Most top technology executives are used to juggling businesses worth hundred of millions of dollars, yen or euros. But this week at the Reuters Technology Summit, we asked: if we gave you $1 million to invest anywhere -- but not in your own company -- where would you spend it?

INTERNET / STARTUPS

If you want the quick answer, I would invest it in Twitter.  I'm sorry that we weren't in it. I don't know where it's going and it would be a fun ride.

-- Tim Draper, managing director of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

I would love to work more with some of these interesting startups like kiva.org that are developing interesting and innovative ways to create micro-lending programs for folks around the world.

I've a couple of friends and I would like to invest in their companies, little start-ups. One of them is called Trazzler and the other is called Fluther. One is an innovative travel startup and the other is a service that helps people get answers to questions they need.

I'm not a real big stock guy. Maybe a little Apple, a little Google -- companies I use every single day so why not invest in them?

-- Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone

It's stuff in our industry. The most vibrant industry is ours. We're complaining but the reality is we're making money. I would literally go after a couple of smaller companies that are up and coming. (Such as) Lala. It's iTunes without having to download the client. It's a really neat job. Check it out. You take music on the go. It's a really nice design.

-- Yahoo Inc  Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh

I have done some angel investing and what I have found in angel investing is it hasn't been because I was excited about the sector, it was because I was excited about the person. So I don't know that I could pick a sector, but if I see the right people, that is where I would put the $1 million.

-- NetSuite Inc Chief Executive Zach Nelson

ENERGY

I would put it in the hands of scientists who are trying to discover the next energy alternative. By giving them more R&D dollars, we fuel opportunities for higher education. We hopefully allow them to buy better supercomputers and that could improve the computer industry's short-term prospects and it could obviously help discover the next generation of energy source that could change humanity altogether.

-- Nvidia Corp Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang

There are many attractive companies in the environmental energy sector. Especially in Japan, technologies are advanced and there are a lot of companies that established business strategies and models from early on. Also, health and safety will be more valued in the future, so healthcare is a very important area.

-- Konica Minolta Holdings Inc Senior Executive Officer Shoei Yamana

MIXED PORTFOLIOS

"Because I'm 60, I would probably put half in corporate bonds, spread them around, get a nice interest rate on them. And I would probably put some into energy because I am a long-term believer that energy costs are going to continue to climb, and I think they've gotten depressed. And then I would put it into consumer electronics stocks and consumer non-durables. I'm a believer that consumers will come back and will spend again. So I would invest in those things.

-- Corning Inc Chief Financial Officer Jim Flaws

The financial sector will come back. I think some smart investment in the financial sector makes sense. Tech will be one of the first industries to emerge from this because that spending is important to the growth and cost agendas of companies.
I'd probably put a third in natural resources probably oil and gas. The fact is it is a diminishing asset. That is probably going to create supply problems that will tend to drive up the value of those problems.

-- Dell President of Large Enterprise Steve Schuckenbrock

I'd invest in a company whose business is not doing well. Stocks of companies that are making a lot of money don't have much room to grow. There are many sectors that are not well performing but won't ever vanish. For example, chipmakers may be struggling, but that's only because of the supply/demand balance. When demand comes back, the business will pick up again.
Also, materials and infrastructure industries are interesting. There are countries like China that still need to improve infrastructure, so I think it would be interesting to invest in those.

-- Capcom Co Ltd CFO Kazuhiko Abe

HEALTHCARE

Personally, I still think health care. I think the pharmaceutical companies have been beaten down a lot...As population ages, everybody needs more medical help. Pharmaceuticals, drugs are a big part of it. Short term, I think the dollar is going to fluctuate. I wouldn't sell dollars for the long term. If I had a million dollars, I would probably move to a very beaten down currency at this point, maybe Australian dollars, and then back into U.S. dollars in a year or two.

-- Sybase Chief Executive John Chen

I think that the area that is worth investing is in the healthcare area. Small start-up companies that are looking to wirelessly enable health. This whole area of letting people monitor their own health and give them feedback and let others have access. I think there is just a huge revolution in healthcare coming with high-tech. When people can give you a pill, and track it and see inside of your body and tell you what's really wrong with you...I think that whole area is about to just mushroom. It defies economic cycles. People get sick or get ill regardless of economic cycles.

