The 'lousiest' tech bosses of 2022, rated by The Guardian

The Guardian rated Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sam Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes and Parag Agrawal.

Many tech bosses of the world, often admired and followed by millions, didn’t maintain their meteoric rise this year, falling prey to harsh critics and even harsher situations – most of them their own doing. For many, 2022 was not their year. The Guardian has rated how some of the most famous tech bosses fared this year with their downfall and stumbles giving a reality check to many.

From Amazon and Meta firing thousands of employees to Elon Musk acquiring Twitter and firing CEO Parag Agrawal, the tech world saw quite a few shockers.

Elon Musk

Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company and then Twitter. Elon Musk, a prolific user of Twitter, had always said great things about the platform until he wanted to buy it and “improve” it. In his regular push for free speech and the need to have a platform to do that, Musk decided to buy Twitter that initially came off as a joke. Then he really opened an offer. And then he backed off citing too many bots. A legal battle followed and the deal was done $44 billion. Since then, he fired thousands of staff at the company, dissolved the board and fired then CEO Parag Agrawal. He became the next CEO and then took a Twitter poll to see if he should step down. The answer was yes.

The Guardian verdict: “From the outside, it looks like a catastrophe – but Musk shows every sign of enjoying himself” giving him a 7/10 rating for the “terrible year” score.

Parag Agrawal

It’s the beginning of 2022. Indian-origin CEOs are on a meteoric rise. Twitter appoints Parag Agrawal as CEO after a unanimous verdict. He became famous overnight, took a fat paycheck home. Enter Elon Musk.

In the beginning it seemed the two shared a cordial relationship. They interacted on the microblogging site and Agrawal welcomed Musk to the Twitter board – which he accepted and then quickly declined. Slowly, things came crashing down. The cordial relationship soured, and Twitter took Musk to court for backing out of the deal. Musk had to buy the company and the first order of business when he acquired Twitter – fire Agrawal.

The Guardian verdict: “Agrawal lost his job, but thus far he shows no clear indication of being evil and his exit may have earned him $50m (£41m)” giving him a 7/10 rating for the “terrible year” score.

Mark Zuckerberg

Elon Musk’s rival and Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg was hailed a genius and the next big thing at a point. Now, not only has his popularity waned, his business too has suffered. Zuckerberg fired 11,000 employees, changed Facebook to Meta, and made a national record by dropping $230 billion in stock prices in one day. He took personal accountability for the crumbling state of his company months later before firing 11,000 employees.

The Guardian verdict: “Yes, Zuck lost $30bn (£25bn) on that fateful February day, but he might just be able to squeak by on the $44.5bn (£36bn) he’s still got” giving him a 6/10 rating for the “terrible year” score.

Jeff Bezos

He flew off to space as Amazon workers protested against low pay and work conditions and then he fired thousands of employees. His ex-wife made headlines for her massive charity work prompting him to say that he too, would in fact, donate most of his earnings to charity in his lifetime. That would still make Bezos a billionaire. While he hasn’t faced too much of a catastrophe, the once world’s richest man, is still in the race barring some embarrassments.

The Guardian verdict: “A series of embarrassments haven’t knocked Bezos off his perch as one of the richest men in the world” giving him a 4/10 rating for the “terrible year” score.

Elizabeth Holmes

In 2003, Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos and was touted as the next big thing as her new medical technology was deemed revolutionary. The next year she dropped out of Stanford University, and started building an empire – the foundation of which was lies and defrauding investors. Almost 20 years after she founded the company, Holmes began 2022 with an 11-year sentence for defrauding investors over her company’s “blood-testing system”.

The Guardian verdict: 10/10 for "terrible year" score but she is not the one who had the worst year despite the conviction.

Sam Bankman-Fried

Hands down, the winner of the worst tech boss award this year went to Sam Bankman-Fried, The Guardian adjudged. At the end of this year SBF – as he is known as - was arrested in the Bahamas and charged with what a prosecutor called “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history”.
His cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, was flourishing and he was touted, like Zuckerberg, to be the next big thing. Then the bubble burst. Investors backed out, investigation began and the 30-year-old had nowhere to go, nothing to do.

The Guardian verdict: “It’s hard to say whether Holmes or Bankman-Fried has had a worse year. But the fact that there’s any competition tells you plenty about tech and obscene wealth” giving him 10/10 on “terrible year” score.