Ice Bucket Challenge

11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

— Komal Mohan

You must be living under a rock if you aren't aware of what the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is. Internet is full of viral videos of actors, sportspersons, corporate czars and political figures from all over the globe taking up this challenge.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge aims to create awareness about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or the Lou Gehrig's disease. According to the challenge, the participant has to pour a bucket of ice cold water on him and then go on to challenge three more candidates. Alternatively, one can donate $100 to ALS Association that does research on the disease.

With all this buzz around ALS challenge, how could the tech companies and CEOs be left behind? This challenge has taken over the tech world by a storm, with many of the biggest names taking the plunge. Here are 11 tech celebrities that have so far taken the Ice Bucket Challenge:

1. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was one of the first big names to take on this challenge. He was dared by New Jersey governor Chris Christie. He then went on to challenge Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

2. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates accepted Zuckerberg’s challenge. He said he wanted to do it “better than it’s been done” and had built a contraption complete with pull-strings in order to complete the challenge. He then dared Elon Musk of Tesla Motors, TED curator Chris Anderson and American Idol host Ryan Seacrest to take on the Ice Bucket Challenge.

3. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

Challenged by former NFL player Steve Gleason, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella accepted the challenge in which he asked the hackathon-winning team to dump ice water on him. After completing the task, he challenged Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Larry Page.

4. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

The famous Googlers took the challenge together and used ice in the challenge calling it the “legit” and “the real-deal.” They, however, did not nominate anyone for the challenge. Brin said he couldn’t think of any tech executive he wants to “make suffer right now.’’

5. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

Challenged by a board member, the CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer took on this challenge with hundreds of employees. She then dared Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Square, Travis Kalanick of Uber and David Karp of Tumblr.

6. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

In an all-hands meeting, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the Ice Bucket Challenge and said it is very “important” whom he challenged after he took it on. After floating names of candidates like Edward Snowden, the Queen Elizabeth II of England and Pope Francis and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un initially, he decided to nominate his “childhood heroes” and challenged Star Trek actors William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and George Takei.

7. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

Apple CEO also took on this challenge, with American musician Michael Franti dumping ice cold water on him. Cook then called out Franti (who took the challenge right there), Disney CEO Bob Iger and hip-hop artist and new Apple employee Dr Dre to go next.

8. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

Dared by American basketball player Spencer Hawes, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took the Ice Bucket Challenge by posting on his rarely-used Twitter account along with his new ”SteveBClippers” YouTube account. He then challenged American basketball coach and former player Doc Rivers, TV football analyst and former player Rick Neuheisel and, someone called Hal Wright.

9. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo was also not far from his contemporaries and took up the challenge. Via a tweet, he dared Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff and CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla to do the same.

10. 11 Tech Executives Who Took The Ice Bucket Challenge

Although challenged by T-Mobile’s John Legere, AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega said that the only reason he did this is because of the challenge from AT&T’s director of executive communications Clay Owen. He dared his reporting team to complete this challenge before the staff meeting the next day.