Revealed: Tech titans of the past 25 years

Meg Whitman, president and chief executive of eBay since 1998, came in at tenth place, mentioned by 30 percent of voters.

Despite presiding over one of the most successful online businesses, with the possible exception of Amazon.com, Whitman has come under some flack recently. In October eBay posted a sharp net loss due to a $1.39bn (£680m) writedown on the purchase of web-based phone service Skype. Industry watchers have questioned the send of the deal between the online auction site and the IP telephony organisation since it was struck in 2005.

Nearly two years after the acquisition closed, there is little integration between eBay's auction website and the Skype voice service. Even though Skype has grown into the largest VoIP provider on the planet, the bottom line is clear — it still hasn't made enough money to justify the hefty $2.6bn price tag.