Top 20 Most Admired Companies

To create the top 20 for our 25th annual rankings, Fortune and its survey partners at Hay Group asked 3,322 executives, directors, and securities analysts to select the 10 companies they admire most. Having fresh ideas and being green are among the qualities that distinguish this year's winners.

Google
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Google
Top 20 Rank: 8
Rank among: Internet Services and Retailing: 2
The "do no evil" company in 2005 took more than $900 million worth of stock to fund Google.org, bucking the traditional corporate foundation model in favor of something with fewer tax advantages but greater freedom to fund programs like for-profit entrepreneurship efforts in Africa.

And of course, the stock is its own success story. Google debuted on the Nasdaq in April 2004, with stock priced at $85 a share. The price is now about $450.

More: See how Google rates in 8 key areas.


GE

Starbucks

Toyota

Berkshire

Southwest

FedEx

Apple

Google

J&J

P&G

Goldman

Microsoft

Target

3M

Nordstrom

UPS

AmEx

Costco

PepsiCo

Wal-Mart
Full list See how 306 top companies rate in 8 key areas, plus post your thoughts on our Most Admired Companies blog. (more)
Target's fashion statement Here's a look at some of the looks behind Proenza Schouler for Target, no. 13 on America's Most Admired list. (more)
Toyota's all-American ads From Elvis to Beyoncé: How Toyota, no. 3 on Fortune's list of America's Most Admired Companies, keeps rolling. (more)

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.