berkshire hathaway

Fortune Staff

The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

World's Most Admired Companies

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

Global 500

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

Fortune 500

Current All-Star Rank

Industry

Warren Buffett’s legendary company falls a couple of slots, to No. 6 on the Fortune 500—its lowest ranking since 2012—as companies like Amazon ha

Berkshire Hathaway | 2023 World's Most Admired Companies

legacy

Berkshire Hathaway

Sector

Previous All-Star Rank

Industry Rank

Previous Industry Rank

Overall Score

Innovation

People Management

Use of Corporate Assets

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Quality of Management

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Long-Term Investment Value

Quality of Products/Services

Global Competitiveness

Berkshire Hathaway | 2023 World's Most Admired Companies | Fortune

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Here are the companies that have been on the list every year.

The 2023 World's Most Admired Companies list

Franchise_Lists

Here are the companies that have been on the list every year

Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies list for 2023

Watch: Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies list for 2023

[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: The Fortune 500 is a list of the 500 largest US-based public companies by revenue. The revenue threshold for making it on the list this year, $5.7 billion. The total revenue accumulated by companies on the list was $14.2 trillion. Total profits, $1.2 trillion, 7.6% higher than last year. Number one on the list for the eighth straight year is Walmart. JEN WIECZNER: Over the last eight years, where Walmart has been number one on the Fortune 500 list, they've accumulated over $4 trillion in revenue. I mean, they're an industry unto themselves. PHIL WAHBA: Its business in the United States at the Walmart US chain has been booming. Sam's Club has turned around, convincingly. And also, Walmart International has benefited from the company focusing on a few key markets, rather than trying to be present in a greater number of them. SPEAKER: Coming in at number two is Amazon. ANDREW NUSCA: Amazon is called the "everything store," and for good reason. It really does sell everything, and it keeps selling more of everything. Its retail sales, which is the majority of its business, continue to grow. And that is a $67 billion business. SPEAKER: Revenue at the ecommerce giant grew 21%, allowing it to leapfrog Exxon Mobil and Apple. MATT HEIMER: The energy sector as a whole has been suffering for quite a while. And Exxon, as the biggest energy company in the United States, is certainly no exception to that rule. Part of the problem is that for well over a year now, a lot of major oil-producing countries have been pumping out a lot of extra oil, which creates a glut of supply and holds prices down. ANDREW NUSCA: While Amazon is a growth engine that seems to have no limits, Apple is actually seeing the limits of its growth. For years, it was benefiting from fantastic iPhone sales. Those sales are stagnating. The market is saturated for smartphones. And all of its other businesses-- the smart watches and services-- haven't really offset the enormity of the iPhone business. SPEAKER: CVS came in at number 5, up three spots from the previous year. Berkshire Hathaway dropped two spots to number 6. UnitedHealth Group and McKesson both fell one spot to 7 and 8, respectively, while AT&T and AmerisourceBergen held on to spots 9 and 10. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is the most profitable company on the list. MATT HEIMER: The thing that made Berkshire's profits really surge was a huge gain in their investment portfolio. That added something like $54 billion to their total net income. That's not actually realized profits. They didn't sell those stocks and bring that cash in. It's what's called unrealized gains. Essentially, it's an increase in the value of their stock portfolio. SPEAKER: Apple came in second, and Microsoft came in third. 17 companies made their debuts on the Fortune 500 this year, including Uber at number 228, with $14.1 billion in revenue. KRISTEN BELLSTROM: Most people think of Uber as a ridesharing business. That's the core of the company. But for the last few years, we've seen them steadily diversifying and experimenting with other businesses. And the big one for them is Uber Eats. ANDREW NUSCA: The coronavirus pandemic is awful, in a word, for Uber's business. There's a glimmer of hope, and that's its Eats business. Even though people are staying home and not traveling quite nearly as much as they used to, they do want food delivered at home. And so if Uber leans into that, it can probably stem the losses a little bit. SPEAKER: Facebook entered the top 50 for the first time, jumping from 57 to 46, with a 27% gain in revenue. Netflix jumped 33 spots to number 164. JEN WIECZNER: At the end of the year, they had more than 167 million subscribers worldwide. SPEAKER: GE and Boeing each fell 12 spots to their lowest historical rankings on the Fortune 500. KRISTEN BELLSTROM: GE has been struggling for a number of years now. The company is trying to make a turnaround, but they just keep getting hit in different businesses. A bright spot for them, until recently, has been their jet engine business. MATT HEIMER: Boeing has fallen many spots in the Fortune 500 this year, really, because of the fallout from problems with the 737 MAX. Those accidents have essentially led many airlines to suspend their use of the MAX. Airlines stopped taking new deliveries of that plane. SPEAKER: As always, it's hard to predict what next year's list will look like. But with the devastation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 promises to be even harder to predict than usual. ANDREW NUSCA: If your business has strong fundamentals, you're in good shape. If you were teetering on a knife's edge, you're in trouble. PHIL WAHBA: Companies that were good at ecommerce and also having a large fleet of stores will be the winners. JEN WIECZNER: Clearly, the travel sector is going to be really hurt by this pandemic, and probably for a long time. And as a result, oil has also really been hurt even further, even when oil was already cheap. MATT HEIMER: Right now, they have so much oil backed up and stockpiled and in storage that they've had to shut down wells and literally just stop pumping new oil. And even if the economy recovers strongly in the summer and fall, you're still going to see a situation where oil companies are not going to be able to make up for the revenue that they lost this spring. KRISTEN BELLSTROM: One sector that I think is well-positioned is the technology world. We are doing our work online. We are seeing our friends online. We are keeping touch with our family online. Now that we're all living this way, I think that we will continue to to some degree in the future. [MUSIC PLAYING] 

