Fortune’s survey of the World’s Most Admired Companies, now in its 19th year (and conducted by our partner the Korn Ferry Hay Group), has always measured the reputations of large corporations as seen by fellow big-company executives. This year, we decided to also gauge the reputations of the people who lead those enterprises. Specifically, we asked respondents to volunteer the names of which CEOs aren’t getting enough credit—and which are getting too much. More people identified under-touted chieftains than those they see as having inflated reputations. What can we deduce from the results? Well, two of the CEOs managed the feat of being cited as underrated and overrated. If nothing else, that suggests it just may be better to be loved and hated than not to be noticed at all.
Underrated CEOs
Based on 2,170 responses
Satya Nadella, Microsoft: 123 votes
Jeff Bezos, Amazon: 109 votes
Gary Kelly, Southwest Airlines: 85 votes
Elon Musk, Tesla: 73 votes
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase: 72 votes
Overrated CEOs
Tim Cook, Apple: 229 votes
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook: 205 votes
Jeffrey Immelt, GE: 201 votes
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase: 128 votes
Jeff Bezos, Amazon: 93 votes
A version of this article appears in the March 1, 2017 issue of Fortune as part of “The World’s Most Admired Companies” package.
