In 2014, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was ranked first in the Harvard Business Review's (HBR) list of the world's best-performing business leaders - and he would have been first again this year, if the magazine had not changed the list's methodology.
Traditionally this index has been based solely on financial measures and investor returns - but it has been tweaked this year to also measure the environmental and social impacts that these CEOs have.
Bezos clocked up the best financial numbers, but the Amazon boss ranked 828th out of the 907 leaders polled on environmental, social and governance factors.
This ranking comes weeks after an extensive piece in The New York Times accused the company of "conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions."
It painted a picture of a toxic working culture which one former HR executive described as "Purposeful Darwinism."
"Amazon is okay with moving through a lot of people to identify and retain superstars," he says.
While most workers will break under the pressure - a small number will rise to the top, and be handsomely rewarded.
He adds that this environment fosters the hunger and ambition which has seen the company become a global e-commerce and tech giant.
But this success comes at a human cost: "Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk," one worker told the newspaper.
The HBR's editor Adi Ignatius recently joined Mike Pesca on his Slate.com podcast The Gist to discuss the 2015 rankings.
He said that while there had been some apprehension about the magazine publishing an annual 'list issue' - he initially decided that it needed to be 100% scientific, based only on hard numbers measuring business performance.
Mr Ignatius admits that the decision to introduce these subjective "softer" metrics in this year's countdown carries risks - but he adds that it makes the list more in-line with the current thinking around business leadership, which is looking increasingly beyond the bottom line.
When asked specifically about Jeff Bezos' drop he said, "this is not necessarily that unusual for some of the 'Silicon Valley' companies who drive people at a pace that is unsustainable," as they strive to achieve ambitious business goals.
