Founders who built empires sit next to hired turnaround artists who saved them. Some led for four decades, others for one decisive stretch that changed the industry.
1Larry EllisonOracle co-founder and CEO for 37 years who made relational databases a corporate standard.1000pts
2Andy GroveIntel CEO from 1987 to 1998 who steered the company into microprocessors and wrote Only the Paranoid Survive.897pts
3Steve JobsApple co-founder who returned as CEO in 1997 and led the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad era.728pts
4Sundar PichaiCEO of Google since 2015 and of Alphabet since 2019, overseeing Search, Android and Gemini.728pts
5Jeff BezosFounder and longtime CEO of Amazon who built it from an online bookstore into a retail and cloud giant.692pts
6John ChambersCisco CEO from 1995 to 2015 who grew it into the backbone supplier of the internet.621pts
7Lisa SuAMD CEO since 2014 who led one of the biggest turnarounds in the chip industry.610pts
8Satya NadellaMicrosoft CEO since 2014 who refocused the company on cloud computing and AI.538pts
9Larry PageGoogle co-founder who served as its CEO twice and created the Alphabet structure.538pts
10Michael DellFounder and CEO of Dell Technologies who pioneered selling PCs directly to customers.455pts
11Lou GerstnerIBM CEO from 1993 to 2002 who rescued the company from near-collapse and pivoted it to services.455pts
12Jensen HuangNvidia co-founder and CEO since 1993 who turned a graphics-chip maker into the engine of the AI boom.455pts
13Tim CookApple CEO since 2011 who made it the first company valued at three trillion dollars.359pts
14Reed HastingsNetflix co-founder and longtime CEO who moved it from mailed DVDs to global streaming.359pts
15Marc BenioffSalesforce co-founder and CEO who popularized software as a service.359pts
16Elon MuskCEO of Tesla and SpaceX who made electric cars mainstream and reusable rockets routine.359pts
17Mark ZuckerbergFacebook founder and Meta CEO who built the world's largest social network.245pts
18Morris ChangFounder and longtime CEO of TSMC who invented the dedicated chip foundry model.245pts
19Bill GatesMicrosoft co-founder and CEO until 2000 who put Windows and Office on most of the world's PCs.0pts
20Thomas J. Watson Jr.IBM CEO from 1956 to 1971 who bet the company on computers and the System/360.0pts
Photo credits
- Larry Ellison — Oracle PR Hartmann Studios, CC BY 2.0
- Andy Grove — Steve Jurvetson from Los Altos, USA, CC BY 2.0
- Steve Jobs — Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Sundar Pichai — Photographer: Lukasz Kobus (European Commission), CC BY 4.0
- John Chambers — World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Lisa Su — AMD Global, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Satya Nadella — Brian Smale and Microsoft, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Larry Page — Stansfield PL, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Michael Dell — Village Global, CC BY 2.0
- Lou Gerstner — Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Jensen Huang — Anderseidesvik, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Tim Cook — Dati Bendo / European Union, CC BY 4.0
- Reed Hastings — re:publica from Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Marc Benioff — Salesforce., CC BY-SA 2.0
- Elon Musk — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Mark Zuckerberg — Anurag R Dubey, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Morris Chang — 總統府, CC BY 2.0
- Bill Gates — Bogdan Hoyaux / European Union, CC BY 4.0
