Steve Jobs gets top dog Noughties honours

Yet another iDecade accolade

Apple boss Steve Jobs has been crowned the "Person of the Decade" by readers of the Wall Street Journal.

Journal readers voted for the Jobsian one as their favourite person of the Noughties following his triumphant return to the role of CEO at the end of the last decade.

The WSJ pointed out that Jobs had steered the Apple ship around by helping the company's stock rise 700 per cent in value after returning as boss of the Cupertino-based computer maker.

Jobs garnered 30 per cent of the vote to grab the Person of the Decade moniker, for changing "the way people buy and listen to music," with Apple's ubiquitous iPod MP3 player and its online songs and albums store, iTunes.

Holding up the rear in the tech world was Microsoft's Bill Gates, with a total of nine per cent of those polled saying that the software giant's co-founder should take top person of the decade honours.

Of course Gates hung up his Redmond management boots for good in June 2008, since when he has worked full-time with his wife at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - which is a charity that currently boasts a $35bn endowment.

However, Gates's best chum, Warren Buffett, fared better in the poll, pulling in 17 per cent of the vote. The investor was rewarded by WSJ readers for his solid financial prowess when the economy nosedived last year.

Google also jumped ahead of Microsoft's tricky decade with 12 per cent of readers voting for the world's largest ad broker's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, in the poll. While Google's IPO secured the "Smartest Financial Move of the Decade" and the "Smartest Investment of the Decade" accolades.

Over the past few weeks Jobs has been earning "top dog CEO" points all over the shop from the likes of Harvard Business Review and Forbes. Sadly, that other well-known Steve of the Noughties - y'know, the one who has a penchant for chair-throwing and monkey-dancing - remains notably absent from all the back-slapping.



source:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/30/steve_jobs_person_of_decade_wsj/