Tech Titans We Will Miss and Ones Better Off Dismissed

When Jobs retired as CEO last month and the media spun story after story, you’d have thought the iPocalypse was upon us. Jobs has been billed as the greatest visionary CEO on the planet, but we contend it’ll be his control-freak nature that will be most missed at Apple. Jobs was best when he was saying no to extraneous features, no to products that weren’t ready, no to pesky reporters…

CIO.com Teardown: Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs at Apple: In Pictures

Apple’s Greatest Hits Under Steve Jobs

Nobody misses the hatchet man, especially one as spectacular as Apotheker. In less than a year as Hewlett-Packard CEO, Apotheker has managed to turn the iconic Silicon Valley company into a wreck with a dubious future. HP took a bath with its failed TouchPad, and Apotheker plans to spin off the PC unit. Heads are rolling. Even if HP comes out of this okay, Apotheker has spent his leadership capital.

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Powerful you’ve become, Mark, the dark side we sense in you. Anyone who has seen the movie “The Social Network” knows of Zuckerberg’s genius and cutthroat tactics. He’s a feared leader, a legend in the making. It’s ironic that the social networking king has some of the worst social skills of any CEO. Then again, you don’t have to “like” him. Likeability is an overrated CEO trait.

CIO.com Teardown: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

The famous video of Ballmer hopping around on stage maniacally chanting “Developers!” cemented Microsoft’s image as a company that’s losing it. Who can take this guy seriously? Ballmer comes off as hyperactive and too focused on sales and marketing. And marketers can be the most untrustworthy of the corporate lot. Good leaders come off a little more — heck, a lot more — controlled. Put another way: Would you want to follow this guy?

CIO.com Teardown: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Contrast Steve Ballmer’s outrageous style with Schmidt’s cool demeanor. When Schmidt talks, you get the feeling you’re listening to your wise older brother, intelligent yet approachable. Google replaced its steady hand with founder Larry Page, who, with his wind-blown hair and casual dress, plays the younger brother perfectly.

New Google CEO Sweeps in With Company Reorg

Visiting the Googleplex

When things are going great, people will praise even a committee of so-called leaders. It really doesn’t matter who’s in charge. But when challenges arise, there can be only one who steps up and carries the company on his or her shoulders. This is where RIM’s Co-CEO structure has failed. Risk-taking. Accountability. Consequence. You can’t divvy them up. Otherwise, it’s just a sitcom.

CEO Teardown: BlackBerry-Maker RIM’s Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie

Does anyone know who’s the boss at Oracle? Hint: There’s only one. Ellison’s shadow looms so large that many Oracle executives left to run other companies: Tom Siebel, Craig Conway, Marc Benioff, Zach Nelson. It was Ellison who won the database wars of the 1990s and built an empire. In those days, rumor had it that there was a bat cave under his Japanese-styled samurai home.

CIO.com Teardown: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison in Pictures: It’s Good to Be The King

Earlier this year, someone leaked an internal memo about “The AOL Way” under Armstrong’s watch. The document details the relationship between content and profitability that flies in the face of journalism, sending mixed messages about AOL and its services. Now there’s finger-pointing and yelling coming from TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. Confused? Yeah, so are we.

It’s a pretty good bet Hewlett-Packard misses Hurd these days. Last summer, Hurd resigned as HP CEO following an investigation into a claim of sexual harassment (which found he hadn’t actually violated sexual harassment policy) and falsified expense reports. HP hired Leo Apotheker, and things have gone down hill. Couldn’t Hurd have blamed it all on damn autocorrect?

Mark Hurd: a Look Back At His HP Tenure

The Best of ‘Damn You, Autocorrect’