Silicon Valley has had a tough 3 months — here are the top tech executives who won and lost big (AMZN, FB, AAPL, INTC, AMD, SNAP, GOOGL, NFLX, DBX, ROKU)

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The third quarter was a tough one in the tech business.

Scandals abounded. Many companies saw their sales growth slow or user numbers falter. Stocks that once seemed to defy gravity got knocked down. And the president of the United States made a sport out of publicly attacking many companies and executives in the industry.

Whether at startups or public companies, tech executives were challenged to show their mettle. Some provided a steady hand at the wheel and reaped the rewards of a prescient plan of action; others reeled, took cover, or acted out. Some were hapless victims of circumstance; others suffered from self-inflicted damage.

Here are some of the notable winners and loser in the third quarter:

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WINNER: Kelly Bennett, Netflix's chief marketing officer

As the head of Netflix's marketing efforts, it's Kelly Bennett's responsibility to get consumers excited about the company's shows and movies and to convince more people to sign up. He seems to have done a spectacular job in the third quarter. Netflix added nearly 7 million subscribers in the period, which was about 2 million more than Wall Street was expecting.

That surge helped the company post a profit that blew through analysts' projections, which boosted Netflix's shares as much as 15% immediately after the report.

But Netflix saw the benefits of Bennett's marketing efforts elsewhere. Thanks in part to his promotions, the company earned 23 Emmy awards in September, tying HBO for the most of any network.

LOSER: Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer

If another company had sold fewer of its products than Wall Street was expecting, the management team might talk about how it would increase marketing, cut prices, or revamp products to rekindle sales. Not Apple.

After the company sold fewer iPhones than analysts had expected in its fiscal first quarter, chief financial officer Luca Maestri announced on Apple's earnings call that he would solve the problem by no longer releasing unit-sales numbers for its smartphones or any other products.

Maestri rationalized the decision by saying that unit sales weren't really "representative" of the strength of Apple's business. But he didn't offer to replace that information with other data that might be more representative.

The net effect: Apple shareholders will know less about their company. Investors — already unhappy with the disappointing sales numbers and a weaker-than-expected outlook for the fourth quarter — expressed their displeasure that Maestri was curtailing their information by sending Apple's shares even lower than they were before the announcement.

WINNER: Bob Swan, Intel's interim CEO

When Brian Krzanich was forced out suddenly in June as Intel's CEO, the company handed the reins — at least for the time being — to Bob Swan. In his first full quarter running the company, Swan, who also serves as the chipmaker's CFO, showed he could provide a steady hand.

Intel's third-quarter revenue and profit both topped Wall Street's expectations, and it offered better-than-expected guidance for the fourth quarter to boot. Investors cheered, sending Intel's stock up 6% after the report. Not bad for an interim CEO.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider