CEOs - they are powerful, rich, intelligent, loved, envied, feared, and sometimes fired.

The announcement on Thursday night of the exit of Tom Albanese as chief executive officer of Australia's second-largest miner, Rio Tinto, places focus on public perception of CEOs, particular in a period when companies are failing as an aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.

A 2010 article in Harvard Business Review said people seeking answers to the causes of the current global financial crisis has spawned debates on the time frame in assessing a CEO's performance. While the power to fire or hire a CEO lies mostly in the boardroom, public perception of CEOs also counts, particularly if these executives head publicly listed companies with millions of stockholders.

The following memes and parodies are indicators of what people perceive who and what CEOs are.

Majority view them as the power behind the company's resources.

who enjoys the most perks.

In ancient days, the CEO's equivalent was the king or pharaoh.

Some CEOs are so associated with their companies, in effect serving as the firm's mascot.

Most spend so many hours in the corporate headquarters, indicating a lack of work-life balance..

Despite their billions of dollars in the bank or personal assets, these human beings are not spared by meme makers such as the creator of the world's most popular social networking site

the genius behind one of the world's best-selling electronic device

the nerdie-looking guy whose software runs your computers

and, of course, the one who lost his job on Thursday.

Like the meme makes, parody creators too were attracted to CEOs. This one spoofs the merger of United and Continental Airlines.

While this video is a parody on the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The next video is an imagined keynote address by a Facebook Robot CEO.

60 Minutes is not above making parodies like this one with the CEO of a home services and mytechhelp company.

No parody list is complete without featuring Hitler's take as CEO of a multinational company.

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