13 most popular tech CEOs in US

It's tough being a CEO. You have to constantly meet your sales goals, introduce new ideas, motivate your employees and keep expanding the business — too. Things only get harder if you're in tech, where everything changes so quickly. 

That's why, for many CEOs, staying popular among employees is often pushed to the back burner. Yet, some manage to keep both their employees and shareholders happy.

Bloomberg has put together a list of the most popular CEOs heading public companies in the US, based on a survey done by Glassdoor. We have narrowed it down to the 13 tech CEOs who received the highest approval rating.

1. LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner

Approval rating: 99.5%

CEO since: 2008

Market cap: $24.9 billion

Revenue (2013): $1.53 billion

About Jeff Weiner: With over 19 years of experience, Weiner is one of the most powerful leaders in tech. Under his leadership, LinkedIn has grown into a truly global platform, spanning 23 languages and 30 worldwide offices. It also has over 330 million users and nearly 6,000 employees.

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 Paul Jacobs: Jacobs stepped down as CEO in March 2014, but he’s been a big part of Qualcomm for the nearly 10 years he has 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.

3. Intuit’s Brad Smith

Approval rating: 94.4%

CEO since: 2008

Market cap: $24.79 billion

Revenue (2013): $4.5 billion

About Brad Smith: 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.

4. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg

Approval rating: 93.3%

CEO since: 2004

Market cap: $191.7 billion

Revenue (2013): $7.8 billion

About Mark Zuckerberg: 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.

5. Google’s Larry Page

Approval rating: 93.2%

CEO since: 2001

Market cap: $373.3 billion

Revenue (2013): $57.86 billion

About Larry Page: Page co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in 1999. He was the company’s first CEO until 2001. From 2001 to 2011, Larry was president of products. Recently, Google announced that Page would be taking a step back to focus on the “bigger picture,” while Sundar Pichai takes on a more powerful role.

6. Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff

Approval rating: 93.0%

CEO since: 1999

Market cap: $38.2 billion

Revenue (2013): $4.1 billion

About Marc Benioff: 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 computing companies in tech. Benioff has more than 35 years of experience in tech, including positions at Oracle and Apple.

7. Riverbed’s Jerry Kennelly

Approval rating: 92.8%

CEO since: 2002

Market cap: $3.01 billion

Revenue (2013): $1.04 billion

About Jerry Kennelly: Kennelly is one of the co-founders 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 has also worked with Sybase, Oracle and HP.

8. Apple’s Tim Cook

Approval rating: 92%

CEO since: 2011

Market cap: $627.4 billion

Revenue (2013): $170.9 billion

About Tim Cook: 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 has worked with Compaq, Intelligent Electronics and IBM.

9. eBay’s John Donahoe

Approval rating: 91.2%

CEO since: 2008

Market cap: $64.04 billion

Revenue (2013): $16.05 billion

About John Donahoe: 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.

10. ADP’s Carlos Rodriguez

Approval rating: 90.6%

CEO since: 2011

Market cap: $37.9 billion

Revenue (2013): $12.2 billion

About Carlos Rodriguez: 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.

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 Frank D’Souza: D’Souza is one of the co-founders of Cognizant, an IT consulting service company. Under D’Souza’s leadership, Cognizant has become an S&P 500 and Fortune 500 company, with more than 180,000 employees globally. He’s also on the board of General Electric Co.

12. EMC’s Joe Tucci

Approval rating: 89%

CEO since: 2001

Market cap: $57.92 billion

Revenue (2013): $23.2 billion

About Joe Tucci: 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 solutions company Wang Global and RCA Corp.

13. NetApp’s Tom Georgens

Approval rating: 85.5%

CEO since: 2009

Market cap: $13.4 billion

Revenue (2014): $6.3 billion

About Tom Georgens: Georgens has more than 20 years of experience in the storage area. He has spent 11 years at EMC, before working at Engenio and LSI Logic Storage Systems for nine years. Georgens is also the chairman of NetApp’s board.

