Every bit the heads of some of the largest companies in the world, these chief executive officers make decisions that can affect our daily lives, only but how much practice we actually know well-nigh the filthy rich dudes in positions of power? We examine their careers, personalities, and histories, and make a lot of speculative guesses. From at present bulky Bezos to mad McAfee, here's a await at a few meridian tech CEOs.

Name: Jeff Bezos

Titles: Amazon CEO, Chairman, and President

Come at me, bro

Who'd have thought that selling books over the net would lead to condign the richest human in modern history? Jeff Bezos, that's who. The Amazon founder likes to portray himself equally having a adequately normal lifestyle. Like many average Joes, he has 290,000 acres of land and owns a major national newspaper, a space travel bureau, and a company that's been valued at $1 trillion.

Amazon gets a bad rap for the way it treats its employees, but never forget the firm'south logo: "Work Hard. Take Fun. Brand History." Bezos initially wanted simply "Piece of work hard," only thought information technology might make morale even worse - if such a thing were possible. He's too known for his explosive temper - a quality rarely found in Lex Luther-similar, ruthless billionaires whose workers are commonly striking when not beingness poisoned by comport repellent.

"All bow downwards before Lord Bezos"

Bezos recently revealed that Amazon wouldn't proceed forever, warning that large companies tend to have lifespans of 30-plus years, non one hundred-plus years. Whether humanity lasts that long is debatable - maybe that'due south why he started Blue Origin, so he tin escape to the stars with an regular army of automatons who will work forever as we all drown/fire/starve.

Likes: Impress media, automation, money, "a strong work ethic," shouting, drones, infinite, striking the bench press and pushing out 10 reps@300Ibs - with good form.

Dislikes: Donald Trump, corporate taxes, unions, constant workplace accidents, hair transplants, ungrateful strikers, South Park.

Proper noun: Elon Musk

Titles: CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink; founder of The Boring Visitor

If Bezos is a James Bond villain, and then Musk is 007 himself. Suave and engaging, the Tesla boss is doing everything to save flesh from itself. He'due south likewise a bit of a Twitter troll, which has gotten him into problem on many, many occasions. Just posting the words "Funding Secured" cost him and Tesla $40 million and his position as chairman of the company's board. At to the lowest degree he never tweeted anything too crazy, similar accusing a someone of being a pedophile.

Musk oftentimes talks virtually his 120-hour work weeks and once said that sleep is not an pick, which could explain why he's non groovy at receiving criticism -- just ask the customer who had his Tesla gild canceled by Musk after he was a bit rude about him. He's also reportedly prone to "rage firings," all of which shows how grouchy y'all tin can go when sleeping on a manufacturing plant floor for 5 hours a night.

"Who's crying? I'm not crying"

Tesla certainly isn't a fan of regime agencies, having suffered unlubed probings by the FBI, DOJ, and SEC (who Musk does not respect) – possibly that'south why he'southward swell to move to, and eventually die on, Mars. Let'south encounter anyone attempt to monitor his tweets up at that place.

47-yr-old Musk is currently dating 30-year-old musician Grimes, making him one of the coolest CEOs in the world. He also took a striking from a fat blunt with Joe Rogan. Hard to imagine anyone else on this listing doing the same thing -- well, autonomously from John McAfee, obviously. And despite appearing to not inhale a substance that's legal in the state where the podcast took identify, it led to NASA investigating SpaceX. Musk should have but thrown caution to the wind and snorted a line of environmentally friendly cocaine.

Likes: Electric vehicles, the First Subpoena, working oneself into a state of delirium, Twitter, hair transplants, flamethrowers, tunnels, 4:20, Grimes, space.

Dislikes: The SEC, fossil fuels, bogus intelligence, criticism, sleeping, people checking his tweets.

Peter Thiel

Titles: Chairman of Palantir, President of Clarium Capital

If 'conservative' is a dirty word in the tech world, then Peter Thiel is filthy. While the entire industry gave most $8 meg to Hillary Clinton's campaign, he solitary donated $one.25 million to Trump's. He was vilified for it, but, as is often the case with Thiel, he got the last laugh, which probably sounded like Sideshow Bob's when The Simpsons' character won the ballot.

There accept been several things written almost Thiel that nosotros now know are definitely not truthful. He does not, for example, harvest the blood of the immature to transfuse it into his own veins in order to live forever. Other completely untrue stories about Thiel include: he slithers into our dimension every morning through a haunted mirror; he is the physical embodiment of Mictlāntēcutli, the Aztec god of decease; he puts pocket-sized insects into plastic bottles and throws them into the sea "then they can accept an gamble."

