Well-liked: Zuckerberg tops employee-driven CEO rankings

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at TechCrunch Disrupt last September.

Lots of CEOs make the news for being gruff, domineering, or brilliant, but oftentimes their employees have different impressions. Every year, careers site Glassdoor surveys hundreds of thousands of employees across all industries and then publishes its rankings of the 50 highest rated CEOs (see list below).

And, for 2013, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg took the top honor.

Despite shareholder lawsuits over its botched IPO and mixed reaction to Timeline and Graph Search, the social network's employees gave Zuckerberg a 99 percent approval rating over the past 12 months, which ended February 24. This is up 14 percentage points from last year.

A Facebook employee told Glassdoor that Facebook has "an open community from Zuck on down" and that there is "mutual trust companywide and sense of community and drive, instilled by our CEO who we all truly respect."

Twenty tech CEOs made the top 50 list this year, starting with SAP's Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe sacking 2nd place. Also on the list were Qualcomm's Paul Jacobs in 8th place, Google's Larry Page in 11th place, Salesforce's Marc Benioff in 13th place, Amazon's Jeff Bezos in 16th place, Oracle's Larry Ellison in 46th place, Dell's Michael Dell in 49th place, and more.

Apple's Tim Cook was voted the top CEO last year with a 97 percent approval rating. Cook still made the list this year, but he dropped to the 18th spot with a 93 percent approval rating.

While women are making more of a splash in the tech world as of late, no female tech CEO made the list this year. HP's Meg Whitmanmade the list last year but her approval rating fell by one percentage point this year to 79 percent and she wasn't able to crack the top 50. Yahoo's Marissa Mayer received an 87 percent approval rating, but she didn't make top 50 because too few employees reviewed her to make Glassdoor's list.

While Glassdoor's list is a survey, it's voluntary rather than scientific. The figures come from employees who actively go to Glassdoor's site to rate their companies and bosses. Glassdoor says that this top 50 CEOs report only includes CEOs who received at least 100 employee ratings over the past year. Overall, more than 500,000 employees rated their CEO on Glassdoor over the past 12 months. The average CEO approval rating on Glassdoor for all CEOs is 68 percent.

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Intel outs Android 4.2.2 alpha dev code with Windows 8 dual-boot option

Intel is on a mission to prove that it isn’t too late to catch up to other chipset manufacturers yet in the ever-growing world of Android. And its latest move involves releasing Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean developer code that has been optimized for Intel hardware.

Although Intel has been a bit slow with the updates, at least they have been coming out more consistently over the past year. The developers at its own Open Source Technology Center have no doubt been hard at work over the last six months, which is why the world can now enjoy access to Intel-optimized Android 4.2.2 alpha dev code.

So what exactly does this new release code bring to the table, anyway? For starters, it now offers UEFI boot support, as well as support for dual-booting with Microsoft’s Windows 8. It is also powered by the Linux 3.8 kernel now and includes an interactive installer which should make it easier to work with.

Intel warns all those who intend on downloading and using this new release about bugs and general pre-alpha quality issues. So while this is mostly good news, you should know that if you hit the source code below, you are doing it at your own risk.

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Acer to launch new Intel-powered smartphones first in Philippines

Although it may seem like Acer has not been doing much in the smartphone department lately — its latest smartphone-related activity involved launching a number of new devices at last month’s Mobile World Congress — the Taiwan-based company is actually quite busy. In fact, it is currently working with Intel to launch new smartphone models powered by the latest batch ofAtom-based Clover Trail+ mobile chips. And it will be releasing the same very soon.
How soon, exactly? Well, according to a press invite that we got this afternoon, Acer is going to hold a launch event for its “new line of smartphones” next week here in the Philippines. Nothing specific has been revealed yet so far, but judging from the presence of the Intel logo in the event invite itself, it’s clear that Acer plans on showcasing the only Intel-powered smartphone it revealed last month, the Acer Liquid C1.
The Acer Liquid C1 comes with a 4.3-inch qHD screen, support for HSPA+ data and 3G, an 8-megapixel main camera, and Intel’s new 1.2GHz Atom Z2420 CPU. The Intel Atom Z2420 has been described by Intel as a “power-efficient SoC” that “enables a smooth and responsive user experience, including a responsive hardware-accelerated HTML 5 browser, fast applications, and outstanding multi-tasking performance.”
We’ll be there at Acer’s summer party-themed launch event next week to bring you exclusive hands-on photos and our first impressions of the Liquid C1, as well as coverage on all of the other Android-powered Acer products on display that day. Check back here next week for the update.

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