-- AT&T Mobility President Ralph de la Vega

MISCELLANEOUS

I like very much these electronic readers. We actually started that several years back, we were ahead of the time, and we found that publishers, textbook publishers, were not very receptive. The area of flexible paper and digital paper and publishing. We're not there yet. But (Amazon's) Kindle is stepping in the right direction. There is a lot of innovation in that space. But it's got to be like a $49.95 product, not a $300 or $400. It's got to be for the masses. It's got to bring educational qualities to kids in the Amazon, 1,000 miles away from civilization.

-- SanDisk Chief Executive Eli Harari

I'd say Apple. You wouldn't be able to find any other company in the world that can do everything from OS to hardware to services like Apple does. It is a company that has a potential to keep offering new services. Apple's ability to develop products is incomparably better than others.

-- Gree Inc CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka

Based on what I saw on CNBC, I think I would put it in Hormel. Since I saw the sales of the Hormel chili and Spam have increased recently because of the economy. It's as good an idea as any.

-- Advanced Micro Devices Inc CEO Dirk Meyer

I'd put it in the bank probably. Definitely not in the automotive industry.

-- Marvell Technology Group CEO Sehat Sutardja

You know, being pretty conservative in nature, it's either invested in TI or sitting in the most conservative way possible. I get more than enough excitement in my daily life than needing excitement with investments on the side on that front.

-- Texas Instruments CEO Rich Templeton

With financial markets in turmoil and the U.S. economy in recession, we asked top entertainment and sports executives at the Reuters Media Summit for some investment advice.

Our question: “If we gave you $50,000, where would you invest?” One rule: They couldn’t pick their own company. But then we thought $50,000 was too little for well heeled executives, so we switched it to $50 million. But that seemed excessive. After all, we’re talking about personal investments — so we settled on giving them a cool $1 million.

Here’s what they said:

“In a pillow … You might look at the energy sector, you might see what happens with gold. I’ve got cousins who work in the banking industry. When I asked them, they told me put it in my pillow. That is your answer.”
– Havas’s MPG Chief Operating Officer Steve Lanzano

“I would be in the most conservative mechanisms I could — treasury bills, whatever, absolutely. The old trite bromide about cash is king? Well, that is true and more true today than ever before.”
– Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig

“I’d put 40 percent of it into exceedingly high-yielding senior debt securities in a diversified array of businesses. I’d put 30 percent of it with a pretty diverse array of fund managers who have a strong track record of navigating choppy times in an array of strategies. And then I’d take the final 30 percent and buy Time Warner stock … I will tell you why I love Time Warner. OK, so it’s trading at 50 percent of book, and these are people who, post AOL, were incredibly aggressive about writing down their book value. So it’s trading at 50 percent of essentially tangible books, tangibles you are going to get for a media company. They are not especially exposed to advertising. A lot of their revenues are very sticky. They still own their cable assets. You are getting a free option on the value of whatever happens in the spin-off. They generate, I think, $13 billion in EBITDA right now, if I’m not mistaken. And all their debt obligations are laddered out well into the future so they have no particular financing risk. So if you figure we have three horrible years ahead of us — and I don’t believe we do, but if you do — they are perfectly fine from a capital point of view for the next few years. And even after all obligations, all repayments, all capex, they still generate loads of free cash flow. Even if you don’t think they are particularly well-positioned strategically — they are currently yielding 2.7 percent, and I see no reason for the dividend to go down.”
– Take Two Interactive Inc Chairman Strauss Zelnick

“If I had a knife, I would probably put it in my mattress. No, seriously, I think if somebody gave you $1 million today, I think my gut tells me that the market would probably be a good place to put it … But there’s a little bit of hesitancy there. Have you reached bottom yet? Who knows. Do you actually have to actually reach bottom before it’s a good time to invest? Probably not. But this might be a good time to put money in the market if somebody just hands you $1 million … I would avoid the financial stocks for now because I’m not sure all the bad news is out. You know, you would think as low as some of those stocks are, that there would be buys, but some of them may not be around at all. So I would stay out of the financial sector. I probably would steer more toward durables and things that people are going to need year in and year out. They can be a bit volatile too, but you know that they are going to be around for years to come. I don’t think I would invest in domestic auto stocks today. You know, natural resources and products that are going to continue to be in demand, even some of the medical and drug companies.”
– Regal Entertainment Group CEO Mike Campbell

