“It has been a year of tumult—from volatile markets to viral outbreaks to a striking return to Cold War politics,” Fortune writes. “But throughout all this disruption, our top candidates for Fortune’s annual CEO award kept a steady hand on the tiller—and took their companies full speed ahead.”
1. Larry Page: What do you do after you’ve built the Internet’s most profitable franchise? If you’re Larry Page, you aim far higher. Revolutionize transportation? Check. Upend medicine? Check. Nearly four years into his tenure, Page has shown himself to be the world’s most daring CEO. His fabled ‘moonshots’ now launch with regularity. Any one of them could change the lives of billions and help Google to remain at the top of the technology heap for generations. Improbably, Page has built his factory of the future while keeping Google’s multi-billion dollar business humming and positioning the company for a dominant role in the era of wearables and Internet-connected cars and homes. In a world where only the paranoid survive, Page has redefined paranoia into unbounded ambition. — Miguel Helft
MacDailyNews Take: Before being credited with “revolutionizing transportation” and “upending medicine,” don’t you, you know, have to actually do them? What kind of alternate reality is this? You sucking down ‘shrooms again, Fortune?
Fortune mistakes fanciful promises for actual accomplishments.
Congrats for taking “moonshots,” Larry, even if you’ve never come close to hitting and likely will never hit the moon. You’re #1 in our book of delusion!
What a fscking joke.
#2. Tim Cook: Replacing a legend is an exercise filled with peril. Yet three years into his stewardship of Steve Jobs’ company, it is becoming increasingly clear that Tim Cook knows what he’s doing as CEO of Apple. The company’s stock is at an all-time high. Booming sales of larger iPhones and renewed enthusiasm for Mac computers are making up for slowing growth in iPads. The coming Apple Watch and the already released Apple Pay service show that Apple remains an innovator—even under a CEO known more for operational prowess than product savvy. Cook has replenished the management ranks at the top of Apple with relatively little rancor. The company remains secretive but has a whiff of openness. And with the purchase of the Beats headphone and streaming-music offering, Apple is reversing Jobs’ abhorrence for high-priced M&A deals. The low-profile Cook even stole the spotlight by matter-of-factly becoming the first openly gay CEO in the Fortune 500. The light still shines brightly in Apple’s executive suite, even without the legendary impresario who switched it on in the first place. — Adam Lashinsky
Full list, for what’s it’s worth, here.
MacDailyNews Take: This list goes into the Fuckwits Hall of Fame.
Apple in fiscal 2014 generated $39.5 billion in profit. Google’s last four quarters (Q413-Q314) totaled $13.06 in profit. If 1/3rd of Apple’s profits came from Apple Online Store, iTunes Store (Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books, AudioBooks), App Store, Mac App Store, iTunes Match, iCloud storage, etc. — not a far-fethced possibility — then Google is not “the Internet’s most profitable franchise, ” as Fortune claims. Tim Cook’s Apple is.
Regardless, Fortune needs to revise their “methodology” unless they like producing lists that make them look batshit insane.
