Top 10 greatest IT chief executives

Honourable Mention: Mark Hurd, HP
Shaun Nichols: Hurd cut his teeth in the midst of a nightmare at HP. Not only was the company's business operation sputtering, but the corporate culture was in crisis. The reigns of Patricia Dunn and Carly Fiorina had created an air of mistrust in the board room that would later manifest itself in the infamous pretexting scandal.

With his company needing a remake, and several executives facing the very real possibility of prison time, Hurd oversaw a resurgence at HP and helped the company emerge from the scandal.

Iain Thomson: I had serious doubts about Hurd's inclusion in the list at all. He didn’t exactly acquit himself well at HP during the Patricia Dunn years, although the fact that he came through it smelling of roses and now runs the show demonstrates a certain talent.

We shall be watching Hurd very closely in the years to come. True, under his stewardship HP is now the number one manufacturer in the PC industry, the balance sheet is very healthy and his career at NCR is creditable, but I have my doubts about his long-term staying power.

Ho nourable Mention: Jeff Bezos, Amazon
Iain Thomson: Jeff Bezos, founder and head of Amazon, was a personal choice for the list. While he was one of the most high-profile heads of the dotcom era, Amazon was famous for not making money. Indeed, it only turned a profit in 2001, seven years after its inception.

This is quite unusual in a world where venture capitalists generally demand their money back with interest in a few short years, but it is a strategy that served Amazon well, letting it ride out the dotcom bubble's burst with relative ease.

Legend has it that Bezos scribbled the Amazon business plan down during a drive from New York to Seattle with his wife. Quite why it took him that long to write 'sell stuff cheap online' gives a lie to the legend, but nevertheless Amazon is quite a success story, although it has yet to recoup its early losses.

But the second reason I wanted Bezos on the list is that he is that rare commodity, an honest man. At the height of the dotcom bubble he was asked about the market valuation of his company. He said, on the record, that the stock was overvalued and he wouldn't advise investors to buy. That was a gutsy move at the time and I respect it still.

Shaun Nichols: When countless other good ideas bombed in the early days of the decade, Amazon managed to come out of the dotcom crash as a market force. The idea was simple in hindsight, but Bezos was one of the few who managed to run the company well enough to emerge from a highly competitive and volatile market and become an icon.