The Top 10 Tech Company CEOs in America

Published: Jul 5, 2017
Updated: May 12, 2021
2 minute read

The Top 10 Tech Company CEOs in America

The Top 10 Tech Company CEOs in America

The Top 10 Tech Company CEOs in America

Which technology company CEOs are most admired by their employees? The following list contains some familiar names—and some surprises.

Jim Kavanaugh, World Wide Technology

Jim Kavanaugh, World Wide Technology

Employee approval rating: 99%. Before he became a CEO, Kavanaugh achieved success in soccer, playing for the 1984 Olympic team, as well as the Los Angeles Lazers, part of the Major Indoor Soccer League.

Martin Rankin, Fast Enterprises

Martin Rankin, Fast Enterprises

Employee approval rating: 99%. Rankin and his team recently lead Fast Enterprises, a government software provider, to reach the 1,000-employee mark, doubling its workforce in just over two years.

Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA

Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA

Employee approval rating: 99%. Huang founded NVIDIA in 1993, and he is president, CEO and a member of the board. He was named to the U.S. Immigrant Entrepreneur Hall of Fame when it was established in 2012.

Brian Halligan, HubSpot

Brian Halligan, HubSpot

Employee approval rating: 98%. Halligan is also an author, and one of his books is Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. A longtime “Deadhead,” he once donated $1.6 million to charity to acquire a guitar owned by Jerry Garcia.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

Employee approval rating: 98%. In addition to putting in as much as 60 hours a week at Facebook, Zuckerberg is learning Mandarin Chinese, and he tries to read a new book every two weeks.

Steve Beauchamp, Paylocity

Steve Beauchamp, Paylocity

Employee approval rating: 98%. This CEO honor is just one of a number of accolades: Beauchamp’s Paylocity has been named a top 15 “Best Place to Work” by Glassdoor and a “Fast 500” company by Deloitte.

Brad Smith, Intuit

Brad Smith, Intuit

Employee approval rating: 97%. A martial arts enthusiast, Smith earned his black belt at age 18. “Soon after, I was teaching an entire school,” he told a reporter. “It was unbelievably intense because of the self-awareness part of becoming a black belt.”

Marc Benioff, Salesforce
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Marc Benioff, Salesforce

Employee approval rating: 97%. A noted philanthropist, Benioff established the “1-1-1 model” at Salesforce shortly after launching it in 1999: The company contributes 1% of its product sales, 1% of its equity and 1% of its employee hours back to the global communities it serves.

Sundar Pichai, Google

Sundar Pichai, Google

Employee approval rating: 96%. While in college, Pichai lived in a small apartment without a TV or car. Last year, he nearly doubled his 2015 compensation, earning $199.7 million.

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe

Employee approval rating: 96%. Before Adobe, Narayen co-founded Pictra, a company that pioneered the idea of digital photo sharing on the internet.

Dennis McCafferty

Dennis McCafferty

Content Writer

Dennis McCafferty, a writer for eWeek, Baseline and CIO Insight, has more than 20 years of experience as a writer. He has covered a variety of technology and business topics for a number of publications, including those of Ziff Davis. Dennis was also an editorial staffer for USA Weekend, the nation’s second-largest magazine, with more than 22 million readers.

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