The Most Admired Tech Leaders: Musk, Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg And Bezos Take The Lead

When thinking about praiseworthy leaders in the tech world, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook Inc FB’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft Corporation MSFT’s Bill Gates and Apple Inc. AAPL’s late Steve Jobs usually come to mind first. However, none of these men is the most admired in the industry, a recent poll from First Round Capital revealed.

As per the survey conducted among 700 tech company founders, the most admired tech leader is the chief executive officer of an automaker; it’s Tesla Motors Inc TSLA’s Elon Musk. In addition to being CEO of Tesla, Musk also runs SpaceX. In fact, Musk’s victory was indisputable, with 23 percent of these entrepreneurs having voted for him versus 10 percent for Bezos, 6 percent for Zuckerberg and 5 percent for the late Steve Jobs.

Women Made The List, Too

Among female tech leaders, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg received the most votes, amassing 1 percent of overall votes and 5 percent of female votes.

More About Musk

While respondents were not asked to justify their choice for the tech leader they most admire, Musk’s election does not come as a big surprise. People from all around the globe follow his great feats with awe.

Quite recently, Tesla completed the acquisition of SolarCity Corp SCTY and quickly announced it was up to great things, featuring a 100 percent solar powered island.

In addition, Musk’s SpaceX is working on some pretty impressive space exploration projects. Actually, the leader has repeatedly stated his intention to colonize Mars by 2024 and aspirations to get an unmanned ship to the neighboring planet by 2018.