Thiel is also chairman of data-mining company Palantir. His business firm's ofttimes accused of being evil, simply that's never been proved. Notable clients include Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader, and Satan.

Peter sees yous

Say what you lot want about Thiel, but the guy's got it going on upstairs. He co-founded PayPal, which eventually became a rather large company. Thiel as well recognized how much everyone loves seeing photos of other people's children, food, and vacations, so decided to go Facebook's first outside investor. And, every bit Gawker found out, y'all don't want to piss him off.

Likes: Donald Trump, the Usa legal system, living forever, New Zealand, Hulk Hogan, backer Star Wars, Lord of the Rings.

Dislikes: Gawker, Hillary Clinton, Meryl Streep, sugar (apparently), communist Star Trek.

Name: Mark Zuckerberg

Titles: CEO, Chairman of Facebook

During his higher years, Zuckerberg created a program called Facemash that let users pick which person from a selection of photos was hotter. Some complained that this violated their privacy – a concept Zuck still seems unable to comprehend. Or perhaps he just doesn't care.

Almost fifteen years after he launched thefacebook.com, he'due south now one of the five richest people on Earth, all cheers to Zuck's ingenuity and his ability to 'discover inspiration' from the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narenda.

While nigh of united states of america use Facebook to find just how awful people tin can be, Zuckerberg has always said the aim of the platform is to bring anybody together. It's besides helpful for scooping up petabytes of personal data, which the CEO greedily consumes like a pig ramming its snout into an information-rich trough.

2018 has certainly been Zuckerberg's annus horribilis. Cambridge Analytica was a watershed moment when information technology comes to how companies bargain with users' privacy, and as soon equally the grit settled on one information alienation, another popped its head up. The 'Bergmeister,' equally he's known to his friends, likewise appeared earlier Congress this year, where he said he'd either "follow upward" or "become dorsum" to a question 31 times. His unblinking eyes and pallid complexion at the time made him resemble an alien, an android, or both – similar the offspring of Lieutenant Commander Data and the Borg queen.

Zuckerberg also has to deal with ballot interference, extremism, claims of bias, bots, and false news – a term many now use for something they either don't concur with or observe difficult to take. But despite the outcry, the only consequences for Facebook is a slowing user growth rate, and that'southward partly considering well-nigh of the world is already on the platform.

In his spare time, Zuckerberg likes to write downwards as many digits of Pi every bit he can recollect.

Likes: Your personal data, advertisers, AI, people who don't care virtually privacy, China.

Dislikes: Russian bots, Tim Cook, ballot interference, The Social Network film, lawsuits, Donald Trump.

Jack Ma

Titles: Executive Chairman of Alibaba

Being the co-founder and chairman of the Alibaba Group, aka People's republic of china'south Amazon, can put a lot of stress on a person. Thankfully, Jack Ma's love of theatrics helps him deal with the pressure level of running a company with a $xl billion per year revenue.

With an estimated net worth of $37.half dozen billion, Ma is Asia's richest human, merely that doesn't make him a stuffed shirt. At his house'south 18th altogether celebrations last year, he took to the stage on a motorbike before breaking into a Michael Jackson-inspired dance routine. Merely that was nothing compared to his moving rendition of Can You Feel The Love Tonight (skip to the 01:16 marking in the video below) while looking like a character from Cyberpunk 2077. He frequently says that having and then much money isn't a proficient matter – yeah, y'all can't help but feel distressing for him.

Like nigh curt guys, myself included, Ma is ambiguous most his tiptop: it seems to vary betwixt simply under 5 foot to 5 human foot, v inches. But even though he's no imposing giant, you don't want to mess with him. Ma's heavily into martial arts, especially Chen-manner Tai Chi Chuan. He even appeared in a short movie that saw him kick the asses of Donnie Yen, Jet, Li, Tony Jaa, Sammo Hung, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, and many more famous Asian stars.

Ma has been equally cagey nearly revealing his political affiliations. He did once say of the Chinese government: "exist in love with them, but don't marry them," which is probably one of the nicest things e'er said about Xi Jinping and his pals. Simply concluding calendar month, Ma, the face of Chinese capitalism, was outed as a communist party member.

Likes: Showtunes, Tai Chi, Disney, communism, Alibaba, China and its ruling party, Singles 24-hour interval.

