13 Of The Most Popular Tech Company CEOs, According To Their Employees
Tom Briglia/Getty Images It’s tough being a CEO. You have to constantly meet your sales goals while coming up with new ideas. You have to motivate your employees and keep expanding the business, too.
Things only get harder if you’re in tech, where everything changes so quickly. And, on top of that, if you’re at a public company where shareholders scrutinize your every move? Forget about it.
That’s why staying popular among employees often gets put on the back burner of many tech CEOs. Yet, the truly talented CEOs manage to keep both their employees and shareholders happy.
Bloomberg put together a list of the most popular CEOs among US public companies, based on a survey done by Glassdoor. We narrowed it down to the 13 tech CEOs who have the highest approval rating.
13. NetApp’s Tom Georgens
Approval rating: 85.5%
CEO since: 2009
Market cap: $13.4 billion
Revenue (2014): $6.3 billion
About: Georgens has more than 20 years of experience in the storage area. He spent 11 years at EMC, before working at Engenio and LSI Logic Storage Systems for 9 years. Georgens is also the chairman of NetApp’s board.
12. EMC’s Joe Tucci
Approval rating: 89%
CEO since: 2001
Market cap: $57.92 billion
Revenue (2013): $23.2 billion
About: Tucci was named EMC’s CEO in 2001, a year after joining the company as COO. He transformed EMC’s business from being mostly focused on a high-end storage platform to visualization, cloud, and security software. Before joining EMC, Tucci worked at network solution company Wang Global and RCA Corp.
11. Cognizant Technology Solution’s Frank D’Souza
Approval rating: 89.9%
CEO since: 1994
Market cap: $29.17 billion
Revenue (2013): $8.8 billion
About: D’Souza is one of the cofounders of Cognizant, an IT consoling service company. Under D’Souza’s leadership, Cognizant has become an S&P 500 and Fortune 500 company, with more than 180,000 employees. He’s also on the board of General Electric Co.
10. ADP’s Carlos Rodriguez
Approval rating: 90.6%
CEO since: 2011
Market cap: $37.9 billion
Revenue (2013): $12.2 billion
About: Rodriguez first joined ADP, the payroll service provider, in 1999. He quickly rose through the rankings, filling in positions of president and COO along the way.
9. eBay’s John Donahoe
Approval rating: 91.2%
CEO since: 2008
Market cap: $64.04 billion
Revenue (2013): $16.05 billion
About: Donahoe first joined eBay in 2005 as president of eBay Marketplaces. He’s also on the eBay board of directors. Prior to joining eBay, Donahoe was CEO of Bain & Company, where he spent more than 20 years of his career.
8. Apple’s Tim Cook
Approval rating: 92%
CEO since: 2011
Market cap: $627.4 billion
Revenue (2013): $170.9 billion
About: Cook replaced Apple founder Steve Jobs as CEO in August 2011. Prior to that, he was the COO, where he oversaw Apple’s worldwide sales and operations. Before Apple, Cook had a long career at Compaq and Intelligent Electronics.
7. Riverbed’s Jerry Kennelly
Approval rating: 92.8%
CEO since: 2002
Market cap: $3.01 billion
Revenue (2013): $1.04 billion
About: Kennelly is one of the cofounders of Riverbed Technologies, a network application company founded in 2002. He’s also the chairman of the company. Prior to Riverbed, Kennelly was executive VP and CFO at software company Inktomi. He also held positions at Sybase, Oracle, and HP.
6. Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff
Approval rating: 93.0%
CEO since: 1999
Market cap: $38.2 billion
Revenue (2013): $4.1 billion
About: Benioff is the chairman and CEO of the cloud computing company, Salesforce.com. He founded the company in 1999, and under his leadership, has grown into one of the largest cloud companies in tech. He has more than 35 years of experience in tech, including positions at Oracle and Apple.
5. Google’s Larry Page
Approval rating: 93.2%
CEO since: 2001
Market cap: $373.3 billion
Revenue (2013): $57.86 billion
About: Page cofounded Google with Sergey Brin in 1999. He was the company’s first CEO until 2001, but was the president of products from 2001 to 2011. Just last week, Google announced that Page would be taking a step back to focus on the “bigger picture,” while Sundar Pichai takes on a more leadership role.
4. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg
Approval rating: 93.3%
CEO since: 2004
Market cap: $191.7 billion
Revenue (2013): $7.8 billion
About: Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his college dorm room at Harvard in 2004. Since then, Facebook has become the largest social media site in the world, with more than 1.35 billion monthly active users. Zuckerberg’s net worth is over $32.7 billion, according to Forbes.
3. Intuit’s Brad Smith
Approval rating: 94.4%
CEO since: 2008
Market cap: $24.79 billion
Revenue (2013): $4.5 billion
About: Before he was named CEO, Smith spent five years as Intuit’s senior VP and general manager, overseeing the company’s Small Business Division, which includes the QuickBooks and Payroll products. He was also a part of the team that managed TurboTax products.
2. Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs
Approval rating: 94.8%
CEO since: 2005 (until 2014)
Market cap: $129.6 billion
Revenue (2013): $24.9 billion
About: Jacobs stepped down as CEO in March 2014, but he’s been a big part of Qualcomm for the nearly 10 years he served as CEO. Since joining the company in 1990 as an engineer, Jacobs became VP and general manager within five years, and was named CEO in 2005. He was also appointed chairman in 2009.
1. LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner
Approval rating: 99.5%
CEO since: 2008
Market cap: $24.9 billion
Revenue (2013): $1.53 billion
About: With over 19 years of experience, Weiner is one of the most powerful leaders in tech. Under his leadership, LinkedIn has grown in to a truly global platform, spanning 23 languages and 30 worldwide offices. It also has over 330 million users and nearly 6,000 employees.
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