Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (Click Image To Enlarge)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg won the top spot in the list of 50 highest rated CEOs while Apple's Tim Cook, last year's winner dropped 18 places.
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg has been named as the highest rated CEO by a careers site Glassdoor. The site surveys hundreds of thousands of employees across all industries and come out with a list of 50 highest rated CEOs.
The honor for Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) becomes all more important considering a host of problems including botched IPO, several lawsuits and mixed reaction to Timeline and Graph Search. The Facebook employees gave their CEO a 99 percent approval rating for a 12 months period that ended February 24, which by the way, is 14 percent more from last year.
Top 50 Highest Rated CEO's for 2013 - Glassdoor - March 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)
One of the employee of the social networker told Glassdoor that there is “mutual trust companywide and sense of community and drive, instilled by our CEO who we all truly respect.”
The list includes twenty tech CEO’s including SAP’s Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe at 2nd place. Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs took the 8th place with Google’s Larry Page at 11th. The 13th and 16th spot is bagged by Salesforce’s Marc Benioff and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Oracle’s Larry Ellison is in 46th place while Dell’s Michael Dell is at 49th place.
Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook’s drop from No. 1 to No. 18 is in line with Apple Inc. stock decline that took place since the 2012 rankings. At that time, the company’s share touched $700 and now they closed at $432.50 on Thursday.
Apple CEO Tim Cook (Click Image To Enlarge)
Out of 50 only 17 CEO this year were on the Glassdoor’s report last year. Another important fact is Victoria’s Secret’s Sharen Turney is the only female CEO to make it to the list at number 42 with 82 percent approval rating. Last year, HP’s Meg Whitman, was the only female CEO on the list. As per Robert Hohman, Glassdoor CEO and co-founder, the CEO’s who are clear on vision and plans to attain that vision are ones who are favored by employees.
Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe points that surveys like this always have a touch of doubt and may be biased as it represent the persons who visit the Glassdoor site.
No matter what, it’s really a big deal with Facebook’s Zuckerberg, just 28, to be at the top of the list while other veterans in the tech and other industries following him.
COMMENTARY: It's really arguable whether Mark Zuckerberg should be rated higher than Apple's Tim Cook. Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook in March 1998. Tim has served as Senior Vice-President of Worldwide Operations, Executive Vice-President of Worldwide Sales and Chief Operating Officer until he was hand-picked by Steve Jobs to become Apple's CEO on August 24 2011, who died on October 5, 2011.
Prior to Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg never held a full-time job with any company, and he never had the opportunity to be mentored or progress through a series of jobs with higher responsibilities like Apple's Tim Cook. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg, by virtue of his founding and controlling interest in Facebook, became the de-facto CEO. Clearly, Tim Cook is a much more experienced CEO of a much larger company when measured by different metrics:
- Stock Price: Apple - $443.66 vs Facebook - $26.65 as of March 15, 2013.
- Market Cap: Apple - $416.62 billion vs Facebook - $63.47 billion as of March 15, 2013.
- Revenues: Apple - $156.5 billion (9-30-2012) versus Facebook - $5.1 billion (12-31-2012).
- Net Income: Apple - $41.73 billion (9-30-2012) versus Facebook - $53 million (12-31-2012)
- No of Employes: Apple - 33,000 versus Facebook - 3,500
When Tim Cook joined Apple, revenues were only $5.9 billion. For the year ending September 30, 2012, Apple's revenues were $156.5 billion -- an increase of 2,552% or a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.38% per year.
Facebook made $382,000 in revenue 2004, $9 million in revenue in 2005, $48 million in revenue in 2006 $153 million in revenue in 2007, $272 million in 2008, $777 million in revenue in 2009, $1.974 billion in 2010, $3.7 billion in 2011 and $5.1 billion in 2012 -- an increase of 13,321% since 2004 or a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 227.77% per year.
Keep in mind that Apple and Facebook business model's are as different as night and day, so the above figures are superfulous and almostly meaningless when compared side-by-side. Facebook's revenues are predominantly (83%) from advertising. Apple's revenues are predominantly (95%) from consumer electronics products. Apple makes real products. At Facebook YOU are the product.
Having said this, comparing the CEO abilities of Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook is like comparing the speed and power of the SR-71 Blackbird vs a Boeing 777. You simply cannot compare the two. The Glassdoor poll is mostly based on personalities and the personal preferences of day-to-day people. There is no attempt to break the veneer underneath the companies that these two CEO's manage and lead.
Having said here's TechCrunch's Executive of the Year for 2012:
Courtesy of an article dated March 15, 2013 appearing in ValueWalk and an article dated February 1, 2012 appearing in TechCrunch
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