Berkshire Hathaway lost its perch atop Forbes’ list of America’s Best Companies, skidding to No. 4 on the 2027 edition released Thursday. Amazon advanced to No. 1 from No. 2 for the first tim
Berkshire Hathaway lost its perch atop Forbes’ list of America’s Best Companies, skidding to No. 4 on the 2027 edition released Thursday.
Amazon advanced to No. 1 from No. 2 for the first time.
Apple was second and Nvidia third. Berkshire was fourth and JPMorgan Chase fifth.
The top five on Forbes’ America’s Best Companies 2027 list, published November 12, 2026.
Berkshire was the top performer in the 2026 edition, one spot ahead of Amazon.
Berkshire still scored in the top 10% in eight of Forbes’ scoring pillars. JPMorgan Chase had seven, at No. 5.
Forbes cited Amazon’s financial strength, size, media sentiment and the breadth of voices in the company and among its leadership. Forbes’ feature on the winners says Apple’s second place was due to employee scores, customer loyalty, financial strength and innovation.
Marriott moved up from 22nd to 10th place, scoring in the top 10% for financial strength, brand loyalty and growth potential.
The ranking, in its third year, includes U.S. companies with more than 5,000 employees. Forbes ranked 500 of them using data from 12 partners, including Glassdoor, Dun & Bradstreet and Crunchbase, assessing them on more than 120 metrics across 12 categories.
Forbes said its data window closed in late summer to early fall, before recent news events involving Nvidia.
In a post Thursday, Amazon linked the ranking to pay and benefits for its operations employees. The lowest starting wage for full-time core operations workers in the U.S. is $20 an hour, average pay is close to $24 and total comp is more than $32 when benefits are included.
Amazon also rolled out a lifetime banking benefit through First Tech Federal Credit Union. All U.S. employees receive a 10% discount on eligible groceries on Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market Online, with no cap.
Forbes also mentioned Amazon’s healthcare from day one and 20 weeks of parental leave. Aza, an AI assistant on Amazon’s A to Z employee app, receives more than 10 million questions a month.
Since 2012, more than half a million employees across the world have used Career Choice, Amazon’s pre-paid tuition program.
Amazon said the adoption of Graviton surpassed 130,000 customers as of the second quarter of 2026, a 45% year-over-year increase. Anthropic has pledged to spend more than $100 billion on AWS in the next 10 years, including Trainium and Graviton capacity.
Amazon said it has more than a million robots in its fulfillment network. Its voice-controlled Proteus robot, demoed in London in June, takes orders in plain English, with no code, Cryptopolitan reported.
The upgraded Proteus will be arriving at European sites in the first half of 2027. Amazon intends to invest over €10 billion in upgrading its European fulfillment network in the next few years.
The top ranking comes after some 30,000 job cuts at Amazon in rounds announced in October 2025 and January 2026. In May, Amazon confirmed additional layoffs in its Selling Partner Services division.
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