Apple and Tim Cook Fare Well in Survey of Best Places to Work

Thursday December 15, 2011 8:10 am PST by Eric Slivka

Jobs site Glassdoor yesterday announced the release of its annual list of the 50 best places to work. While consulting companies Bain and McKinsey topped the list, Apple grabbed 10th place in the survey with an average employee rating of 3.9 out of 5. Apple's performance marked a significant increase over the previous three years that saw the company ranking around 20th place in the survey.

Facebook, last year's #1 company, took third in this year's survey while Google jumped from #30 to #5 to place ahead of Apple among high-profile tech companies.

glassdoor apple 2012
In tech company employee ratings of their CEOs, Apple's Tim Cook placed third with an approval rating of 96%, one point lower than Steve Jobs' approval rating in last year's survey. This year's CEO survey was led by National Instruments' James Truchard and NetApp's Tom Georgens, who both scored 100% approval ratings.

Popular Stories

Apple Announces 'HomeView' Smart Home Hub

Tuesday October 13, 2026 6:00 am PDT by Hartley Charlton

Apple today announced the "HomeView," an all-new kind of smart home hub featuring a 7-inch Liquid Retina display and Siri AI. Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak said: Apple HomeView is designed to be shared by everyone in the home yet feel completely personal to each user. It recognizes your face to shift from a household screen to your own experience,...

• 660 comments

New Apple TV 4K Announced With A19 Chip, Updated Siri Remote, More

Tuesday October 13, 2026 6:08 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Apple today announced the fourth-generation Apple TV 4K, with key features including an A19 chip, Siri AI support, an updated Siri Remote that has Find My support with Precision Finding, built in far-field microphones, support for surround sound with four HomePods in front and rear pairs, and more. The A19 chip in the new Apple TV 4K delivers up to 50% faster CPU performance and up to twice...

• 658 comments

RIP, homeOS

Tuesday October 13, 2026 9:39 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

MacRumors was first to reveal the name "HomeView" last week, after discovering a trademark filing from a secretive shell company that we correctly suspected was linked to Apple. Apple was likely behind a "homeOS" trademark filing as well, but the company ultimately decided to stick with generic "HomeView software" naming, just like it refers to the HomePod's operating system as "HomePod...

• 24 comments

Top Rated Comments

CLWelch

194 months ago

So Tim Cook is a "place to work"?

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Winni

194 months ago

Wait, BAIN is the best place to work? Is this blizzaro world? Bain drives people to the brink of madness. Something is terribly wrong with this survey.

I had an interview once with a company that was ranked #23 of the best places to work in Germany. Well, if that was #23, then every other place where I've ever worked was at least on rank #22.

To make it simple, those rankings are bollocks.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

justjohn025

194 months ago

Is that rating for Apple Corporate, retail, or both?

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

dethmaShine

194 months ago

Google is undeniably one of the best places to work in.

Having worked with Google for a couple of years in AI cars (for simpletons), I can easily say that Google really wants you to live in the office 24 hours. That is the philosophy of the entire silicon valley but Google has set its own bar, really high. I don't necessarily say its the right way to do(PS3/Xbox/Sofa/beds, etc) but nonetheless they've made their own impression on graduates esp.

On another, Apple is highly disciplined but I was really satisfied with my one day visit at the Cupertino campus. The building is quite old but its pure excellence. Apple is also very relaxed for any one who doesn't know but they sure don't cater Xbox/PS3 nerds and don't have beds for people to stay over. I am planning to apply to Apple soon. Really psyched to see the new campus plan in 2015. It's a dream come true for many.

----------

So Tim Cook is a "place to work"?

CEO Rating

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

calpundit

194 months ago

Is that rating for Apple Corporate, retail, or both?

Actually, if you look at the ratings in the post -- upon which the ranking is based -- you will find a lot of comments from Apple retail employees from throughout the country. Contrast that with the other two tech companies in the top 10 -- Google and Facebook -- where the comments are almost exclusively from the "home office."

Also, Apple's ranking is based on 210 separate ratings -- twice as many as Google (98) and nearly 8 times as many as Facebook (28) -- again reflecting its large retail presence.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)