On October 9, Beijing time, a survey by Blind, a workplace community for American technology companies, showed that Jensen Huang, the Chinese CEO of Nvidia, a popular artificial intelligence chip company, is the most popular CEO in the United States, with an approval rate of 96%. David Goeckeler, CEO of hard drive manufacturer Western Digital, became the most hated CEO, with an approval rating of 0.

In August this year, Blind conducted a national CEO approval survey among Silicon Valley technology employees. A total of 13,171 U.S. employees voted anonymously. The results showed that Western Digital CEO Geckler did not get even a single vote of support, with an approval rate of 0. In June this year, he laid off more than 200 Western Digital employees, which affected his impression score.

The most hated CEO

According to the 2022 annual report released by Western Digital, Geckler's annual salary is approximately US$32 million, which is 3,332 times the median salary of ordinary Western Digital employees of US$9,644. Western Digital has 62,500 employees, many of whom work overseas. In May 2020, Geckler joined Western Digital and became the new CEO, replacing Steve Milligan who retired. Prior to that, he served as executive vice president and general manager at Cisco.

Ironically, in an interview with McKinsey & Company in April 2022, Geckler also claimed to create a work environment where people are willing to join.

“I’ve spent my career moving from job to job, and it’s an old question: How are you going to attract talent and retain all these great employees? The answer is to create an environment where they want to join,” he said at the time. “I’m a firm believer that people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Now, We have the challenges of the pandemic. We have to keep the business running, but the business can't run if we don't take care of our employees. So, how do we create a sense of belonging for our employees if you can do that?"

After Geckler took office, Western Digital's stock price suffered a big plunge, from US$77.17 in June 2022 to US$46.40 at the end of last week. Over the past five years, Western Digital's stock price has fallen by nearly 15%.

Goeckler is not alone, though. Department store Nordstrom CEO Erik Nordstrom also has an approval rating of 0. Elon Musk's newly appointed X CEO Linda Yaccarino has an approval rating of only 4%. Evan Spiegel (Evan Spiegel), CEO of Snap, the developer of the disappearing app Snapchat, has an approval rating of only 3%.

Most popular CEO

Where there is the worst, there is also the best.Nvidia has soared with the artificial intelligence wave, with a market value exceeding US$1 trillion. Its CEO Jensen Huang has also received strong support from employees. Blind's 2023 CEO Approval Rating Index shows that Huang Renxun's approval rate is as high as 96%, making him the only CEO to exceed 90%. For comparison, the average CEO approval rating this year is 32%.

CEOs of other technology companies are also doing well. Apple CEO Tim Cook’s approval rating is as high as 83%, ranking fourth. AMD CEO Lisa Su's approval rating is 79%, ranking eighth.

However, the support rates of CEOs of other traditional technology giants are relatively low.Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, defines 2023 as the "Year of Efficiency" and continues to cut expenses and lay off tens of thousands of people. His approval rate is 45%. After laying off 12,000 people at the beginning of the year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai's approval rating is only 26%.

American media pointed out that CEOs of technology companies with high approval ratings often have one financial commonality: the company's stock price will rise sharply in 2023. (Author/Xiao Yu)

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