With big investments, tech giants battle to stay ahead

NEW YORK: America's technology giants are drawing on their huge cash stockpiles to make big bets on investments and acquisitions that could prove to be visionary — or end up as boondoggles.

Companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google have been on a spending tear in the past year, pouring money into an array of companies, programmes and technologies amid concerns that if they do not keep innovating they will be left in the dust.

"It's the only way these technology companies can maintain their leadership position," said Trip Chowdhry, analyst at Global Equities Research.

"The future doesn't belong to companies who are riding yesterday's technologies and yesterday's investments. They may end up being what has happened to HP (Hewlett-Packard) or IBM," he said, referring to two American tech firms that have failed to reinvent themselves to keep up with competitors.

Some of the investments appear to be outside the companies' normal trajectories.

Facebook, for example, has invested some $20 billion in the messaging platform WhatsApp and $2 billion in the virtual reality maker Oculus.

Google has also invested in virtual reality, pumping cash into a little-known startup called Magic Leap, and has been investing in robotics, self-driving cars and schemes to provide internet access via high-altitude balloons.

Online retail giant Amazon has been pushing its own line of smartphones and tablets, while producing its own online video content in a bid to challenge streaming rival Netflix.

The Seattle-based company bolstered its online gaming presence with a $970-million acquisition of the platform Twitch and expanded its "Amazon Fresh" grocery delivery service. On Thursday, Amazon unveiled its own Siri-like personal assistant in a speaker.

Roger Kay, analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates, said in some cases, the investments appear "far-fetched."

"If I were a shareholder, I'd like to see more governance involved in investment decisions, not (Facebook's) Mark Zuckerberg snapping his fingers and saying: 'I want to pay $19 billion for WhatsApp because I think it's the next big thing.'"

But the huge amount of investment spending has been ill-received by some shareholders.

Amazon's shares took a hit following its most recent earnings, while Facebook also saw a slide in its shares, though analysts welcomed the social network's investments in things like a new online advertising platform to challenge Google.

Zuckerberg was unapologetic about the plan, saying after quarterly results, "We are going to continue preparing for the future by investing aggressively, connecting everyone, understanding the world, and building the next generation in computing platforms."

A report by the research firm Trefis said these investments "could help accelerate revenue growth once the steam from the Facebook's core business begins to blow off and it reaches a more mature phase."

Some firms have been seeing mixed results from investments. Microsoft, for example, had to abandon its Zune music player and has had only a lukewarm response from its Surface tablet computers. It has had some success in gaming with its Xbox console, and is starting to see results from "cloud" computing investments.

Netflix meanwhile has seen stunning growth after transforming itself from a DVD delivery service to the leading video streaming service. But it has had to spend heavily for this growth and has warned that profits could be dented in the current quarter.

As these companies grow, shareholder pressure can increase. This has notably been the case with Apple, which has been pushed to deliver more value to investors by paying dividends and buying back shares.

These firms may face the difficult choice of rewarding shareholders or pumping money into new investments which could pay off in the future.

"Wall Street is too narrowly focused," Chowdhry said. "A dividend is a very short-term gratification, which puts the company in a position of weakness in the long term.

Microsoft to launch first non-Nokia smartphone on Nov 11

NEW DELHI: Microsoft is all set to launch the first Lumia phone under its own branding. On its official blog, Microsoft Mobile teased an upcoming device that will be unveiled on November 11, 2014. 

The short blog post stated that "Microsoft is delivering the power of everyday mobile technology to everyone" with the hashtag #MoreLumia. The company also shared the same picture on its official Facebook page with the slogan 'Big on Experiences'. 

It is likely that the company will announce the successor of Lumia 635 smartphone, going by the curved corners teased in the image by Microsoft Mobile. 
 

An upcoming Microsoft smartphone with curved corners and sans Nokia branding was leaked recently on Chinese social networking site Weibo, which were soon deleted. This smartphone, codenamed RM-1090, sports a front facing camera and a flash on the back and is rumoured to have a 5-inch qHD display and 3G support. There is no word on other details about the upcoming Microsoft Lumia RM-1090, including pricing.