Glassdoor.com Lists Naughtiest and Nicest C.E.O.’s of 2008

By Claire Cain Miller

Glassdoor.com, a site that lets employees anonymously review their employers and share salary information, is out with a list of the naughtiest and nicest chief executives of 2008, based on those reviews.

Arthur Levinson, chief of Genentech. (Credit: Kimberly White/Reuters)

The nicest boss of all was Arthur D. Levinson, chief of Genentech, who got a 93 percent approval rating. He leads the Silicon Valley biotech company with a “decision-making structure that intrinsically forces authority downward to the lowest possible level providing many opportunities to exercise and test one’s judgment,” a strategic planner at Genentech wrote.

Overall, 6 of the top 10 bosses on the “nice” list were from Silicon Valley, including Steve Jobs of Apple, with a 90 percent approval rating; Eric E. Schmidt of Google, with 88 percent; Jen-Hsun Huang of Nvidia, with 80 percent; Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, with 79 percent; and Dan Warmenhoven of NetApp, with 78 percent.

Despite a lousy year for financial firms, two Wall Street bosses made the “nice” list, including Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, with an 88 percent approval rating, and Kenneth Chenault of American Express, with 80 percent approval. A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble and Ian Davis of McKinsey rounded out the top 10.

The worst chief executive of the year was Steve Odland of Office Depot, according to Glassdoor.com’s reviewers. He had an 80 percent disapproval rating. “Fire Odland,” wrote a department manager. “The corporate office in Delray Beach, FL is asleep at the wheel and frankly incompetent. Maybe if some of them would listen to or maybe even spend a few hours in a store they would understand their own business a little better.”

Anthony LaFetra, chief of Rain Bird, an irrigation company, was second-worst, with a 75 percent disapproval rating. “Your employees, both short and long term, are voting with their feet and exiting in a steady stream,” wrote one employee in an open memo to management. “In what delusional alternate universe do you exist where this level of turnover and loss of legacy knowledge is good for any company?”

But tech companies dominated the bad-boss list, taking seven of the remaining spots in the top 10 — hardly a badge of honor for an industry that likes to boast about its great workplace culture.

Randy Falco of AOL received a 68 percent disapproval rating, and Greg Brown of Motorola and Ron Rittenmeyer of EDS (now part of Hewlett-Packard) were close behind. Kevin W. Sharer of Amgen, Lynn R. Blodgett of Affiliated Computer Services, Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems and John Donahoe, who replaced Meg Whitman this year as the head of eBay, also made the list.

Rounding out the hall of shame was James R. Pouliot of CSAA Inter-Insurance Bureau.

Glassdoor.com went live in June 2008. It was founded and initially financed by Robert Hohman, Tim Besse and Rich Barton, all of whom came from Expedia, which Mr. Barton started. Since then, Benchmark Capital, where Mr. Barton is a venture partner, led a $3 million round of financing and Sutter Hill Ventures led a $6.5 million round.

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