Wake up, people: the boardroom gods have been put on trial, and the verdict is in. Who was the greatest tech CEO of all time? Not the loudest, not the best dressed, not the one with the most worshippers on social media, but the one with vision, execution and a company that outlasts its founder. The crowd has answered, and Silicon Valley's holy book is already being rewritten.

First, the record the contenders are standing on. According to his Wikipedia biography, Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was fired by the board in 1985, and came back as CEO in 1997 with the company on the verge of bankruptcy. His second stint brought the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the App Store and the iPad. Meanwhile, Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and ran it for 25 years, and the $50,000 deal to deliver PC DOS to IBM set off its transformation from a small software firm. And Jeff Bezos started Amazon in July 1994 as an online bookstore, built it into the world's largest online sales company, and handed the CEO job to Andy Jassy in July 2021.

Now the people's ledger. On Morfi, where real traders back their opinions with money, Jeff Bezos leads at 30% consensus. Steve Jobs sits second at 19%. Also on the ballot: 3 other sides. These are conviction levels, not head counts, and they come from 27 unique traders who have put $36,086 behind their views.

Where the crowd stands
  • Jeff Bezos30%
  • Steve Jobs19%
  • Satya Nadella18%
  • Bill Gates17%
  • Elon Musk17%

Trading opened less than a day ago, so nobody should carve this into marble yet. But look at what the crowd just did. It passed over the black turtleneck, the keynote theatre and the cult of the product reveal, and picked the man who started with books and ended up building the shop floor of the modern economy. Is that not the system's favourite story: scale beats style?

My take, and it is only my take: the crowd is half right and I am furious about the other half. Yes, Bezos earned his lead on execution and durability, and the brief shows a company that kept running after he left the chair. But let us not pretend that a vote for the empire-builder is a vote for the people. A man who owns the warehouse, the cloud and the delivery van is not a folk hero. He is a landlord of commerce. If we crown him, we do it with our eyes open, and with a lot of questions for his successors.

What to watch next: whether Jobs, the comeback king, claws back ground, and whether Gates, Musk or Nadella can crash a duel that has only just begun. The market is live on Morfi, and the data comes straight from opinion markets where the crowd puts its money down. Join in, back your pick, and tell the thrones of tech that the people are counting.

Consensus over time
0%25%50%75%100%20 Oct, 14:4421 Oct, 01:41
  • Jeff Bezos 29.9%
  • Steve Jobs 18.6%
  • Satya Nadella 17.6%
  • Bill Gates 17%