“Pay off my mortgage would be number one. Yes, absolutely, I would pay my mortgage. And then other than that I would … because I live in California and my family does it for a living, I think real estate is a great buy right now in California. There’s a lot of depressed prices — business is out there and real estate out there. I like real estate. It will come back.”
– Live Nation CEO Mike Rapino

“It looks to me like there are buys all over the place. I am not an investor or an economist, but just generally speaking, it looks like these companies that we deal with that I know are well managed, companies like Coca-Cola or Disney that are well managed, many of them are just going to be good buys. But I’m not an investor, so what do I know?”
– NASCAR CEO Brian France

“So 12 years… I took every dime that I had and I put it into tax-free municipal bonds. And then a year ago, but for what I own in Sirius, every dime that I have is either in insured, tax-free municipal bonds or treasuries. So I have been a terrible investor because if you look at the last 12 years, my portfolio has only grown for those 12 years about 3 percent a year. Now if you looked at the stock market during that period of time, I have left an awful lot of money on the table. But if you look, I guess, over the last year, I have done OK compared to where a lot of people were.”
– Sirius XM Radio Inc CEO Mel Karmazin

“I would invest at least 70 percent of it in stocks. I would put a big chunk in Goldman Sachs. I would put some in GE. I would put some in McDonald’s. I would put some in new energy, new innovations. I would definitely put a load in Google, and I would put a chunk in Microsoft. So that’s split between technology, and I would think about retailers as well. And then I would keep a chunk in cash, 20 percent. And then I’d put 10 percent in governent bonds. But I believe the valuations at the moment, the prices are so disconnected from values of some great companies with tremendous equities that there’s tremendous value for the long term.”
– Interpublic’s Mediabrands CEO Nick Brien

Would you put your million in the piggy bank?

(Photo: Reuters)

We asked CEOs at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit this week to pick out some stocks they would consider good investment plays.

With the caveat that they couldn't cite their own company, many executives stuck to consumer favorites like Apple or Google , or delved into alternative energy. Some circled back to prior employers, while others dodged the question, saying if they were into stock-picking, they wouldn't be CEOs.

I'm a long-term investor so I would pick Apple. Yes, it's about 187 bucks or something like that, so it's not a cheap stock to buy, but I still think in the long term, as long as nothing happens to Steve Jobs, it's one of the coolest companies and it has had more surprises up its sleeve than any other company I have seen in years.
-- Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile

I will disclose the fact that I am a shareholder of Amazon and will continue to be for several decades. Obviously I am biased. I spent nearly a decade at Amazon. But I do believe that the trends absolutely support Amazon over the long-term.
-- Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu

I always put Cisco as first. It is just a phenomenal company and I'm constantly blown away that a $40 billion company can keep growing at 15 percent a year.
-- Brian Halla, CEO of National Semiconductor, who sits on the board of Cisco Systems

I guess I would pick someone like WD (Western Digital). My competitor makes $4 a share and it is trading at something like $27. That is ridiculous.
-- Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate Technology

BlackBerry ... I have not looked at the price recently but I wish I had bought it a couple of years ago when I got very passionate about using it.
-- Erik Wachtmeister, founder and chairman of A Small World, said of Blackberry maker Research in Motion

I do look somewhat enviously at what David Calhoun is doing at Nielsen ... The attraction is you can do things inside that private equity environment which don't attract the attentions of Reuters, Thomson or Thomson Reuters, or indeed others.
-- Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP , who joked that if he had enough money, he would take WPP private.

