuum at that company reaches every AI-heavy portfolio and every startup whose pitch depends on cheap, plentiful GPUs.

**Positive Context:**

- Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives says Nvidia “remains the clear leader in GPU chips for the AI Revolution” and kept an outperform rating with a $225 price target. Shares fell as much as 14% to $148.80 before trimming the loss to about 4% to 5% in the afternoon.
- Broadcom opened up 4.4% and later rose as much as 6%, while AMD gained about 3%.

**Yes, but:**

- Nvidia is down roughly 30% over the past month, its market value is below $4T, and it reports earnings on Nov. 17 without its founder on the call.
- Bernstein flagged Huang’s roughly 60 direct reports and no obvious successor, summing it up as “He IS NVIDIA”.

**Zoom in:** Nvidia pledged $10B of the $26B private placement tied to Anthropic’s IPO, set to price on Nov. 18, and it is unclear whether Huang’s exit changes that commitment.

> **The comment:** Huang “was more than a CEO – he was part of the investment thesis,” said Bret Kenwell, U.S. investment analyst at eToro, as quoted by [Fox Business](https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/nvidia-loses-its-godfather-ai-now-faces-first-big-test-without-him?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/11/Screenshot-2026-11-13-at-5.40.32---AM.png)

Jensen Huang, former CEO & President at NVIDIA. Courtesy: ABC.

### 💰 Venture Capital

*Submit a deal for The Daily Dealflow newsletter via DM* [*here on LinkedIn*](https://www.linkedin.com/company/theinvestorsociety/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)*.*

**Torus (US) – $500M, Series C**, modular battery and energy-storage systems from Salt Lake City, led by Magnetar with Iconiq Capital, Origin Ventures and Trinity Capital. Founder and CEO Nate Walkingshaw’s new product, Foundry, packs batteries and AI-inference computing into a shipping-container-sized unit of 1 to 20 MW that can be installed in about four months. He calls it “our version of a distributed data-center approach,” which means taking the chips to places with spare grid power instead of building new plants for data centers – [Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/utah-based-startup-raises-500-120000301.html?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Rox (US) – $100M, Series B at a $1.3B valuation**, a CRM where AI agents research accounts, rank leads and draft outreach, co-led by General Catalyst and March Capital with Sequoia, GV and Prosperity7\. CEO Ishan Mukherjee sold Pixie Labs to New Relic and worked on Siri’s Knowledge Graph at Apple; co-founder Christopher Ré is a Stanford AI Lab professor. Ramp, MongoDB and Groq are customers, and General Catalyst’s Marc Bhargava says the firm’s “whole thing is to back the Davids against the Goliaths,” with Salesforce playing Goliath – [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/11/11/rox-series-b-100-million-funding-take-on-salesforce/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Nova (Brazil) – $24M, Series A led by Canaan**, a São Paulo fintech that lets consumers use their credit card limits to pay through Pix, Brazil’s instant-payment system. CEO Rafael Matos targets bills like rent and tuition that often can’t be paid by card in Brazil. Pix has more than 174M users and handled over half of the country’s retail payment transactions in H1 2026 – [The Paypers](https://thepaypers.com/payments/news/nova-raises-usd-24-mln-to-link-credit-cards-to-brazils-pix?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Imprint (US) – $130M at about a $1.88B valuation**, infrastructure for co-branded credit cards and loyalty programs, led by Khosla Ventures with newcomer Positive Sum plus Ribbit, Thrive and Kleiner Perkins. CEO Daragh Murphy’s company was valued at $240M in 2023, cardholders grew from about 15,000 to more than 2M in three years, and it expects about $400M in GAAP revenue this year. Fanatics is the newest partner, joining H-E-B, Kroger, Albertsons and Shell – [Upstarts Media](https://www.upstartsmedia.com/p/fintech-imprint-raises-130m?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/11/Screenshot-2026-11-13-at-6.16.50---AM.png)

The founder steps down. Does the growth story end? For several of the world’s biggest companies, it kept going: • Apple: +2,542% since Steve Jobs stepped down in 2011 • Microsoft: +870% since Bill Gates stepped down in 2000 • Amazon: +52% since Jeff Bezos stepped down in 2021 Different companies, different timeframes—but a founder’s departure doesn’t have to end a company’s success. What comes next for NVIDIA? These examples offer perspective, not a prediction. Source: RC Charts.

### 🏛️ Private Equity

**SpaceX and Tesla (US)** – potential all-stock merger, talks progressing, with SpaceX expected to absorb Tesla. Bloomberg reports an announcement could come in December or slip into early 2027, and special committees at both companies are negotiating price and control. With SpaceX worth more than $1.9T after its June IPO and Tesla around $1.5T, it would dwarf the record set when Vodafone bought Mannesmann in 2000 ($183B). The main obstacle is China, where Giga Shanghai builds more than half of Tesla’s cars – [Electrek](https://electrek.co/2026/11/12/spacex-tesla-merger-announcement-december-report/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Entel Perú (Chile/Peru)** – sale process, $1.54B to $1.85B in market estimates (5x to 6x EBITDA). Chile’s Entel, controlled by Almendral, hired an investment bank to sell Peru’s No. 2 mobile operator, with 10.5M customers, and Millicom (Tigo) is reported to be interested. Entel entered Peru in 2013 by buying Nextel, and its shares jumped about 8.6% on the news to lead Chile’s IPSA – [DF](https://www.df.cl/senal-df/el-deal/entel-pone-a-la-venta-operacion-de-peru-y-millicom-esta-interesado-en?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Global Payments (US)** – abandoned take-private. CD&R and GTCR dropped early-stage talks “given the complexities of arranging a take-private of this scale,” according to Reuters sources. The FT had called it a potential record LBO for a company worth about $26.4B in the market, where GTCR already owns about 15%. Earlier this year, a Stripe and Advent consortium also walked away from PayPal after bidding more than $53B – [Reuters](https://srnnews.com/exclusive-cdr-gtcr-drop-pursuit-of-global-payments-sources-say/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**BCP Investment Corp and Investcorp Credit Management BDC (US)** – BDC merger at 90% of the target’s net asset value, paid in stock and cash. BC Partners’ vehicle will give target holders up to 16.7% of the combined company, and Bloomberg frames the deal as part of a “private credit shakeout” – [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-11/bc-partners-to-buy-investcorp-bdc-amid-private-credit-shakeout?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

