A Visual Tour of American Architecture
(Photo above: Guardian Building, Detroit, Michigan) Originally published Aug 23, 2022 America’s great skyscrapers, museums, hotels, train stations, churches, and other structures reflect the ambitions and dreams of our society. Funded by the wealth generated by...
Which US Companies Have Created the Most Jobs?
This week, our annual update of the companies which employed the most people last year, on our chart which shows the changes since 1994. Two companies dominate the list to a degree that was not happening before this chart started in 1994. The newcomer is...
Which US Companies Made the Most Profit in 2025?
This week, our annual update of the companies which made the most money last year, on our chart which shows the changes since 1994. This chart is much more volatile than our charts on top revenue and top market capitalization companies. The Big Tech companies here are...
Most Valuable American Companies over 31 Years: 1995-2026
In this year’s annual update of our chart of the most valuable companies, see the absolute dominance of Big Tech at the top, a repeat of last year. For more comments and historical perspective, see last year’s article. Watch on Youtube here:...
Largest American Companies 1994-2025
Audio Version of this Post can be found here Errata: In the audio file and transcript, I said JPMorgan had 40 billion dollars in assets, but they have 4 trillion! As someone who has been studying this stuff for over 60 years, I still have trouble thinking in...
Beyond Wall Street: Great Family Businesses
You can listen to the 9 minute audio version of this post here.Originally published June 2020. Updated for 2026. America has hundreds of thousands of privately-held, family-owned businesses. Thousands of them are large. The list of the largest ones is...
A Nobel for the Deep Roots of Growth and Prosperity
Today we present an excellent recent article by our Board member and finance wizard, Larry Siegel, on economic history and a top economic historian who just won a Nobel Prize. Originally published in Advisor Perspectives, February 2, 2026. Read more of Larry’s great...
Giant Companies Rarely Survive
Originally published on Apr 1, 2021. A careful study of this week’s list will show you the huge American industries which once dominated stock markets, employment, and community life, but which are not as important in the age of Amazon and Google. Our readers know we...
The Three Greatest American Companies of All Time
Originally published on Oct 9, 2020. We wrote this five years ago, before the American Business History Center was founded, but we stand by our choices. For the last 52 years, I have been obsessed with understanding what makes a company great. What leads to success;...
Henry J. Kaiser: California Dreamer, Workers’ Friend
This article first appeared on June 24, 2019 in The Archbridge Institute’s ‘American Originals’ series. Despite being often forgotten today, Henry J. Kaiser was one of the most unusual and diverse entrepreneurs in American history. Quitting school at the age of...
Superwealth: A Historical Perspective
Originally published May 6, 2021 Few business subjects fascinate people as much as the very wealthy. Our obsession with celebrity goes back centuries but seems to have accelerated in recent decades. Forbes produced its first list of the richest Americans...
New Beginnings in the Roaring Twenties
Originally published January 9, 2020 Here we go again – another decade of the “twenties” – hopefully these twenties roar in the good sense. This is a perfect time to look back at what was going on in business history one hundred years ago. 1920 was an...
The World’s Largest Companies in 2024 … and in the Past
Five years ago, we took a look at the biggest companies in the world. Today we update that look with a few tables, based on the data provided in the annual Fortune magazine Global 500 lists. You can see the shift from a US-centered (and to some degree European)...
The Largest American Corporate Employers 1994-2024
Today we publish the last of our series of four annual animated charts on the top American public companies, focused on the largest employers. This list may seem to change more gradually than our prior lists based on revenues, stock market valuations, and...
Highest Profit American Companies: 1994-2024
In our last article, we presented a history and chart on the most valuable companies in America over the past three decades. In this issue, we take a look at another interesting measure, the twenty American companies that made the highest annual dollar profits...
Most Valuable American Companies over 30 Years: 1995-2025
In our last article, we presented a history and chart on the largest companies in America over the past three decades. In this issue, we take a look at another interesting measure, the twenty most valuable American companies over the same time span, based on the...
Largest American Companies over 30 Years: 1994-2024
In the paragraphs below, we take a visual tour of the evolution of the largest American companies over the past thirty years. We’ve posted updates of our annual charts of America’s biggest companies from the recently published Fortune 500. The first chart shows the...
Most Valuable American Companies 1995-2024
Here we continue with our series of annual updates on America’s biggest companies from the recently published Fortune 500. This chart shows the 20 US public companies with the largest market capitalizations from 1995 through 2024. You can pause and move to...
Largest American Employers 1994-2023
Here we continue with our series of annual updates on America’s biggest companies. This chart shows the 20 biggest employers among US public companies from 1994 through 2023. You can pause and move to any year between 1994 and 2023. (There is also a...
Highest Profit US Companies 1994-2023
Here we continue with our series of annual updates on America’s biggest companies. This chart shows the 20 highest profit US public companies from 1994 through 2023. You can pause and move to any year between 1994 and 2023. (There is also a video...
Largest US Companies 1994-2023
We’re delighted to present our annual update of our charts on the largest American companies, ranked by revenue, reflecting full year results for 2023. Here are two charts which you can pause and move to any year between 1994 and 2023. One chart is the top...
Understanding How Business Works, with Book Recommendations
I am often surprised how many entrepreneurs, and even folks with MBA degrees, don’t fully understand how big business really works, how company leaders think, and how companies strategize and compete. One of the best ways to understand all this is to study the...
Why Should We Study Business History?
