Glassdoor on Friday revealed its latest list of the “Top 25 Highest Rated CEOs of 2012.” Apple’s Tim Cook took the top spot with a 97% approval rating, leading Ernst & Young’s Jim Turley, Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs and Google’s Larry Page. “I think leadership is doing an amazing job,” said one Apple employee. “We have the best management team anywhere.â€� When Steve Jobs stepped down in August 2011, the late Apple co-founder garnered a cumulative approval rating of 97%, however Cook leads Jobs’s rating of 95% from March 2010 to March 2011. While it has been a tough year for Hewlett-Packard, the company’s new CEO Meg Whitman also made the list with an 80% approval rating, placing her in the  No. 24 spot. Glassdoor bases the list entirely on feedback from anonymous employees who were asked one question — do they approve of the way their CEO is leading the company?

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During the company’s annual shareholders meeting on Thursday, CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that Apple has more money “than we need to run a company.” Apple’s board is currently engaged in “active discussionsâ€� about what to do with the $100 billion in cash it has on hand, hinting at the possibility of a dividend. “The board and management team are thinking about this very deeply,â€� Cook said. A dividend returns a portion of the company’s profit to shareholders, and the last time Apple paid one was in 1995 prior to the return of Steve Jobs. Investors have pushed the company to again pay a dividend, hoping it will boost Apple’s stock price by bringing in a new breed of investors, reports Bloomberg. “You can be assured we are working as hard as ever this year to deliver an incredible year and some products that will blow your mind,â€� Tim Cook also noted during the meeting. Apple is expected to release a new iPad next month, an HDTV this summer and a redesigned iPhone this fall.

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In the wake of last week's fatal plane crash that took the life of its CEO, Micron Technology has appointed a successor, Mark Durcan. The former CTO has been with the company since 1984, and has -- per company bylaws -- been serving as interim chief since February 3rd. Robert Switz, the company's previous Board Director, will assume the duties of Board Chairman and Mark Adams, formerly the VP of Worldwide Sales, has been named as the company's President. In a press release announcing the appointments, the new CEO wrote that the company was "deeply saddened" to learn of the death of its top executive, and that the management team would work relentlessly to "continue to move the company forward."

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Micron appoints Mark Durcan as new CEO originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A damaged thermal tile on the shuttle Endeavor's heat shield has raised some eyebrows with the mission's management team. The tile will be inspected using the shuttle's robotic arm, outfitted with a high-res camera and a laser, for safety's sake. More »

The MagicJack is a VoIP dongle that hooks ye olde landline telephone up to the world of tomorrow via a humble computer. By all accounts, it seems to work pretty well and does the job it promises. Sadly, it doesn't seem like we can say the same about its management team. A post on Boing Boing in April 2008 addressed some pretty concerning aspects of the MagicJack EULA: it demands that you cede your right to sue the company and give it permission to "analyze" the numbers you call, but even more worrying was the fact that no links to said EULA were provided either on the website or at the point of sale. That is to say, every purchaser of the product was agreeing to something he or she hadn't (and couldn't have, without tracking the URL down via Google) read. Oh, and apparently the software comes without an uninstaller.

The whole thing could've been just a nice warning tale about not getting into contracts without reading the fine print, but MagicJack CEO Dan Borislow, hardly a man who shrinks from controversy, felt so offended by Boing Boing's, erm, statement of factual reality that he took them to court, citing that his company was exposed to "hate, ridicule and obloquy" (we had to look that last one up, it's just another word for ridicule, which makes the whole thing a tautology. Lawyers, eh?). Unsurprisingly, he lost the case, but he did manage to squeeze in one last act of shady behavior prior to his loss by offering to pay for Boing Boing's silence regarding the proceedings and costs. After he was turned down, MagicJack's coffers were still lightened by $54,000 to cover the defendants' legal fees, whereas its reputation can now be found somewhere in the Monster Cable vicinity of pond scum central. Great job, Boing Boing.

MagicJack sues Boing Boing, gets bounced out of court originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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