New Delhi, Nov. 12 -- The Nvidia story has always been an intriguing one. For years, it was mostly the nerds and geeks who even knew the company existed. Every year, Nvidia would launch new graphics cards that quickly became the talk of the gaming town. Developers would argue over whether the shadows in this year's Crysis looked less realistic than last year's God of War, Nvidia made a few decent bucks, and we all went to sleep happy.

One would presume that at some point, somewhere between all the extreme security measures and high-level national security meetings, Jensen Huang, Nvidia's founder, might just miss the simplicity of that bygone era.

This week has been tumultuous for Jensen, who, by most Silicon Valley insider accounts, is ...