Everybody needs some good advice sometimes – even billionaire tech CEOs.
Here’s who Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Travis Kalanick, Jeff Bezos, and 10 more tech business leaders consider to be the mentors that supported them on their rise to the top.
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.
Steve Jobs was actually instrumental in the development of quite a few tech executives. Not only did he have a close relationship with Apple CEO Tim Cook…
…Jobs also mentored Mark Zuckerberg through the earliest days of Facebook, right alongside Napster founder and first Facebook President Sean Parker. (Snoop Dogg was not involved in the earliest days of Facebook. Probably.)
Google co-founder and current Alphabet CEO Larry Page also says he got some crucial advice from Jobs while the Apple CEO was on one of his medical leaves — including the suggestion to focus on search.
And, in turn, current Google CEO Sundar Pichai was a long-time right-hand man to Larry Page, who he considers his mentor. Or “left-hand-man,” per this photo.
Meanwhile, Jobs himself leaned on Reed College classmate Robert Friedland, an outgoing student who encouraged the future Apple founder to explore his interest in Eastern spirituality. These days, Friedland is a mining millionaire.
Bill Gates considers famed investor Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha,” to be his mentor when it comes to making investments — and saving the world.
And Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is lucky enough to have Bill Gates as his mentor, teaching him the ins and outs of the role.
Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, looks to venture investor Shervin Pishevar for advice.
When Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was at Google, she learned a lot from executives like Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and Jonathan Rosenberg.
Jack Dorsey, CEO and co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Square, turns to Disney CEO Bob Iger for business advice.
They may be fierce competitors nowadays, but Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff still gives Oracle co-founder and chairman Larry Ellison credit for teaching him how to be a leader.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says his old boss at hedge fund D.E. Shaw was a huge inspiration.
Finally, WeWork CEO and billionaire Adam Neumann bucks the trend by boasting how he’s never had a mentor — and that he’s glad for it.
Source: Business Insider
ANKUSH TIWARI 