Introducing the 2021 Fortune 500 list

The pandemic changed everything about 2020. And the Fortune 500 list is no different. The biggest trend that we really saw come out of the pandemic was, you know, an incredible embrace of digital experiences and digital technology, digital shopping. So big tech tech companies and those providing innovative solutions and convenience. We saw many different industries realizing we need to invest further in technology. You know, people founded their workforces were suddenly needed to work from home, whereas industries that were heavily reliant on travel or foot traffic really suffered. The 14 500 airline industry lost a combined 31 billion in 2020. Led by delta $12 billion dollar loss. Same with hotels, they all took major hits. We saw Hilton Wynn resorts and MGM resorts all fall off the list. One thing that did not change about this year's Fortune 500 list is who's on top wal mart was number one again this year for the ninth straight year, with $559 billion in revenue, which was up nearly 7% from the year before. Just to give you a sense of how big company walmart is. If you combined their revenues from the nine years that they've been number one on the list, it's actually $4.5 trillion. Amazon is number two again this year, their revenues surged 38% to $386 billion. They saw a huge benefit from people shopping online during the pandemic and you know, I think it's pretty clear that they probably have walmart in their sights for the number one slot. Number three on this year's list is Apple, the giant iphone maker, which reported $275 billion in revenue and made more than $50 billion in profit for a third straight year. That made them the most profitable company on this year's Fortune 500. Number four on the list this year is CVS Health. They have been at the forefront of the vaccination effort. Obviously that's been a huge help for public health, but it's also been a great opportunity for the company, which has been able to bring many new customers into their stores. The new Ceo of CVS Health is Karen Lynch and that is the highest ranking company ever on the Fortune 500 to have a female Ceo. So that's a new record this year and at number five is the giant insurer, UnitedHealth Group. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway comes in at number six. Number seven and number eight are to giant drug distributors, McKesson seven and Amerisourcebergen at number eight. Also that cracked the top 10 this year there at number nine on the list and it brought in $183 billion in revenue last year and made over $40 billion in profit. Excellent number 10 this year and that's actually the lowest that the company has ever been on. The Fortune 500. Exxon ended up losing $22 billion last year. Some really interesting newcomers and the list this year. And again, I think for a lot of these companies, what we're seeing is the impact of the pandemic. The top newcomer in that group was rocket companies that number 1 94 and it shot onto the list this year with a huge jump in revenue. The move towards touch with payments really accelerated this year and the big winner there is square chewy dot com. The online pet supply company, jumped onto the list at number 403 this year and that was really in sync with the pandemic Pet boom that we saw. People were shopping for cars online as well in greater numbers than ever. And that boosted Car Vonna, which is an online platform for used car sales, up to number 483 to make its debut, A name that a lot of people will know. Um, but there's a newcomer to our list is chipotle. And in a way that was surprising because, you know, 2020, a very difficult year for restaurant businesses. But chipotle managed to stay open and it's really paid off for them this year. I think this year's list tells us that the trend towards, uh, technology companies, e commerce companies, digital payments companies Is only going to continue. These are businesses that have been rising up the list and I think we're going to see them displace some of the older companies that have been sort of at the top of the list for many years. If you look at the five most valuable companies on the Fortune 500 this year, they're all big tech companies. And the 47 tech companies on the list altogether are worth $9.6 trillion. But the bigger trend of people embracing digital and digital, you know, becoming a bigger part of our everyday economy are here to stay. Mm. Yeah.