Dislikes: Being incredibly rich, stress, the trade war.

Tim Cook

Title: CEO of Apple

Tim Cook ofttimes comes across as a friendly uncle, simply you lot don't go dominate of the world's most valuable visitor by being too nice. For a kickoff, he makes all his Apple Park staff apply continuing desks, which sounds like a pain in the ass, or helps foreclose it. Interestingly, Cook's net worth pales in comparison to some of the other CEOs; his fortune is estimated to be 'just' $625 1000000, which could be why he reportedly buys discounted underwear.

Cook likewise isn't afraid to stand up to law enforcement. He told the FBI where to shove it when the agency wanted Apple tree's help in unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone. The feds got someone else to do information technology the stop. We don't know if it was Cellebrite or some gray hat hackers, just nosotros do know it cost them $900,000, or around i percent of Melt'southward salary.

When y'all go a FaceTime call and realize it's the FBI, again

Cook says Apple values customers' privacy, and he's managed to piss Zuckerberg off so much with his comments about not selling data that the Facebook CEO told all his management to use just Android phones. But while Cook does say some admirable stuff, he likewise said the $999 iPhone X was "value price," and then…

Likes: Privacy, iPhones, China, individual jets, revenue enhancement reforms, deteriorating batteries.

Dislikes: Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Qualcomm, patent trolls, deteriorating batteries.

Jack Dorsey

Titles: CEO of Twitter, CEO of Foursquare

It's easy to forget at present, but when Jack Dorsey finally moved from interim chief executive officer to permanent CEO of Twitter in 2015, the microblogging site he co-founded was struggling. A year later, tech firms from Google to Apple were reportedly interested in ownership the company, but when they confirmed this to be BS, Twitter's stock crashed, layoffs were announced, execs left, and user growth continued to flatline. Imagine dealing with all this while simultaneously being CEO of Square. If that wasn't bad plenty, Dorsey was named the 7th worse CEO in America, though he was probably happy to see Snapchat's Evan Spiegel was i spot ahead of him.

Things are looking a lot better on Twitter these days, with daily boilerplate users and its stock price looking a lot healthier than when Dorsey took over. Though shares recently took a battering when an investor chosen it "the Harvey Weinstein of social media."

A lot of Twitter's reversal of fortunes are downwardly to its near famous user, Donald Trump, who seems to have a honey/hate relationship with the platform. In another turnaround of fortunes, Dorsey was this twelvemonth named one of the best CEOs in the globe. Spiegel, meanwhile, never even made the top 542. #suckitsnapchat

Dorsey comes from the Elon Musk school of working over 18 hours a 24-hour interval, almost of which is probably spent dealing with toxic Twitter users, Russian bots, hacks, accusations of liberal bias, accusations of kowtowing to right-wingers, and trimming his beard into a stylish new shape while listening to Kendrick Lamar.

The Twitter boss is likewise a fan of yoga and recently tweeted about his 10-mean solar day meditation retreat in Myanmar, urging his followers to visit the land. His failure to mention its human rights atrocities didn't go down so well.

Likes: Yoga, beards, Kendrick Lamar, Presidents using Twitter, nose rings, mobile payments, hashtags, memes (but non when they're used for hacks).

Dislikes: Bots, existence compared to Facebook, publicly tweeting virtually his vacations.

Sundar Pichai

Title: CEO of Google

In 2015, Google announced the visitor was reorganizing and would become a subsidiary of umbrella corporation Alphabet, which in no way is like Resident Evil's Umbrella corp. Every bit part of the restructuring, Pichai Sundararajan, or Sundar Pichai, as he's better known, moved from Google's caput of Products and Engineering to the CEO position.

Similar Tim Cook, Pichai's more of a softly spoken leader, rather than a Jeff Bezos-style shouter. When he took over the visitor, 1 Google employee said: "All the assholes accept left." Information technology's worth remembering, though, that what most people consider asshole-similar beliefs is often the norm in Silicon Valley.

Pichai led the team of engineers backside the original Chrome prototype, so mutter to him next time the browser's annihilating your RAM. In 2013, he replaced creator Andy Rubin as head of Android. Rubin left a year later and eventually came upward with Essential Phone — a decision he may be regretting.

Google has a lot in common in Apple tree: they both get in trouble with the Eu for non paying enough taxation. It'southward an issue Pichai has had to deal with, along with antitrust accusations, the Pentagon drone project, a twenty,000-person walkout over sexual harassment allegations, allowing tertiary-party apps to scrape data from Gmail accounts, and the controversial Project Dragonfly search engine — a subject he danced around when appearing before Congress. Not surprising that Google buried its "don't be evil" motto long ago. Now, information technology'southward "Do the right affair," which sounds like it's been lifted from a commercial for trainers.

