Key Notes
- Lycana founder Jensen Huang says sharing a name with NVIDIA’s former chief brought thousands of visitors and a few paid subscriptions.
- His startup turns spoken or written system descriptions into editable architecture diagrams.
- The Singapore-based founder hopes the publicity will help attract investors after applying to startup accelerators.
NVIDIA’s leadership crisis has produced an unlikely beneficiary: another Jensen Huang. The 24-year-old software engineer in Singapore says the attention sent thousands of people to his AI startup, Lycana, and brought in a few paying customers.
In an as-told-to interview, Huang told Business Insider that jokes about his famous namesake had become a marketing opportunity. His LinkedIn posts about the situation spread beyond his own network, with screenshots circulating on Reddit and RedNote.
The two men are different people. NVIDIA’s co-founder resigned as chief executive, president and a director on November 12. The chipmaker appointed finance chief Colette Kress as interim CEO while its board searches for a permanent successor.
A memorable name gets complicated
The younger Huang said the coincidence had previously helped at networking events and job interviews. People remembered him, sometimes jokingly asking for spare GPUs. More recently, friends blamed him for NVIDIA’s falling shares, while some strangers mistakenly directed questions about the older Huang’s personal conduct at him.
He responded with humor on LinkedIn. By his account, the resulting publicity brought a traffic spike of about 5,000 people to Lycana’s website, and a few bought subscriptions. He also owns NVIDIA shares, so the market turmoil has not been an entirely profitable experience.
The startup behind the joke
Lycana is an AI tool for designing software systems. Its website describes a workflow in which users explain an idea by voice or text and receive an editable architecture diagram, showing components and the relationships between them.
The pitch addresses a familiar problem in software development: turning a rough description into a system that other people can understand. Users can rearrange the diagram and refine it as their plans change. Lycana also supports connections to coding tools including Claude Code, Cursor and Codex, with proposed changes awaiting the user’s acceptance.
Huang’s personal website lists the project as starting in August 2026. That makes it a young business receiving an unusually well-timed introduction to potential users.
Huang told BI he had applied to Y Combinator and other startup accelerators, and hopes the sudden visibility will help investors notice him. He did not announce a funding deal in the interview. The next challenge is to give visitors a reason to stay once they have worked out which Jensen Huang they have found.
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