Introducing the 2020 Fortune 500 list

Amazon has taken the number two spot behind Walmart.

Walmart takes the number one spot for the eighth straight year.

Watch: Introducing the 2020 Fortune 500 list

[MUSIC PLAYING] Standing in your shoes today and looking back on your lessons learned, how do you define success? Well, somebody said success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get. One doesn't preclude the other. But I would say when you get to be my age, or even a little younger-- I'm 82-- if the people that you want to have love you, love you, you're a success. You can have all the money in the world, you can to have buildings named after you, hospital wings, whatever it may be, and unless you've got people that really care about you, you are not a success. And not everybody is going to make a fortune. Not everybody is going to be on football teams or whatever it may be. But if your children, the people you've worked with-- if those people love you after they've seen you in action for many, many years, you're a success. Thank you. I love that. That's beautiful. There was a woman I knew some years back here in Omaha. Her name was Bella Eisenberg. She was in a concentration camp after World War II, a Polish Jew. And she looked at me one day not too many years before she died, and she said, I'm very slow to make friends, Warren. Because when I look at someone, I say to myself, would they hide me? And if you get to be 70 or 75 and you have a lot of people who would hide you, you are a success. Wow. And if nobody cares about you, I don't care how much money you have, and how many medals you have or something of the sort, you are not a success. 

Insights: How Warren Buffett Defines Success

Uncategorized

True success only comes when you're loved.

How Warren Buffett Defines Success

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett says that true success only comes when those around you love and care about you. (April 2014)

standing in your shoes today and looking back on your lessons learned How do you define success? Well, somebody said successes, getting what you want happiness is wanting what you get. That one doesn't preclude the other. But I would say when you get to be my age or even little younger, I'm 82. Uh, if people the people that you want to have love you, love you, you're a success. Uh, you can have all the money in the world. You're gonna have buildings named after you hospital wing, whoever it may be. And the most people, uh, people that really care about you, you are not a success. And, uh, not everybody's going to make a fortune. Not everybody's gonna, you know, be on football teams or whatever it may be. But if your Children the people you've worked with, those people love you, Uh, after they've seen you in action for many, many years, years success. Thank you. I love that I It was a woman I knew some years back here in Omaha. Our name was Belle Eisenberg. She was in a concentration camp after World War told police you and she looked at me one day, not too many years before she died. And she said, I'm very slow to make friends, Warren, because when I look at someone, I say to myself, would they hide me? And if you get to be 70 or 75 you have a lot of people who would hide you, you are a success. And if you want, if they nobody cares about you, you know I don't care how much money I have, how many medals or something of the sort You were not a success.

