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Visualizing How the 50 Largest U.S. Companies are Connected

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How the 50 Largest U.S. Companies are Connected

Visualizing How the 50 Largest U.S. Companies are Connected

For any corporation, the Board of Directors plays a crucial role in corporate governance.

Elected by the company’s shareholders, the board is meant to represent shareholder interests – it ultimately hires the CEO, sets strategic objectives, approves annual budgets, and provides accountability to the shareholders regarding the performance of the organization.

These duties are no cakewalk, and finding capable and experienced board members to help run a multi-billion dollar corporation just isn’t easy.

Corporate Overlap

To locate a qualified candidate, one option is to hire someone that already has experience working on a big corporate board – and because it’s a part-time gig, people can actually be on multiple boards at once.

Today’s data visualization is from Reddit user /r/qwerty2020 and it shows the overlap between boards of the top 50 largest companies in the United States. It reveals that 78% of the multi-billion dollar companies here have at least one board connection with another company on the list.

The Most Connected Companies

Here are the three most connected companies:

3M (7 connections)
The 3M board has 12 members on it, including people like the retired CEOs of Kroger and UPS, and the current CFO of Microsoft.

As for board members in common, there are seven people on 3M’s board that have a connection to one of the other 50 large companies, including: Boeing, Coca-Cola, AbbVie, Proctor & Gamble, Amgen, Chevron, and IBM.

Boeing (6 connections)
Boeing’s board has 13 members, including the CEO and Chairman of Amgen, and Ronald Reagan’s former White House Chief of Staff (Kenneth Duberstein). The former CEO of Allstate and the former CEO of Continental Airlines also serve on the board.

It has six connections to other big U.S. companies through its board, including: 3M, AbbVie, Amgen, Johnson & Johnson, U.S. Bancorp, and AT&T.

Amgen (6 connections)
The large biopharmaceutical company has 13 people on its Board of Directors, including the CEO and Chairman of Phillips 66, the former CEO of Mattel, and a former CFO of Walmart.

In total, it has six people that also serve on other boards: 3M, United Technologies, Apple, Boeing, Chevron, and McDonald’s.

Runners up: (5 connections)
Other highly-connected companies include Walt Disney, Apple, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, IBM, and Procter & Gamble – each has five board members that also serve for other top 50 corporations.

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The 50 Most Valuable Companies in the World in 2023

The world’s 50 most valuable companies represent over $25 trillion in market cap. We break this massive figure down by company and sector.

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The 50 Most Valuable Companies in the World

Market capitalization, or market cap, is one measure of a company’s value as determined by the stock market. It is easily calculated by multiplying the company’s outstanding shares by its current share price.

In this graphic, we present a treemap chart that visualizes the world’s top 50 publicly-traded companies by market cap, using data as of Aug. 16, 2023.

Editor’s note: While market capitalization is a simple way to compare publicly-traded companies, it does have some limitations. Most importantly, it does not include debt or cash in the calculation.

Data and Highlights

All of the data we used to create this graphic is included in the table below.

CompanySectorCountryMarket Cap
(USD billions)
AppleInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$2,777
MicrosoftInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$2,382
Saudi AramcoEnergy🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia$2,222
AlphabetCommunication Services🇺🇸 US$1,636
AmazonConsumer Discretionary🇺🇸 US$1,385
NVIDIAInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$1,074
Berkshire HathawayFinancials🇺🇸 US$774
Meta PlatformsCommunication Services🇺🇸 US$754
TeslaConsumer Discretionary🇺🇸 US$715
Eli LillyHealth Care🇺🇸 US$519
VisaInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$501
TSMCInformation Technology🇹🇼 Taiwan$476
UnitedHealthHealth Care🇺🇸 US$469
Johnson & JohnsonHealth Care🇺🇸 US$448
LVMHConsumer Discretionary🇫🇷 France$442
JPMorgan ChaseFinancials🇺🇸 US$436
Exxon MobilEnergy🇺🇸 US$430
WalmartConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$429
Novo NordiskHealth Care🇩🇰 Denmark$418
TencentCommunication Services🇨🇳 China$389
MastercardInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$374
Procter & GambleConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$361
BroadcomInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$344
SamsungInformation Technology🇰🇷 South Korea$341
Home DepotConsumer Discretionary🇺🇸 US$335
Kweichow MoutaiConsumer Staples🇨🇳 China$319
NestléConsumer Staples🇨🇭 Switzerland$319
OracleInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$313
ChevronEnergy🇺🇸 US$297
MerckHealth Care🇺🇸 US$276
AbbVieHealth Care🇺🇸 US$267
Coca-ColaConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$262
ASMLInformation Technology🇳🇱 Netherlands$258
PepsicoConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$249
CostcoConsumer Staples🇺🇸 US$248
L'OréalConsumer Discretionary🇫🇷 France$244
RocheHealth Care🇨🇭 Switzerland$241
International Holding CompanyFinancials🇦🇪 UAE$240
AdobeInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$235
Bank of AmericaFinancials🇺🇸 US$233
AlibabaConsumer Discretionary🇨🇳 China$228
HermèsConsumer Discretionary🇫🇷 France$227
ToyotaConsumer Discretionary🇯🇵 Japan$220
NovartisHealth Care🇨🇭 Switzerland$216
AstraZenecaHealth Care🇬🇧 UK$216
CiscoInformation Technology🇺🇸 US$216
Reliance IndustriesEnergy🇮🇳 India$213
McDonaldConsumer Discretionary🇺🇸 US$208
Thermo Fisher ScientificHealth Care🇺🇸 US$204
ShellEnergy🇬🇧 UK$204

From this data, we can see that there are only a handful of trillion dollar companies in the world, including Apple, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Amazon, Alphabet, and Nvidia.

Two former members of the trillion dollar club are Meta and Tesla, but both companies currently hover around the $700 billion range in terms of market capitalization. In 2022, Meta lost significant value as its earnings fell, while Tesla suffered from demand concerns.

Altogether, the 50 most valuable companies represent over $26.5 trillion in shareholder value. At a sector level, Information Technology is the most represented in the top 50, with $9.3 trillion in combined market cap. The next biggest sectors are Consumer Discretionary ($4.0 trillion) and Health Care ($3.3 trillion).

Geographical Breakdown

At a geographical level, the majority of the 50 most valuable companies are American. The following chart shows each country’s tally.

Most valuable companies by country

After the U.S., the three most represented countries are Switzerland, France, and China, with three companies apiece.

From Switzerland are companies such as Nestlé, Roche, and Novartis. The latter two are major players in the healthcare industry.

France’s companies in the top 50 list all belong to the Consumer Discretionary sector, and include fashion giants LVMH and Hermès, as well as L’Oréal, a global leader in cosmetics. Earlier this year, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault was officially the richest person in the world with a fortune of $215 billion.

Finally, from the Chinese side are two globally-recognized names in Tencent and Alibaba. China’s third company on this list is Kweichow Moutai, a partially state-owned producer of alcoholic beverages.

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