Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Tops Apple's Tim Cook As Best CEO Of 2013

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg   (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

Facebook employees gave Mark Zuckerberg a 99 percent approval rating for his role as CEO of the popular social networking site, displacing 2012 leader  Apple CEO Tim Cook, who fell to 18th place, according to a new survey of employees by career site Glassdoor.Zuckerberg’s ratings rose from 85 percent last year, while Cook’s dropped to 93 percent from 97 percent, Glassdoor said in its report today on the Top 50 CEOs of 2013. “CEO approval ratings are calculated similar to Presidential approval ratings; employees are asked: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way your CEO is leading the company?”Glassdoor said.

At least 100 employees needed to give approval ratings for the CEOs to make the list.A variety of technology leaders earned top honors, including SAP’s co-CEOs, Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann, who came in second with a 99 percent approval rating. EMC’s Joe Tucci ranked seventh, Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs ranked eighth and Google’s Larry Page took 11th place. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Intel’s Paul Otellini and Intuit’s Brad Smith were all in the Top 25.In the bottom half of the list were Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who came in at 46th place, and Michael Dell, who is working on a plan to take the PC maker private after his turnaround efforts stalled. Dell ranked 49th. Still, they fared better than Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard, who were absent from the Top 50 rankings.Current and former employees described Facebook as an “intense and fun,” “awesome,” “amazing,” and “fantastic” place to work. Among the cons: “The free and tasty food, especially deserts, really didn’t help me stay keep very fit.”

“Hard core environment,” wrote one current software engineer. “If you don’t deal well with extra responsibility and require strong leadership instead of autonomy, you probably won’t have the best time.” In his or her advice to senior management, the engineer added, “Keep the hacker culture, beware process and corporate behavior. Always do the right thing for the world.”

As for Apple, many of the reviews seemed to come from retail employees, who praised the training they received but dinged the company for not allowing employees a chance to rise up through the ranks and shift into a job at the corporate offices. Employees also encouraged Cook to promote more from within.

“Listen to your employees,” wrote one current worker. “When they reach out to tell you that they’re getting burned out or need a change, even a temporary one, do something about it before it’s too late. Also, when you tell an employee that you’re going to do something to help, then do it. Focus more on employee development.”

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