[ad_1]
It’s been a reasonably good few a long time for America’s prime tech CEOs, as their supposed brilliance turned them into billionaire oligarchs with cultlike followings. However in 2022, issues all of the sudden regarded a bit bleaker.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Jeff Bezos’s Amazon reportedly reduce hundreds of staff. Elon Musk, as soon as hailed as a genius, has revealed a very spectacular stage of incompetence at Twitter. Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to greater than a decade in jail. After which there’s Sam Bankman-Fried, who not too long ago turned a family title for disastrous causes.
In a yr of nightmarish tech trade headlines, an vital query stays: which delusional egomaniac had it worst? Listed here are the outcomes of our investigation.
Mark Zuckerberg
12 months in overview: The one-time boy genius isn’t wanting like such a wunderkind lately. In late 2021, Mark Zuckerberg introduced Fb wasn’t dystopian sufficient for him: the corporate was altering its title to Meta and working full-speed into the metaverse, an imaginary, goggle-dependent world the place until recently folks had no legs. A yr later, whereas Zuck has saved screaming about digital actuality, Meta’s fortunes have plummeted.
In February, Zuck’s firm made historical past for the incorrect causes: its inventory worth dropped by $230bn (£190bn) in a day, a nationwide file. 9 brief months later, Zuckerberg instructed workers he’d misjudged the fickle winds of enterprise: “I obtained this incorrect and I take accountability for that.” In an admirable demonstration of such private accountability, he fired 11,000 other people.
February additionally noticed Meta’s first drop in users, and certainly, opening Fb lately has felt like visiting the ruins of Pompeii. Components of a as soon as thriving society stay completely preserved, all however forgotten as time marches relentlessly on: TikTok, TikTok.
The underside line: Sure, Zuck misplaced $30bn (£25bn) on that fateful February day, however he may simply be capable to squeak by on the $44.5bn (£36bn) he’s still got.
Horrible yr rating: 6/10.
Jeff Bezos
12 months in overview: Zuck was removed from the one tech boss to see his workforce shrink this yr. Amazon additionally announced layoffs, with the New York Times reporting 10,000 jobs could possibly be reduce. In the meantime, maybe sad that his ex-wife was making headlines for large charitable donations whereas he maintains a status as Dr Evil’s closest real-life analogue, Bezos confirmed up on CNN to inform everybody that he would give away the vast majority of his then $124bn (£103bn) internet price throughout his lifetime. Think about dwelling on lower than $62bn (£51bn)! It’s a win-win for Bezos: an apparently selfless gesture that may presumably haven’t any discernible influence on his life.
A type of beneficiant donations: $100m (£83m) – .08% of his wealth – to Dolly Parton, to donate as she pleases. Giving your cash to the world’s most beloved nation star is the sort of under-the-radar transfer that claims: I’m doing this to heal the world, to not heal my picture.
It’s not the one time Bezos threw himself at a universally adored movie star this yr: when he flew into house in a rocket shaped like a penis, he introduced alongside Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner. Sadly for Bez, relatively than singing the praises of house, Shatner later stated the journey “felt like a funeral”, evaluating the “vicious coldness” above with “the nice and cozy nurturing of Earth beneath” – not a great commercial for Bezos’s bid to colonize the galaxy.
The truth is, he’s struggling to colonize your front room. His personal workers not too long ago told Insider that Alexa, the corporate’s voice assistant, was “a colossal failure of creativeness”. Bezos’s “pet project” is being “gutted”.
The underside line: A sequence of embarrassments haven’t knocked Bezos off his perch as one of many richest males on the earth.
Horrible yr rating: 4/10.
Elon Musk
12 months in overview: In April, the world’s then richest man – who has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t perceive the connection between phrases, actions and penalties – made a proposal to purchase Twitter at $54.20 (£44.89) a share. Which, you’ll absolutely agree, is hilarious as a result of it has the number 420 in it and Elon likes weed as a result of he’s a cool man.
