Do you know who these people are?  I consider myself fairly well-read about business, but (without getting help) I could only identify the blue ones.

1. Michael T. Duke
2. Rex W. Tillerson
3. John S. Watson
4. James J. Mulva
5. Michael J. Williams
6. Jeffrey R. Immelt
7. Warren E. Buffett
8. Daniel F. Akerson
9. Brian T. Moynihan
10. Alan R. Mulally
11. Meg Whitman
12. Randall L. Stephenson
13. James Dimon
14. Vikram S. Pandit
15. John H. Hammergren
16. Ivan G. Seidenberg
17. Robert H. Benmosche
18. Samuel J. Palmisano
19. George S. Barrett
20. Charles E. Haldeman Jr.

How about this list?  Again, the ones I knew are highlighted in blue:

1. Meg Whitman
2. Sam Palmisano
3. Michael Dell
4. Steve Ballmer
5. Tim Cook
6. John Chambers
7. Paul Otellini
8. Greg Brown / Sanjay Jha
9. Larry Ellison
10. Larry Page

The first list shows the CEOs of the top 20 Fortune 500 companies.

The second list shows the CEOs of the ten largest U.S.-based technology companies (ranked by 2009 revenue).

I recognized 80% of the second list, but only 25% of the first list.  Why is that?  Are Celebrity CEOs more prevalent in the technology industry?  Are there other factors involved?

I’ll explore possible explanations in my next post.

For now… I’ll leave you with this thought:

Celebrity CEOs seem to be more common for technology companies.

Here are the complete lists, with company names.

1. Michael T. Duke – WalMart
2. Rex W. Tillerson – Exxon Mobil
3. John S. Watson – Chevron
4. James J. Mulva – Conoco Philips
5. Michael J. Williams – Fannie Mae
6. Jeffrey R. Immelt – GE
7. Warren E. Buffett – Berkshire Hathaway
8. Daniel F. Akerson – General Motors
9. Brian T. Moynihan – Bank of America
10. Alan R. Mulally – Ford
11. Meg Whitman – Hewlett Packard
12. Randall L. Stephenson – AT&T
13. James Dimon – J.P. Morgan Chase
14. Vikram S. Pandit – Citibank
15. John H. Hammergren – McKesson
16. Ivan G. Seidenberg – Verizon
17. Robert H. Benmosche – AIG
18. Samuel J. Palmisano – IBM
19. George S. Barrett – Cardinal Health
20. Charles E. Haldeman Jr. – Freddie Mac

1. Meg Whitman – Hewlett Packard
2. Sam Palmisano – IBM
3. Michael Dell – Dell
4. Steve Ballmer – Microsoft
5. Tim Cook  – Apple
6. John Chambers – Cisco
7. Paul Otellini – Intel
8. Greg Brown / Sanjay Jha – Motorola
9. Larry Ellison – Oracle
10. Larry Page – Google