The fact that Nvidia became the first-ever AI hardware company to reach a market cap of $4 trillion earlier this month did more than cement the company as the leader in the field: it also made two of its top executives, including CEO Jensen Huang, billionaires. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index has revealed that Colette Kress, the chief financial officer of the company, and Jay Puri, who is the head of sales and marketing, have both surpassed the billionaire mark. They are rich, like many Nvidia insiders, and their fortunes are connected to the rocket-like stock performance of the company.
The company that started as a niche graphics chip designer catering to the needs of gamers has now become the foundation of the artificial intelligence revolution. Nvidia processors are found in everything, from large language models to self-driving cars. Not only has this meteoric rise provided huge profits to shareholders, but it has also greatly enriched a small group of top executives.
Kress, 57, was hired by Nvidia in 2013 when the market cap of the company was less than $10 billion. Ever since, she has been steering its financial path during major growth spurts, international tensions and massive R&D investments. Her previous experience in leadership at Microsoft and Cisco made her adjust to the rapid growth of Nvidia.
Puri, 70, joined in 2005, following 20 years at Sun Microsystems. He has played a key role in the internationalization of Nvidia, dealing with complicated regulatory environments and establishing market leadership in Asia, including China and Vietnam.
The two executives will become part of a club of Nvidia billionaires, which has expanded to include directors such as Mark Stevens, Tench Coxe, and Harvey Jones. Their ascendancy reflects a wider phenomenon in Silicon Valley: the AI-powered wealth explosion. The products of Nvidia are at the core of the AI value chain, which has allowed it unprecedented pricing power and strategic leverage, driving investor confidence.
CEO Jensen Huang, who is now worth $154 billion and the ninth-richest person in the world, said at a Washington summit he has made more billionaires on his management team than any CEO in the world. This claim is strengthened by the fact that Nvidia has successfully steered geopolitical headwinds, such as recent export bans to China and concerns about domestic AI rivals such as DeepSeek.
The history of Nvidia is a strong lesson in how early investing and visionary management can result in immense wealth as the race to arm the AI race accelerates.