When it began to seem like the sale may actually occur, Musk determined that really, possibly he didn’t need the positioning in spite of everything. However the firm wouldn’t let him off the hook, and after a authorized battle, he lastly went via with the acquisition, main to a different of his hilarious jokes: he carried a whole sink into the corporate constructing, apparently risking a hernia so he may tweet: “Let that sink in”.
That critical and considerate angle has outlined his tenure at Twitter to this point. In a bid to create a Twitter 2.0 that nobody requested for, he has erased hundreds of jobs; made up new guidelines after which canceled them; demanded that workers be “extraordinarily hardcore”, which can clarify the beds at the office; reinstated the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Roger Stone; tried to reinstate Donald Trump; reinstated Kanye West, then banned him once more; and banned, then reinstated, journalists. The mayhem has shattered his status on the left, however on the far proper, the cult round him appears solely to be getting stronger: the level-headed of us over at QAnon apparently now see him as certainly one of them.
He topped off the yr by taking a extremely scientific ballot of customers to see if he ought to give up as CEO. They stated sure. Let that sink in.
The underside line: From the surface, it seems like a disaster – however Musk reveals each signal of having fun with himself.
Horrible yr rating: 7/10.
Parag Agrawal
12 months in overview: Firstly of the yr, the longer term regarded brilliant for Parag Agrawal. He’d simply change into Twitter’s new CEO after receiving the board’s “unanimous” support.
Then got here Musk.
Although the 2 had a cordial relationship at first, it quickly deteriorated as they clashed over Musk’s buy of the platform. When Musk wished to analyze the extent of Twitter’s bot drawback, Agrawal defined intimately why the plan wouldn’t work; in one other instance of consummate professionalism, Musk, then age 50, replied with an emoji depicting fecal matter.
Musk lastly adopted via on his Twitter buy in October. He instantly fired Agrawal.
The backside line: Agrawal misplaced his job, however to this point he reveals no clear indication of being evil and his exit might have earned him $50m (£41m).
Horrible yr rating: 7/10.
Elizabeth Holmes
12 months in overview: 2022 was the yr that the lengthy Theranos catastrophe lastly got here to a head.
It began in 2003, when Elizabeth Holmes based the corporate; the following yr she dropped out of Stanford. Like so many different younger college students, she was chasing a dream – a dream to fake to invent a very cool know-how and make a billion {dollars} off it. However virtually 20 years after she based the corporate, Holmes started this yr with a conviction for defrauding buyers over her firm’s supposedly revolutionary blood-testing system.
Possibly it actually was in regards to the associates she made alongside the way in which. These embrace Senator Cory Booker, certainly one of greater than 130 folks to ship letters of help for Holmes earlier than her sentencing. She’s additionally developed a diehard fan membership, with supporters showing up at the trial in full Holmes costume.
Nonetheless, she ended the yr with an 11-year sentence. So she’s a shoo-in for worst yr, proper?
Sam Bankman-Fried
12 months in overview: Unsuitable! As a result of there’s Sam Bankman-Fried, who swooped in on the finish of 2022 in a powerful last-ditch effort to say the title. His cryptocurrency trade, FTX, was on prime of the world a number of brief months in the past, working adverts throughout the Tremendous Bowl and proudly displaying its title on the Miami Warmth’s area.
However by November, the corporate had collapsed. A couple of weeks later, Bankman-Fried had been arrested within the Bahamas and charged with what a prosecutor known as “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history”.
It was an unbelievable flip of occasions: what could possibly be a sounder funding than an organization constructed on a factor few perceive, whereas others worship it with weird fanaticism? Not less than Bankman-Fried, like Zuckerberg, is taking full accountability – “I fucked up,” stated the 30-year-old, who had allegedly used an encrypted group chat that was literally called “wirefraud”.
The underside line: It’s laborious to say whether or not Holmes or Bankman-Fried has had a worse yr. However the truth that there’s any competitors tells you a lot about tech and obscene wealth.
Horrible yr rating: 10/10, for each.
[ad_2]
Source link