Likes: Android phones, People's republic of china, the internet, Gmail.

Dislikes: The EU Commission, Congress, antitrust charges, Apple, bugs in Google+.

John McAfee

Titles: CEO at Luxcore, founder of McAfee

It's amazing to think that despite his proper name beingness synonymous with ane of the world'southward leading anti-virus products, that's one of the less interesting aspects of John McAfee's life. This is a man who settled in Belize in a home filled with drugs, weapons, guards, and prostitutes. It was here that he was subject to a raid and establish himself the prime suspect in a murder, escaping authorities by burying himself in sand with a cardboard box over his caput.

McAfee was later arrested for illegally entering Republic of guatemala, where he had to false two heart attacks so his attorney had more than time to prevent his deportation back to Belize. If annihilation, McAfee's living proof that nerds aren't tedious.

"Hello, can I interest you in the latest version of my anti-virus software?"

After an experience like that, most people would probably want to simply have a dainty lie down for the residuum of their lives, but non McAfee - he decided to attempt for a presidential run. Sadly, information technology wasn't to be, which is a shame as his cybersecurity background would take made him a great POTUS, and his beloved of hookers, guns, and blow would have given him plenty of entreatment across many demographics.

Back during the San Bernardino iPhone incident, McAfee said he would put together a team of super hackers who sounded similar they'd just stepped out of the 90s ("24-inch majestic mohawks!" Hack the planet!) to pause the encryption, just he later admitted near of what he said was bullshit to "get a shitload of public attention."

In recent times, McAfee'due south moved into the world of crypto investment, which right now must be similar being a Blockbuster employee in the mid-2000s. In 2017, he publicly tweeted that he would consume his own dick on national tv set if Bitcoin did not reach $500,000 inside the adjacent three years. He's now deciding what side dish will best compliment his Johnson.

Earlier this twelvemonth, he backed an "unhackable" crypto wallet that a teenager managed to run the original Doom on, though he insists this doesn't count every bit a hack.

Whatever you recall of McAfee, he's led a life worthy of the best Hollywood movie. Long may he keep adding color to an industry that isn't known for CEOs with rock and roll lifestyles.

Likes: Crypto, guns/narcotics/booze/ladies of the night (probably non as much these days), offering an opinion on everything.

Dislikes: The law, Belize, vague definitions of the word "hacking," making rash promises.

Satya Nadella

Title: CEO of Microsoft

When Satya Nadella took over every bit Microsoft boss in 2014, he replaced the mighty Steve Ballmer as the head of the company. Ballmer, of course, appears in many of the entries on our 'Most Awkward moments in tech' feature. Information technology seems the Redmond business firm decided to pick a CEO with an opposing personality in Nadella -- picturing him dancing manically across the stage, or repeatedly shouting the give-and-take "DEVELOPERS!" isn't easy. Nadella also tried to dissuade Ballmer from purchasing Nokia, and we all know what a brilliant investment that turned out to be.

Nadella doesn't often go involved in controversy - at least not since saying women should trust the system and non ask for raises -- but there was that whole Windows 10 forced update debacle. Microsoft's ambitious tactics to get users to switch to its new OS included malware-like tricks and ramming popups down users' throats. It also planned to send employees to the homes of Windows seven/eight users and repeatedly dial them in the face until they updated, but it ended up costing too much.

Lets not forget the employee revolt against Microsoft'south involvement with Us Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), though Nadella said it was merely helping agents with their electronic mail -- not sure what that has to do with the previously mentioned facial recognition and deep learning services, though.

There's one expanse where Nadella has everyone else on this list beat: he's been ranked as the best CEO (large companies) in the U.s.a.. He's alee of 6th-place Bezos, who only managed to attain that high by forcing employees to vote for him.

Likes: The cloud, cricket, Bill Gates, Windows x users, forced updates, poetry.

Dislikes: Windows 7/8 users, Steve Ballmer, Nokia.

Further Reading

  • In Hindsight... Infamous Tech Manufacture Predictions and Quotations
  • The Virtually Awkward Moments in Tech
  • Biggest Rivalries in Computing History
  • Xerox PARC: A Nod to the Minds Behind the GUI, Ethernet, Laser Printing, and More