Who Started Fortune 500?
The arrival of Carol Loomis at Fortune, in 1954, as the magazine's first female journalist was nothing short of groundbreaking. Before that time, women were relegated to secretarial, research and fact-checking jobs, so Loomis' hiring made big news. Less than a year later, she was chosen to join an editorial team charged with compiling a list of the top-performing U.S. corporations. What came to be known as the Fortune 500 List debuted the year Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were born, and continues to be one of the most eagerly awaited issues of Fortune magazine each year.
The Beginning
In what many found to be an ironic decision, the Time Publishing Group launched a magazine named Fortune months after the stock market crash of 1929. Over time, the publication became known as much for its lists as for the business articles splashed across each issue. During a 1955 editorial meeting called to toss around ideas for upcoming features, an editor suggested helping out staffers by formulating a database of the nation's 500 most financially successful firms. The compilation wasn't conceived for public consumption; rather, it would act as a communal resource so writers and columnists could determine which companies were worth writing about and which ones weren't.
An Experiment Gone Right
At the 1955 editorial meeting, called to discuss the first Fortune 500 List, one editor suggested this radical idea: Why not let readers in on the rankings? The bold, one-time experiment turned into one of the most successful and long-running features in magazine history and gave Fortune magazine enhanced credibility among U.S. financial publications.
Criteria
Criteria for making the list were refined over the years to limit candidates to only those headquartered in the United States. The formula used to calculate the list has always been based on the computation of publicly available financial data. These days, the list focuses on the gross revenue of 500 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies (adjusted for excise taxes), which means that U.S. subsidiaries of nondomestic companies are excluded.
First Fortune 500 List
The first list, published in 1955, consisted of (1) General Motors, (2) Exxon, (3) U.S. Steel, (4) General Electric, (5) Esmark, (6) Chrysler, (7) Armour, (8) Gulf Oil, (9) Mobil, (10) DuPont, (11) Amoco, (12) Bethlehem Steel, (13) CBS, (14) Texaco, (15) AT&T Technologies, (16) Shell Oil, (17) Kraft, (18) Chevron/Texaco, (19) Goodyear Tire & Rubber, (20) Boeing, (21) Sinclair Oil, (22) Navistar International, (23) RCA, (24) Union Carbide and (25) Firestone Tire & Rubber.
Landmarks and Landslides
The oldest company appearing on the Fortune 500 List over the past decade has been the Bank of New York. Only General Motors, WalMart and ExxonMobil have been No. 1 on the list and DuPont is the only American firm appearing on every Fortune 500 List since 1955. That stated, what flows must ebb. Calling 2007 "the worst year in history," Fortune magazine noted that firms on lists published between 2007 and 2009 experienced a collective drop in revenues from $645 billion to only $98.9 billion in profits by 2009. This meant that 38 mainstays fell off the list entirely during the 85 percent collective plunge.
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