[MUSIC PLAYING] So, Charlie, where did this thinking about investing-- that you don't buy cheap bargains, but you look for really good companies-- come from? Well, I have a habit in life, which is I look at it, and I observe what works and what doesn't. And I'd seen so many idiots get rich in easy business. So, naturally, I wanted to be in an easier business. It was very interesting to me, when I first met Charlie, he had a number of clients. His father had a number of clients. And he had thought about the businesses of each one of those clients probably in a much more perceptive way than most of them had thought about them themselves. I mean, he was incapable of not thinking through what the realities of the situation were, and what could be done about it. And he just analyzed things. What would work, and what wouldn't, and why. It's so simple. So what are a couple of those early investments that were reflective of this new philosophy of buying really good companies? Well, in terms of stocks, something like American Express would have been. They'd gotten in some trouble, but it was a wonderful business. And there were some others. In terms of buying the entire business, I probably didn't realize what a wonderful business our first insurance purchase was. But I know it was a good business. The first real business we bought that way was See's Candy. I mean, it was really an outstanding business. And I still had enough elements from my past that I really didn't want to pay the last few million dollars, and sure-- Few million? You didn't want to pay the last $25,000. Charlie reminded me that I was slipping back into the Stone Age again, and got me to move. So let's talk a little bit about your philosophy of managing companies. Berkshire Hathaway does not buy companies that have bad managers, right? Which is a little bit unusual. I mean, a lot of people like to buy good companies with bad managers, and then replace them. We tried it. You don't do that? We tried it with predictable results. And life is so much more fun this way too. I mean, who wants to spend their life trying to change people from their natural approach to life? If you want to ruin your life, spend it trying to change your spouse. Yeah. It's really stupid. Yeah. Marrying somebody to change them is crazy, and I would say hiring somebody to change them is just as crazy. And becoming partners with them to change them is crazy. Warren always used a phrase I really liked. He said, we make silk purses out of silk. Yeah, forget the sow's ears. We don't know how to make silk purses out of sow's ears. Never will. 

Insights: What Buffett Learned from Munger

Charlie Munger analyzes businesses thoroughly.

What Buffett Learned from Munger

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett talks about how his business partner Charlie Munger analyzes business more thoroughly than most investors. (April 2014)

So, Charlie, where did this thinking about investing That you don't buy cheap bargains. But you look for really good companies. Well, is it from I have a habit in life, which is I look at it and I observe what works and what doesn't. I've seen so many idiots get rich and easy business. Naturally, I wanted to be an easier bit. Charlie is very interesting to me. When I first met Charlie, he has a number of clients. Father had a number of clients and he had thought about the businesses of each one of those clients, probably in a much more perceptive way than most of them thought about themselves. I mean, it was incapable of not thinking through what the realities of the situation were. You know what could be done about it. And he just analyzed what would work in what wouldn't then why it's so simple. So what are a couple of those early investments that were reflective of this new philosophy of buying really good Cos Well, in terms of in terms of stocks in something like American Express would have been that I've gotten in trouble, but it was a wonderful business and there were some others in terms of buying the entire business. Uh, I probably didn't realize how what a wonderful business. Our first insurance purchased Woz. But I know it was a good business. The first real business we bought that way with See's candy. I mean, it was really an upstanding business, and and I still have enough almost from my past that I really didn't want to pay the last a few $1,000,000. And you mean you didn't want to pay the last 25,000? And Charlie reminded me that I was slipping back in the end of the Stone Age again and got me to move. So let's talk a little bit about your philosophy of managing Cos um, you don't Berkshire Hathaway does not buy companies that have bad managers right, which is a little bit unusual. I mean, a lot of a lot of people like to buy good companies with bad managers and then replace them. We tried, I don't do that. We tried and with predictable results and life is so much more fun this way to what's spend their lives trying to change people from their natural approaches. You want to ruin your life. Changed right to spend that dream that changers Wells. Yeah. It's really stupid. Yeah, you know, it's very somebody to change him is crazy. And I would say hiring somebody to change This is crazy. Yeah. On becoming partners with him changing this crazy warm had always used a phrase I really like you said we make silk versus out of silk. Forget the hausers. We don't know how to make so first, you never will.

Berkshire Hathaway

Company Information

World's Most Admired Companies
As of 2/1/2023

Berkshire Hathaway

Company Information

World's Most Admired CompaniesAs of 2/1/2023

World's Most Admired Companies
As of 2/1/2023