Mark Barrett

I’ve decided to leave NVIDIA. There are a few things I want to say. As a robotics engineer at NVIDIA, I have seen Jensen as much more than the company’s CEO. I admire his willingness to invest in a future that was not yet obvious. He committed to CUDA long before the deep learning boom and positioned NVIDIA for AI before it became everyone’s priority. Those decisions helped build the infrastructure that powers today’s AI. I have seen that same vision in physical AI: investing in robotics, sharing open-source tools and projects, and building computing platforms that bring AI into the physical world. This is the work I do every day—and a future I believe in. But what matters most to me is the culture he helped build. Engineers are encouraged to explore, take risks, and learn from mistakes. Jensen reads employees’ Top 5 emails, follows their work, and engages directly. In a company this large, that connection matters. It makes an individual engineer feel that their ideas can still be heard. That is why this has been so disappointing. I do not have all the facts surrounding the allegations, and I cannot prejudge the investigation. My admiration for Jensen does not put him above scrutiny. What I find difficult to accept is having to come to terms with his departure before receiving an explanation that helps me understand it. What this means for our direction, our culture, and the people doing the work remains unclear to me. I have felt that engineers’ perspectives matter here. On this decision, I have not felt heard. That gap has been more painful than I expected. I understand that some information cannot be shared immediately. But that does not erase the feeling of being left outside a decision that affects the company we help build every day. A company’s greatness comes from its leadership, its governance, and the people who turn its ambitions into reality. Employees’ trust and sense of belonging are part of that, too. Jensen’s vision and the engineering culture he shaped were important reasons I wanted to stay. His departure led me to decide that my own chapter here should also come to a close. I leave with sadness and gratitude. The colleagues I have worked with, and the work we believed in together, will always matter to me. These are my personal views.