Rich Barton

Perhaps it helps to own the survey company -- or at least a portion of it. Zillow.com and its Chief Executive Rich Barton came out on top of a new survey conducted by Glassdoor.com, one that attempts to rank the best (and worst) CEOs in the region as well as the best companies to work for.

The folks at Glassdoor.com assure me that Barton -- an early investor in the Sausalito startup -- didn't manipulate the rankings. A spokeswoman tells TechFlash that it was "just a coincidence" that Barton and Zillow came out on top.

The survey scores Zillow with a positive rating of 4.3. And it shows that Barton had an 80 percent approval rating among employees, and a 10 percent disapproval rating.

Only F5 Networks' John McAdam fared better, with an 89 percent approval rating and no one who apparently dislikes him.

Others companies that performed well were REI, Microsoft and Waggener Edstrom.

But now for the nitty gritty stuff. Which companies and CEOs fared poorly.

Zones topped that unfortunate list, with a score of 2.4 and CEO Firoz Lalji getting a 50 disapproval rating.

Other Northwest CEOs whose disapproval ratings overpowered their approval ratings were Safeco's Paula Reynolds (75 percent disapproval rating); Frank Blethen of The Seattle Times (42 percent disapproval) and RealNetworks' Rob Glaser (49 percent disapproval).

Unfortunately for Glaser, he also appeared in Glassdoor's list of top 50 lowest rated CEOs. He was the only Northwest CEO to get that dubious honor, with Office Depot's Steve Odland, LexisNexis' Andy Prozes and United Airlines' Glenn Tilton listed as the worst rated. (All had approval ratings under 10 percent.)

Not one Seattle CEO made it in the top 50, which included Steve Jobs of Apple, Eric Schmidt of Google and Reed Hastings of Netflix.  

Glassdoor certainly will catch some flack about the list and its methodology. (For the national list, only CEOs with more than 50 employee reviews were considered while the Seattle list was based on 10 reviews or more).

But that's something that Barton is accustomed to, since Zillow's online home valuation tool often has been the subject of harsh criticism.