Fortune magazine names Apple's Steve Jobs CEO of the decade

Runners-up include Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart and — wait for it – Bernie Madoff.

Steve Jobs is the CEO of the decade, according to the new issue of Fortune magazine.

"Jobs is back," writes Adam Lashinsky in the cover story published Thursday. "It's as if his signature 'one more thing' line now applies to him as well. After a six-month leave of absence in the early part of this year, during which he received a liver transplant, he is once again commanding a 34,000-strong corporate army that is as powerful, awe-inspiring, creative, secretive, bullying, arrogant — and yes, profitable — as at any time since he and his chum Steve Wozniak founded Apple  in 1976."

The piece includes the revelation that Jobs twice considered taking Apple private, once in a leveraged buyout with Silver Lake Partners and once a few years earlier with financing lined up by his old friend Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle.

Sure to stir controversy is Fortune's provocative list of also-rans ( ie business leaders who had notable runs this decade, not all for the good) which includes, along with some obvious contenders (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, for example), two convicted felons: Martha Stewart and Bernie Madoff.

Source:  http://cnnmoney.com