Jensen Huang’s Shoes Were the Tell

PATRICK T. FALLON//Getty Images2 min readI spent much of Thursday staring at photographs of Jensen Huang’s shoes arranged in one soldierly line longer in both directions than the frame could hold. These dozen pair—each different, all dazzling—were but a glimpse of his footwear armies. Jensen’s Hermès slip-ons and dozens of black leather jackets are not only his fashion signatures; they’re also proof of his decision to not waste precious energy deciding what clothes to wear each morning.This is a philosophy I share with Jensen, and my version saves even more time and energy: Don’t change clothes. But I like men’s shoes, I’ve sold men’s shoes, and I believe that a man’s shoes reveal facets of his public persona and private desires.In Jensen’s case, there’s no mystery. He’s a brilliant guy who was once a small, smart immigrant kid bullied and beaten at a Kentucky Baptist reform school that his uncle mistook for a boarding school. Now he’s 63, a 5'6" AI titan standing in adorable—size 9 is my guess—multi-thousand-dollar slip-ons atop his $140 billion, with his dick out and dripping all over his kicks du jour.And we are left to sort the tragedy, seek catharsis, and remind ourselves again—and again—that Jensen Huang’s downfall awaits any man who ignores the fundamental law of our own animal nature: Ven der putz shteht, der sechel licht in drert: When the penis stands, the brain goes to hell.I make no moral judgment here; we have no basis or right to do so. The college sweetheart he married forty-one years ago, along with their two grown children, are the only souls with standing in this case. But I think it’s only fair, in light of current reporting on Jensen’s three concurrent affairs—that’s two side pieces plus Princess Honey-Pot, plus a wife—to reconsider that vast battalion of decision-saving slip-ons and what it says.The shoes reveal a man with smallish feet whose penis was too busy making decisions to consider laces, love, or the welfare of his family and business. And there aren’t enough shoes, dollars, or women in the world to fill the hole in Jensen Huang.