Nvidia’s Jensen Huang saga begs the question: Do too few companies have too much power?

On Thursday morning, Jensen Huang resigned as CEO of chipmaker Nvidia, according to reporting by CNBC.

Huang’s fall from grace was sudden and dramatic. On Wednesday, the board of Nvidia was reportedly meeting late in the evening to decide whether to oust CEO Huang after The New York Times reported earlier in the day that he had a relationship with an Nvidia executive who reported to him. This, of course, follows news of Huang's relationship with a suspected Chinese spy.

Nvidia stock had tanked 10% in pre-market trading on Thursday morning.

All of this raises questions about the consolidation of power in one of the biggest companies in the world. Nvidia is responsible for 90% of the chips used in AI. Do we need more guardrails to prevent something like this from spilling into the rest of the economy?

Amy Edmondson is the Novartis professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School. She joined “Marketplace Morning Report” host Kimberly Adams for a conversation on this. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kimberly Adams: Given the geopolitical and security stakes of some of these high-profile CEOs that are now so enmeshed in the U.S. economy, what, if any, public policy changes do you think we might see from the new Congress when it comes to these companies that are playing such a big role in our lives now?

Amy Edmondson: I think it's hard to say what those changes should be. It's easier to say that there need to be changes for the very reason that your question suggests. There's potentially too much power in the hands of too few that are not even state actors; they're companies. And that power has not only U.S. implications but worldwide geopolitical implications. So, one policy implication is that we certainly need more transparency and accountability.

Adams: What do you think this news and news like this, when it happens at other companies, does to the workplace and the people actually working there?

Edmondson: I think it's very demoralizing because I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and I think most employees at a place like Nvidia are incredibly hardworking and smart and capable, and they want to believe that they're contributing to value, that they're making the world a better place through the work that they do. And it can feel like a betrayal to discover that a leader may inadvertently have been harming the value of their work and also putting the state and the company at risk.