When NVIDIA's Jensen Huang got involved in a scandal involving a woman named Alice Huang, a job seeker with the same name from Austin, Texas, saw an opportunity.
She changed her LinkedIn title to “NOT A SPY (Not a Spy)” and posted that, unlike another Alice Huang – who is reportedly believed by U.S. intelligence officials to have passed information to Beijing – her most dangerous secret was simply how many Chrome tabs she had opened.
This joke spread quickly. According to Business Insider, this post not only received over 800,000 views but also led to several job offers through private messages. One of the messages mentioned that they were looking for a chief of staff; another stated that they got in touch because of this name, and they also saw opportunities for collaboration.
41-year-old Huang happens to be looking for a position as a chief of staff or in operations, and she is taking these messages seriously. She said, "If they appreciate my sense of humor, then I know they are the right kind of people for me."
Her surname is quite common in the United States. According to the 2020 census, Huang is the 314th most common surname in the U.S., with a total of 98,330 people in the country having the surname Huang. For example, in the NVIDIA scandal, both Jensen and Alice shared the surname Huang, although they are not related to each other.
Today, these women are linked together due to this scandal. Their "doppelganger" has been prohibited from entering Singapore again; the U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche stated that the government is investigating, but no conclusion has yet been reached as to whether she is a spy. The Chinese side has repeatedly denied these allegations.
Another Alice Huang, 33 years old, comes from the Bay Area. She said she has already decided on her Halloween costume for next year: she will dress up as a Megaspeed executive, her husband will dress up as GPU, and her 1-year-old daughter will dress up as Jensen Huang wearing a leather jacket.
She said, "It's already taking shape in my mind. I'll start preparing tonight."
Alice Huang's Personal Brand Operations
Another Alice Huang's private Pilates class started as a joke. She teaches on the beach in Redondo, California, and a regular client said to her, "Oh, you're in the news!" The two of them laughed about it and also reflected on the downfall of NVIDIA CEO, before continuing with their class.
So, this 51-year-old Huang decided to post about it on Instagram. She knows that Pilates can enhance the connection between body and mind and help people feel more calm. She thought, perhaps if the founders of NVIDIA had done more Pilates, this scandal wouldn't have happened.
Even a slight association with a scandal that made it onto the news – just having the same name – can be of great significance to a personal brand. A 24-year-old Singaporean man, also named Jensen Huang, told Business Insider that after he posted about the scandal, it brought traffic to his startup company's website and also resulted in the acquisition of new subscribers.
This resident of Austin, Huang, said that after she posted the LinkedIn thread, her phone started vibrating non-stop. She asked ChatGPT to help her count, and the latter estimated that she received 300 connection requests per hour. She said, "I was really shocked to see it blow up like that."
As for that person from the Bay Area, Huang, she used this scandal to help raise funds. Huang is involved with the Cornell University Bay Area alumni network and posted on LinkedIn to help raise money for local non-profit organizations. At the beginning of her post, she wrote: “I am Alice Huang. No, it’s not what you’re thinking.”
An alumnus sent an Amazon package to her family during a fundraising event, which included a greeting card with the message: “Stay away from Jensen!”
Friends, family, and old colleagues have all reached out one after another.
When this Huang from the Bay Area is not fundraising, she works in the semiconductor industry. She says that the NVIDIA scandal hit her particularly hard because her colleagues were all talking about it – so they would come to her desk and joke about it.
She said, "They are engineers. Everyone is quite shy. They would just say, 'We were just talking about you. Do you know?' "
Once your name appears in the news, suddenly everyone wants to talk to you. This person with the username Huang who lives in Texas says that even people from Australia, where she lived over a decade ago, have contacted her.
This person with the username Huang who lives in Southern California keeps hearing about her "doppelganger" from friends and family members. An old friend from London got in touch with her, and colleagues she hadn't seen in many years started sending her text messages. She said, "It's a bit confusing."
Huang said, "I don't know if I will be stopped next time I go to the airport. But there are many, many, many Alice Huang in this country and around the world, so I hope that won't be a problem."
