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No. 1:Steven Jobs, Apple
Age: 52
Education: Attended Reed College
In 2004, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and doctors gave him less than six months to live. A year later, Jobs, who backpacked through India after dropping out of college and often speaks with philosophical overtones, gave the commencement speech at Stanford University. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” he said. “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” Judging by his career, though, it seems Jobs has been living this advice since well before this brush with death (doctors later determined that his was a rare, curable kind of pancreatic cancer, and he made a full recovery after the tumor was removed). His early career — founding Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976; being forced out of his own company in 1985; founding NeXT and, more successfully, Pixar before returning triumphantly to a struggling Apple — is the stuff of entrepreneurial lore. The last decade, however, has seen Jobs emerge as an iconic CEO at one of the world’s iconic firms. The cultural impact of the company he resurrected and has since led is impossible to overestimate. The revolutionary iPod has maintained its ubiquitous dominance — as both digital music player and fashion statement — since it was introduced in 2001. And the company’s Macs and laptops are gradually eroding the PC’s longstanding control on the consumer market. Thus his victory among hedge-fund and private-equity fund managers, professional traders and investment bankers in our inaugural best-CEO survey is not a complete surprise. But the size of his win was: Jobs outpaced the second-ranked CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, by a margin larger than the difference between Blankfein and the fourteenth-ranked CEO overall, Procter & Gamble’s A.G. Lafley. This year has been particularly noteworthy for Jobs and Apple. The much-hyped iPhone moved a million units in just 74 days after its release, according to the company. Apple’s stock, meanwhile, has more than doubled in price since the end of last year. Our survey respondents’ comments suggest that their quantifiable admiration for Jobs transcends his financial performance. “Jobs is a true visionary,” says Robert Esecson, a senior managing director at Strategic Financial Group, an investment-banking firm. “He consistently thinks outside the box and fosters creativity within the entire company.”
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