Jensen Huang, the billionaire former Nvidia CEO who transformed the company from a modest player in the video game graphics industry into the chipmaker at the center of the AI revolution, once made a startling admission: he could be fired at any time.

"In a well-governed company, the CEO was always designed to report to the board of directors and the board of directors report to shareholders," Huang said in a January podcast interview with Jodi Shelton, the semiconductor industry executive who founded the Global Semiconductor Alliance trade group. "If the CEO doesn't do his job according to 12, 13, 15 board members, however sized the board is, that CEO is let go."

That reality sets Nvidia apart from much of Silicon Valley, particularly companies still run by a cofounder. Meta is one such case: CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg wields considerable power over his board thanks to its dual-class share structure.

On Thursday, Huang resigned from the company he cofounded in 1993 with engineers Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem and had led for the past 33 years after publicly admitting to being unfaithful to his wife. Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation into Huang and the possibility that he may have been the target of a foreign intelligence operation, after reporting by the New York Times examined his close relationship with a businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence identified as a Chinese spy. The New York Times also reported that Huang had another affair with an Nvidia executive who reported to him. Also on Thursday, the board appointed CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO.

Still, Huang said in that January interview that any future Nvidia CEO would not measure up to him.

"There will never be one like me, and the reason for that is because I was raised by the company," he said at the time.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to Fortune's request for comment.

Why Huang's stock ownership didn't protect his CEO position

Despite being the company's largest individual shareholder, Huang did not have unrivaled voting control over Nvidia or outsized influence over its board, unlike many other founders.

Huang owned about 870.6 million Nvidia shares, or roughly 3.58% of the company as of March, according to the company's 2026 proxy statement. His holdings far exceeded those of other executives and directors, including Kress, who held 4.4 million shares. Even so, Vanguard and BlackRock each owned more than 7% of the company.

Because Nvidia operates a one-share-one-vote system, Huang's stake carried no special privileges despite his cofounder status. The number of votes he held corresponded directly to his number of shares.

As Huang alluded to in his January podcast appearance, Nvidia's bylaws are written such that the company's CEO can be removed by the board for any reason and at any time. Meanwhile, Huang lacked enough voting power to independently elect or remove Nvidia's directors.

Founders with majority voting control, such as Zuckerberg, can effectively determine who sits on their boards. Huang, by contrast, would have needed the support of other Nvidia shareholders to do the same.

That distinguishes Nvidia from other companies run by tech founders, including Meta, Snap, and even Google.

At Meta, a dual-class voting structure—the company said last month it would add a third, non-voting tier next year—gives Zuckerberg outsized voting power. Despite owning 13.4% of the company, he controls about 60% of its voting power because his class B shares carry 10 votes each, compared with one vote for every class A share. With that authority, Zuckerberg can effectively elect Meta's entire board and is the deciding voice on most matters sent to shareholders.

Snap, the social media company, has a similar arrangement, with CEO and cofounder Evan Spiegel controlling 53% of the company's voting power while owning only about 9.3% of it.

Even at Google parent Alphabet, where cofounder Sergey Brin and cofounder and former CEO Larry Page no longer run day-to-day operations, the pair collectively retains majority voting control of the tech giant. Both still serve on the company's board.

Dual-class and non-voting arrangements like these have long drawn criticism from institutional investors: after Snap went public in 2017 with shares that gave public holders no vote at all, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced it would no longer add companies whose public shareholders hold less than 5% of the vote to the S&P 500. Nvidia's one-share-one-vote structure clears that bar.

Market fallout and the leadership transition

Nvidia's stock plummeted by as much as 14% on Thursday following the announcement of Huang's departure, before rebounding. It was down about 4.7% as of 1:30 p.m. EST that day. With a market capitalization of nearly $4 trillion, the company makes up about 6% of the S&P 500 and roughly 10% of the Nasdaq 100, meaning any reckoning it experiences will trickle through the broader market and everyday Americans' 401(k) accounts. Index giants Vanguard and BlackRock—the same asset managers that each own more than 7% of Nvidia—sit at the center of that exposure through the funds they run for retirement savers.

Huang was central to Nvidia's operations, maintaining a flat management structure and direct involvement in the company's product strategy as well as its supplier and customer relationships. In recent months, he also cultivated a close relationship with President Donald Trump, who has been a vocal proponent of boosting the AI industry and the infrastructure supporting it in the U.S.—although Trump was quick to back ex-Apple CEO Tim Cook as Huang's successor on Thursday.

The board has now made changes to its own structure as well. It previously operated without a board chairman, opting instead to rely on lead independent director Stephen Neal to oversee management. On Thursday, it appointed Harvey C. Jones, a former semiconductor company CEO and an Nvidia board member since 1993, as chairman of the board, according to a statement.

Kress, the company's CFO since 2013, said in a Thursday statement that, as interim CEO, she plans to build on Huang's legacy at Nvidia. With no permanent successor named and the board's independent investigation still unresolved, the search for a long-term CEO and the outcome of that probe are the key threads to watch as Nvidia navigates its first stretch in 33 years without Huang at the helm.

In the January interview, Huang said that while he didn't love his job every day, he always tried his "mightiest" for two reasons.

"One, I'm the best person for the job. I believe that," he said. "And, two, I have to earn being the best person for that job every day."

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.