This article was originally published by the Discourse Magazine. Great scientists learn from and build upon what has gone before them. Similarly, attorneys make their careers by studying precedent and the legal cases of the past. Military leaders still study...
The Simple Key to Breakthrough Innovation
History lovers, I have been busy rebuilding my life and my library since my house burned down a year ago. I’ve spent some time on writing longer biographical articles, such as our recent story on Sam Walton and Walmart. I hope to get back to...
Whole Foods Founder Begins a New Adventure
Whole Foods Founder Begins a New Adventure At the American Business History Center, we rarely comment on current events or living entrepreneurs. At the same time, our study of the lessons of the past is motivated by our desire to understand the present and the...
America’s Largest Employers 1994-2022
Today we present our annual update of the twenty biggest employers among US public companies over the last 28 years. You can see the chart above. Enjoy and share! Gary Hoover Executive Director American Business History...
America’s Most Valuable Companies 1995-2023
An updated 2024 version of this chart can be seen here. Today we present our annual update of the market capitalizations of the twenty most valuable US public companies over the last 28 years. You can see the chart below, which you can control, or a video here....
Highest Profit US Companies 1994-2022
Here we present our annual update to our animated chart of the highest profit American companies, now extended to include results for 2022. You can pause them and move them to any year to see the lists of the top 20. We find studying them over and over very...
Largest US Companies 1994-2022
In this, our 161st newsletter, we present our annual update to our animated chart of the largest companies, now extended to include results for 2022. The picture above shows the leading companies when Fortune first did a list of all US companies for 1994 (previously...2022 UPDATED Largest Companies Charts
Back to School! Expand Your Mind with Peter Drucker and History: Automobiles, Airlines, Computers, and Retailing
Autumn is the time many Americans put on their thinking caps and start learning again, after a summer break. So we’re offering zoom courses with Gary Hoover. We are excited to add new industry-specific, very affordable classes on the automobile, airline,...Biggest American Employers 1994 2021
Largest Employers 1994-2021
This week we present our animated chart of the largest employers in America among our big, public companies. In the last three weeks, we have published similar charts based on revenues, on profits, and on market capitalization, all of which can be found by clicking...
Most Valuable American Companies 1995-2022
Most Valuable U.S. Companies 1995 Through 2022
An updated 2023 version of this chart can be seen here. Two years ago, we created animated charts showing the change in America’s largest companies, first by size (revenues), then by profits, market capitalizations, and number of employees. The new Fortune...
20 Highest Profits American Public Companies 1994 2021
Highest Profit US Companies 1994 Through 2021
An updated 2023 version of this chart can be seen here. (Our original post listed this as the 25 highest profit companies but should have said 20 highest profit companies.) Two years ago, we created animated charts showing the change in America’s largest companies,...
Fortune 500 25 Largest American Public Companies 1994 2021 Year by Year
2022 UPDATED Largest Companies Charts
Two years ago, we created animated charts showing the change in America’s largest companies, first by size (revenues), then by profits, market capitalizations, and number of employees. The new Fortune magazine “Fortune 500” list of the biggest public companies...
Seeing Change Through History’s Lens
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards” – Steve Jobs The American Business History Center wishes happy holidays to all of our readers. As another year comes to a close, it’s a great time to think back over time,...
How to be Visionary: First Principles & Learning from History
Today I write a more personal note, which we don’t often do in these newsletters. My lifelong study of businesses, working in them and starting them, has led me to think about how one sees the future clearly. The many great business leaders we profile on...
Six Simple Steps to Building A Great Lasting Company
One of our key goals at the American Business History Center is to learn lessons from the successes and failures of the past. In most of our weekly articles, we leave it to our readers to draw their own lessons, although we occasionally touch on what can be...
U.S. States Population Animated Chart 1790-2020
This week we present another of our popular animated charts. In this one, we show the populations of the states of the United States from the Census, every ten years from 1790 through 2020. The list is long, including all fifty ultimate states. The data...
America’s Largest Airlines 1950-2019 in Two Animated Charts
The United States airline system, one of the technological and business wonders of the twentieth century, evolved in the 1920s and 1930s. With early subsidies from the Post Office for carrying mail, airplanes began connecting US cities. With successive air...
Two Books: The American West and Business History
July 9 is the deadline for our high school essay contest, with $7500 in prizes, including $3000 for the best essay. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD! …. and, by the way, this is the 100th issue of our free weekly newsletter! Today we recommend two books for our fellow...
Business History on the Rise
On May 8, 2019, two years ago, four of us launched the American Business History Center. As enumerated below, we are pleased with the growth of our weekly newsletter and our website traffic (shown above). Your donations have helped us continue our work and will help...
Americans Vote with Their Feet
Last week, the Census Bureau published their annual estimates of population, as of July 1, 2020. Population trends underly all economic activity, so we study that data as soon as it is released. The fastest growing and shrinking cities and metropolitan areas...
Success Lost & Found: Sherwin-Williams
While most big companies disappear over time (as shown in our recent newsletter), some figure out how to survive and prosper decade after decade, even century after century. But is the journey from founding to long-term durability a straight path? Today...
Big Rich, Big News, & A Short Book
Big Rich Forbes magazine just released their annual list of the richest people in the world, topped by Jeff Bezos at $177 billion and Elon Musk at $151 billion. Computer scientist and founder of the incubator Y Combinator Paul Graham has written an excellent...
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