### 📈 Public & Capital Markets

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/11/Screenshot-2026-11-13-at-6.23.26---AM.png)

Closing Market Figures, Thu 12 Nov, 2026.

**Cisco (Nasdaq) – Q1 FY2027 earnings, networking hardware.** Revenue rose 24% to $18.5B, networking jumped 43%, and the company raised full-year guidance to $74.8B to $75.8B while expecting $9B of AI infrastructure revenue from hyperscalers. CEO Chuck Robbins says Cisco is “in the very early stages of a multi-year networking supercycle,” and revenue and EPS posted their fastest growth in more than 15 years – [StockTitan](https://www.stocktitan.net/news/CSCO/cisco-reports-first-quarter-42972jcsdwos.html?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Applied Materials (Nasdaq) – Q4 FY2026 earnings, chip equipment.** Revenue hit a record $10.41B, up 53% and the first quarter above $10B, and non-GAAP EPS of $4.16 beat the $4.05 estimate. CEO Gary Dickerson guided Q1 revenue to $11.1B, yet shares slipped about 1% after hours following a 4.5% drop in the regular session – [GlobeNewswire](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/11/12/3402149/0/en/applied-materials-announces-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-year-2026-results.html?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Akamai (Nasdaq) – debt issuance,** $2.5B of 1.00% convertible notes in two $1.25B series due 2028 and 2031, closed Nov. 12\. The proceeds repay $1.15B of 2027 converts and fund capital spending for the company’s cloud-inference business. It also ran note hedge and warrant trades alongside the deal – [GlobeNewswire](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/11/12/3402121/0/en/akamai-announces-closing-of-2-5-billion-offering-of-convertible-senior-notes.html?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Thomson Reuters (NYSE) – up to $500M buyback**, or 7M shares, about 1.6% of the company, running through Nov. 12, 2027\. The Thomson family’s Woodbridge, which owns about 70%, will take part proportionally to keep its stake steady. Shares are down about 15% this year on worries that AI will hurt its profits – [BNN Bloomberg](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/company-news/2026/11/11/thomson-reuters-unveils-us500-million-share-buyback-plan/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

### 📅 ICYMI

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/11/Screenshot-2026-11-13-at-6.26.55---AM.png)

Courtesy of Pete Smack / Variety.

**Making jokes about your business generally isn't a promising sign**, unless making jokes is your business. [Pete "Smack" McEntegart](https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/pete-smack-startup-standup-sold-shares-comedy-career-1236934338/?%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-9FuU-grc89o2oIu0L4knFcPTkokIE3G4Ygf%5FPv9h4UK%5F4ZxmIKo017ZG3kEPglZ8nY7J36g4N3nktrqhfVoyYUZeOEJWIHm4WQWHU85NqM7cF6bIY&%5Fhsmi=447892466&ref=theinvestorsociety.com), a former investment banker, columnist, and startup co-founder, launched a stand-up comedy career backed by Wefunder. Investors receive 10% of gross revenues through 2029, after which investment converts to equity at a $1m pre-money valuation. Smack promises to keep the jokes clean, targeting cruise ships and corporate gigs, and hopes his VOD comedy special will build momentum.

**Amazon is giving thousands of delivery drivers** [**a new pair of eyes**](https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon-deploys-thousands-of-smart-glasses-to-delivery-drivers/873762/?utm%5Fcampaign=bm&utm%5Fsource=morning%5Fbrew&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter)**,** complete with directions, delivery instructions, and even warnings about dogs.

**Thanks to Skydance,** there’s a new plot twist in the DC universe, [and it doesn’t involve Batman](https://variety.com/2026/film/news/james-gunn-peter-safran-fired-dc-jeremy-latcham-1236943091/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**A GoDaddy report reveals small** [**college towns**](https://www.inc.com/chloe-rosenberg/next-gen-z-startup-boom-hitting-college-towns/91429902?%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz--ql8yNG-KYF8Qhznmkfa2bEdxmgdnv1iJc47%5FiV7%5FxMw3R6JGxbpTR1euelQ6htuzj8FAu9eTl9Dj4ZICdzn4gWXk8MZR20KgP%5FUEjR6aj5kHT2Tg&%5Fhsmi=447892466&ref=theinvestorsociety.com)are experiencing an entrepreneurial boom, including 30+ communities with a 10%+ increase in microbusinesses. Eighty percent of the towns were outside traditional startup hubs.  
  
*See you monday,*

[***Katherine Castelán***](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/author/katherine/) ***&*** [***Jose Kont***](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-kont/?isSelfProfile=true&ref=theinvestorsociety.com)  
*The humans behind The Investor Society*