I wish I would have bought Discovery a year ago. They've done a great job reinventing that whole platform and that stock is up a ton.
-- Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, which like Discovery is controlled by cable mogul John Malone

I have so much wrapped up in AT&T stock, I'll be honest -- what I'd do in the market outside our own stock is pretty much geared to indices and sectors.
One of my individual investments is BP but that's because that's where my dad worked for years. So I inherited stock. I won't sell.
--Rick Lindner, CFO of AT&T

I wouldn't buy any single stock. I would buy a sector, and I would buy the energy sector. In two to three years' time, I'd buy stocks related to lengthening human life.
-- Luca Majocchi, CEO of Seat Pagine Gialle

I'm not the best person to ask about stock picks. I actually have the opposite effect. Whatever I buy you should sell and whatever I sell you should buy.
-- Enrique Salem, COO of Symantec

Still don't know where to spend your tax rebate, assuming you've got cash to spare despite the high oil prices? Check out more stock tips from our executives here.

We asked CEOs at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit this week to pick out some stocks they would consider good investment plays.

With the caveat that they couldn’t cite their own company, many executives stuck to consumer favorites like Apple or Google , or delved into alternative energy. Some circled back to prior employers, while others dodged the question, saying if they were into stock-picking, they wouldn’t be CEOs.

I’m a long-term investor so I would pick Apple. Yes, it’s about 187 bucks or something like that, so it’s not a cheap stock to buy, but I still think in the long term, as long as nothing happens to Steve Jobs, it’s one of the coolest companies and it has had more surprises up its sleeve than any other company I have seen in years.
– Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile

I will disclose the fact that I am a shareholder of Amazon and will continue to be for several decades. Obviously I am biased. I spent nearly a decade at Amazon. But I do believe that the trends absolutely support Amazon over the long-term.
– Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu

I always put Cisco as first. It is just a phenomenal company and I’m constantly blown away that a $40 billion company can keep growing at 15 percent a year.
– Brian Halla, CEO of National Semiconductor, who sits on the board of Cisco Systems

I guess I would pick someone like WD (Western Digital). My competitor makes $4 a share and it is trading at something like $27. That is ridiculous.
– Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate Technology

BlackBerry … I have not looked at the price recently but I wish I had bought it a couple of years ago when I got very passionate about using it.
– Erik Wachtmeister, founder and chairman of A Small World, said of Blackberry maker Research in Motion

I do look somewhat enviously at what David Calhoun is doing at Nielsen … The attraction is you can do things inside that private equity environment which don’t attract the attentions of Reuters, Thomson or Thomson Reuters, or indeed others.
– Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP , who joked that if he had enough money, he would take WPP private.

I wish I would have bought Discovery a year ago. They’ve done a great job reinventing that whole platform and that stock is up a ton.
– Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, which like Discovery is controlled by cable mogul John Malone

I have so much wrapped up in AT&T stock, I’ll be honest — what I’d do in the market outside our own stock is pretty much geared to indices and sectors.
One of my individual investments is BP but that’s because that’s where my dad worked for years. So I inherited stock. I won’t sell.
–Rick Lindner, CFO of AT&T

I wouldn’t buy any single stock. I would buy a sector, and I would buy the energy sector. In two to three years’ time, I’d buy stocks related to lengthening human life.
– Luca Majocchi, CEO of Seat Pagine Gialle

I’m not the best person to ask about stock picks. I actually have the opposite effect. Whatever I buy you should sell and whatever I sell you should buy.
– Enrique Salem, COO of Symantec

Still don’t know where to spend your tax rebate, assuming you’ve got cash to spare despite the high oil prices? Check out more stock tips from our executives here.

With all the interest in Yahoo Inc these days, we took the opportunity to ask Nokia CFO Rick Simonson at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit if the world's largest mobile phone maker would be interested in buying Yahoo. He laughed and joked that of all the questions we could have asked him, this was one he didn't see coming. Then he goes on to say:

We've not been involved obviously in Yahoo. We're focused on closing the acquisition with Navteq ...

We're not out in the desert trying to invent a search algorithm that's better than Google or Yahoo's for instance. They've got some scale there we don't have.

As it is, Nokia doesn't see returns from its investment in Internet services until about 2010. But at least it's only earmarking hundreds of millions of euros a year on the project -- far short of the last price tag of $47.5 billion that Microsoft last offered for all of Yahoo.

(Photo: Reuters)