The results of Blind’s tech career community’s 2023 CEO approval rating have been released, and it’s not good news for the US’s most hated CEO. According to the survey, David Goeckeler, CEO of Western Digital, received a staggering 0 percent approval rating from his employees. This comes after the CEO laid off 200 workers while simultaneously earning 3000 times the average pay.
The results were based on 13,171 US workers and revealed that employees from Bay Area firms are fed up with their top executives. Goeckeler’s salary of $32 million in 2022, which is 3,332 times more than the average Western Digital employee’s pay, has caused outrage among the company’s workforce. The manufacturing company, known for groundbreaking innovations like creating the first hard drive and working on 3D NAND advancements, has faced criticism for the huge disparity in CEO and median worker pay.
Goeckeler joined Western Digital in 2020 after Steve Milligan’s retirement and has a history of working with top tech companies like Cisco, where he earned a significant salary as well. While talking about creating a work environment that people want to be a part of in an interview with McKinsey & Company, Goeckeler said, “I have a core belief that people want to be part of something bigger than themselves.” However, this statement holds little value as his actions speak louder than words. The survey’s results and the company’s stock taking a significant dive from $77.17 to $46.40 have only added to the CEO’s notoriety.
Among the top-rated CEOs in the survey were Jensen Huang of NVIDIA with a 96 percent approval rating and Tim Cook of Apple with 83 percent. However, companies like Google and its parent company Alphabet saw a significant drop in approval ratings, with CEO Sundar Pichai receiving only 26 percent approval after laying off 12,000 workers in 2022.
Other notable names to receive low approval ratings were Mark Zuckerberg of Meta (formerly Facebook), who received 45 percent approval after firing over 50,000 workers, and Evan Spiegel of Snap, who received a disapproval rating of 97 percent. These CEOs, along with others like Linda Yaccarino of X (formerly Twitter) and Andy Jassy of Amazon, have faced criticism for their actions and decisions that have led to employee dissatisfaction and a decline in company stock.
The survey also highlighted a correlation between a CEO’s approval rating and the company’s success. CEOs with a higher approval rating were often associated with a company’s stock price that boomed in 2023. However, this cannot be said for Goeckeler, whose actions seem to have damaged the company’s reputation and stock value.
In its inaugural 2023 CEO approval rating index, Blind reported an average approval rating of only 32 percent for CEOs, indicating a significant decline in employee satisfaction with top corporate leaders.
MailOnline.com reached out to Western Digital for a comment on Goeckeler’s ranking, but there has been no response from the company yet. With the survey exposing the growing dissatisfaction among workers towards their CEOs, it’s a wake-up call for companies to prioritize their employees’ well-being and address issues of huge pay disparities between executives and workers.
