I’ve never been a fan of the Fortune 500 list. It’s considered a weighty honor for companies and a proxy for their credibility. But, after all, it’s only a list of the companies that sell the most stuff. So what?
If you look at this year’s list, you’ll see that 66 of these 500 companies—13%!!—lost money in 2003. I’ll bet every one of them brags about being “A Fortune 500 Company.”