Thursday, September 9,2004 @ 4:05pm
Apple, Pixar among most innovative companies
Apple was chosen as the most innovative company in the past 75 years, according to a BusinessWeek survey of 500 senior-level business executives. More than 35 percent of executives picked Apple, while Microsoft was second with 32 percent and Pixar was third with 31 percent identifying the company as most innovative; however, Microsoft's Bill Gates (50%) topped Steve Jobs (47%) as respondents were asked to identify the most innovative CEOs (others included Michael Dell, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and eBay's Meg Whitman). More than half of those surveyed named the personal computer (56%) and the Internet (51%) as the greatest innovations of the past 75 years, followed by DNA (49%) and television (34%).
More than half (52%) of business executives consider Henry Ford to be the most innovative entrepreneur, followed by Sam Walton (48%) and Walt Disney (41%). Donald Trump was the least popular among survey respondents, only favored by five percent.
Executives named Mahatma Gandhi (56%), Martin Luther King, Jr. (45%) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (42%) as the most innovative political/government leaders. Nearly 60 percent named Warren Buffet, followed by Jack Welch (42%), Lou Gerstner (32%) and Bill Gates (29%), as the business leader for whom they would vote for president. More than 60 percent of respondents named former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, followed by Alan Greenspan (53%) and Bill Clinton (34%), as a political leader who would make the most effective business executive.