Communist Leader or CEO Quiz Steve Jobs CheBusiness Insider

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates are exemplars of capitalism. Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, and Karl Marx are pillars of communism. Each gets called "revolutionary" — so what do they have in common, aside from massive visions and egos? 

All of them try to change the way regular people live in society, either by putting a computer on every desk or overthrowing the bourgeoisie. 

Maybe that's why the capitalist leaders' language sounds nearly indistinguishable from the communists'. There's that and the fact that leaders — capitalist or communist — can lean on vague, euphemistic language.

To illustrate these points, we've put together the below quiz. See if you can spot which quote came from a Marxist and which came from the corner office.


Communist or CEO?


Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO
Joseph Stalin, former leader of the Soviet Union

"The world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed."

Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple
Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Argentine Marxist revolutionary

"We have not invested any dollars in the technology, per say. We have spent a lot of time and money reviewing and analyzing the various technologies."

Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy
Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union during the Cold War

"If the leaders seek only to preserve themselves, that is what they become; preserves, dried preserves."

Leon Trotsky, Russian Marxist revolutionary
Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric


Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google
Vladimir Lenin, Russian communist revolutionary

"We want to ensure a multilateral development of society."

Nicolae Ceauşescu, former General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook


Karl Marx, author of "The Communist Manifesto"
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft


Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla
Ho Chi Minh, prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

"What we need is an enthusiastic but calm state of mind and intense but orderly work."

Henry Ford, founder/CEO of Ford Motor Company
Mao Zedong, cofounder of the People's Republic of China