Amazon dethrones Walmart as No. 1 on the Fortune 500. There’s a big upside to their rivalry

Walmart has stood atop the Fortune 500 list for 13 years and for 21 of the last 24 years. But barring any surprises, Amazon will lead the next list in June to become only the fourth No. 1 ever, along with Exxon, General Motors and Walmart.

While it is tempting to see in this change a classic narrative of an older, less nimble contender being outmaneuvered by an upstart, no one should see Walmart as a company in secular decline. This is a far cry from when Walmart left competitors Sears, Kmart and J.C. Penney in the rear-view mirror a generation ago.

Amazon’s ascent posed an existential threat to Walmart, but it ultimately put Walmart back on the path of growth and relevance. Walmart initially was slow to realize how much e-commerce was going to change shopping and consumers’ discernment of price and convenience, the very things that had allowed it to supplant Sears et al before. But under former CEO Doug McMillon, and new CEO John Furner, Walmart began a reinvention in 2014 not only of its way of doing business but of its culture too. That has ultimately made Walmart a place where failure (within reason) is tolerated as long it leads to the innovation needed to compete with Amazon’s relentlessness. Walmart’s online business grew 27% last quarter, and it handily beats Amazon in the crucial area of grocery delivery. 

Now both companies will be competing in areas beyond retail and e-commerce with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Walmart CEO Furner going head-to-head in various realms like AI, streaming, and media services.

Jassy, who made his name building Amazon’s hugely profitably AWS cloud business, has made it clear in his almost five years as CEO that he is continuing founder Jeff Bezos’ practice of constantly innovating, dropping businesses that don’t work without sentimentality and maintaining the so-called “day one” culture of working like you’re in a tech startup (albeit one with a market cap of $2 trillion).

Meanwhile Furner, who like McMillon is a longtime Walmart guy, also has strong innovation chops. For years, he headed Sam’s Club, which serves as a tech incubator of sorts for Walmart. In his more recent job as head of Walmart U.S., Furner was central to making Walmart a much more tech-forward retailer.

One irony of Amazon’s rise is that it has ultimately made Walmart a stronger, much more modern company. Its revenue and market cap are at all time highs, and it has proved itself a worthy competitor. The fear of having Amazon eat its lunch woke Walmart up. But stay tuned: This battle is just getting started. 

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

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CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams, Claire Zillman and Lee Clifford.