The Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list is our “ranking of corporate reputation.” There’s a lot to unpack in the last word of that sentence—which is why it’s a nerdy pleasure and privilege to dig more deeply into our full rankings.
Our annual All-Star list, the top 50, ranks companies by the acclaim they win in surveys of the wider business community—essentially, their reputation among leaders in all industries, including their own. And that list makes it clear that once you earn a great reputation in these wider circles, it can have incredible staying power.
Apple, for example, has been No. 1 for a remarkable 19 consecutive years. Amazon and Microsoft have filled out the top three for seven years in a row. Berkshire Hathaway (No. 6) and Alphabet (No. 8) have each been in our top 10 for well over a decade. Berkshire, the conglomerate nurtured by Warren Buffett, holds the distinction of having been on the All-Star list every single year since it launched in 1998; it shares that honor with Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Toyota Motor, and Johnson & Johnson.
But the All-Star list makes up only one component of the World’s Most Admired package; the other focuses on rankings within each industry. For these, we ask insiders about the reputations of their own businesses and their immediate competitors, letting them score companies in nine categories. Here, experts in each field weigh minutiae like quality of management, ability to attract talent, and stewardship of corporate assets.
