Guess Who Are the Most Loved/Hated Tech CEOs

By Marcus Yam
published

Two thirds of HP must be a little happier now.

Mark Hurd was last month shown the door out as he resigned as CEO of HP amidst a sexual harassment investigation.

If the ratings from Glassdoor.com – a site where a company's employees may rate their employer – are to be believed, the vast majority of HP workers disapproved of Hurd. In fact, Hurd had the lowest approval rating of any major tech CEO at just 34 percent.

Not surprisingly, the leader by considerable margin in terms of employee approval was Steve Jobs, who had the 98 percent of Apple's respondent workforce behind him.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini was also much approved, at 82 percent. Right behind him was Cisco CEO John Chambers at 81 percent and then Oracle's Larry Ellison at 78 percent.

Near the split was Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer with 52 percent approval, as well as Michael Dell at 51 percent. Yahoo's CEO Carol Bartz also held the small majority at 56 percent.

(Source: TechCrunch.)

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
88 Comments Comment from the forums
  • schwiing
    "Don't worry about the CEO rating event coming up...just be honest. Oh, here's a free Ipad for you."
    Reply
  • El_Capitan
    I never Hurd of him.
    Reply
  • COLGeek
    So it isn't so!!!!!!! Jobs is best and Hurd is worst. Regardless, nothing here. Just move along.
    Reply
  • thesupermedium
    Should have AMD up there, I'm sure that would mix things up a bit.
    Reply
  • jsc
    Only if you are talking about former AMD CEO.
    Reply
  • zak_mckraken
    B-a-a-a-h...
    Reply
  • In other news Apple fires 2% of their employees.
    Reply
  • hellwig
    I can't say Steve Jobs' masive approval rating surprises me. If you don't believe Steve Jobs is the second coming of Christ, you won't last very long at Apple.

    As for Intel, I've heard Paul Otellini has a cubicle on the floor with all the other common employees at Intel, and that no VP or Cxx gets a fancy corner office or special parking space. That's really got to help his ranking.

    I'm honestly surprised that Steve Ballmer ranks so low. I guess not as many people at Microsoft drink the cool-aid as I thought. The guy is rather abrasive, so its easy to understand how he could rub employees the wrong way.

    This makes what, 3 CEOs gone from HP in the last 5 years or something? The last one quit after that scandal about snooping on board members to see who released super-secret HP documents. HP really needs to find a good CEO to save face. Someone that can win over investors (and apparently employee) trust once more.

    Michael Dell? I didn't realize he was still in charge there. I wonder where is dissaproval comes from, continuously getting slapped on the wrist for anti-competitive practices or lying to customers and selling them faulty equipment? Maybe its the fact that they ship all their tech support to India? Oh wait, that's why consumers don't like Dell, I don't know what employees have against him.
    Reply
  • smeker
    Way to go Steve-o!
    Reply
  • phoenix777
    why is the Activision CEO not up there... he's the worst
    Reply