This is a special edition of The Reader, your weekly round-up of stories you need to know from Fortune editor-in-chief Clifton Leaf.
This week, we published our 2020 list of the Fortune 500. Walmart again grabbed the No. 1 spot, followed by Amazon, which jumped to No. 2. The full 500 earned $14.2 trillion last year—an all-time record—and represent two-thirds of the U.S. economy.
Clifton Leaf
P.S. Please consider becoming a Premium member of Fortune. You’ll not only get to read all of our award-winning reporting and enjoy other benefits of membership, but you’ll also be supporting independent, authoritative journalism during an era when we need it most.
SPECIAL REPORT Fortune 500 2020: Which companies made the list?
Call it the ultimate business scorecard. This marks the 66th edition of our ranking of America’s largest companies. The 500 that made this year’s list boast a total of $14.2 trillion in revenue. Explore the list for a full breakdown of who’s up, who’s down, and why. MUST READ 14 CEOs on how to reopen businesses in the coronavirus economy
We asked 14 Fortune 500 CEOs in an array of industries to share how they’re thinking about next steps. All of them advocate caution. Many are using the moment to focus on fundamentals. And a few see a glimmer of opportunity at an otherwise dreadful moment for humanity.
BY ANDREW NUSCA AND FORTUNE STAFF DON'T MISS Amazon was built for the pandemic—and will likely emerge from it stronger than ever
If you were designing a company from scratch that could capitalize on a global crisis, it would probably look a lot like Amazon. A fearsome operating machine that inspires equal measures of dread and admiration throughout the business world, the $280-billion-in-sales tech behemoth can react with the speed of the nimblest startup when challenged.
BY BRIAN DUMAINE
But the big picture is less encouraging: Even with a record 37 female CEOs, women run just 7.4% of the 500 businesses on the ranking.
BY EMMA HINCHLIFFE
Uber has been forced to undergo a reset even more traumatic than the one that followed the ousting of its mercurial CEO, Travis Kalanick, in 2017 BY ADAM LASHINSKY
Wall Street is predicting a deep drop in profits for virtually every sector of the economy. BY SHAWN TULLY
In a survey, most CEOs say business travel at their company will never return to levels reached before the crisis. BY ALAN MURRAY More stories
This email was sent to newsletter@newslettercollector.com Unsubscribe | Edit your newsletter subscriptions
Did someone share this with you? Subscribe here.
Fortune Media (USA) Corporation 40 Fulton Street New York, NY. 10038 |