The corporations on our annual list posted aggregate revenues of $41 trillion for the second year in a row.

Fortune Global 500

Industries included in the sector are computers, internet services, IT services, semiconductors, and software companies.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Technology

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

Fortune 500

The 200 companies on this list are transforming industries from the inside out.

America's Most Innovative Companies

The 26th edition of the list shows how much esteem Big Tech giants command among other business leaders.

WMA 2024-Apple

World's Most Admired Companies

The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

WMAC 2023-Apple

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

G500-2023-Apple

<span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The maker of personal computers, tablets, and other devices derived particularly strong gains from its smartphones and entertainment products. Apple brought in $99.8 billion in profit last year, a record for a U.S. Fortune 500 company.\n\n–The iPhone 14 lineup drew consumers after its September 2022 release, contributing to Apple’s 1.5% year-on-year growth in iPhone sales.\n–Streaming offerings including Apple Music and Apple TV+ also drove revenue growth, as services sales hit a record of $20.9 billion in the first three months of 2023.\n–Apple has been eyeing India, where it opened its first store in April 2023, as a market to propel iPhone sales and provide a manufacturing boost.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:771,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:16770457},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0}">The maker of personal computers, tablets, and other devices derived particularly strong gains from its smartphones and entertainment products. Apple brought in $99.8 billion in profit last year, a record for a U.S. Fortune 500 company. 
<ul> 
 	<li><span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The maker of personal computers, tablets, and other devices derived particularly strong gains from its smartphones and entertainment products. Apple brought in $99.8 billion in profit last year, a record for a U.S. Fortune 500 company.\n\n–The iPhone 14 lineup drew consumers after its September 2022 release, contributing to Apple’s 1.5% year-on-year growth in iPhone sales.\n–Streaming offerings including Apple Music and Apple TV+ also drove revenue growth, as services sales hit a record of $20.9 billion in the first three months of 2023.\n–Apple has been eyeing India, where it opened its first store in April 2023, as a market to propel iPhone sales and provide a manufacturing boost.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:771,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:16770457},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0}">The iPhone 14 lineup drew consumers after its September 2022 release, contributing to Apple’s 1.5% year-on-year growth in iPhone sales.</li> 
 	<li><span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The maker of personal computers, tablets, and other devices derived particularly strong gains from its smartphones and entertainment products. Apple brought in $99.8 billion in profit last year, a record for a U.S. Fortune 500 company.\n\n–The iPhone 14 lineup drew consumers after its September 2022 release, contributing to Apple’s 1.5% year-on-year growth in iPhone sales.\n–Streaming offerings including Apple Music and Apple TV+ also drove revenue growth, as services sales hit a record of $20.9 billion in the first three months of 2023.\n–Apple has been eyeing India, where it opened its first store in April 2023, as a market to propel iPhone sales and provide a manufacturing boost.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:771,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:16770457},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0}">Streaming offerings including Apple Music and Apple TV+ also drove revenue growth, as services sales hit a record of $20.9 billion in the first three months of 2023.</li> 
 	<li><span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The maker of personal computers, tablets, and other devices derived particularly strong gains from its smartphones and entertainment products. Apple brought in $99.8 billion in profit last year, a record for a U.S. Fortune 500 company.\n\n–The iPhone 14 lineup drew consumers after its September 2022 release, contributing to Apple’s 1.5% year-on-year growth in iPhone sales.\n–Streaming offerings including Apple Music and Apple TV+ also drove revenue growth, as services sales hit a record of $20.9 billion in the first three months of 2023.\n–Apple has been eyeing India, where it opened its first store in April 2023, as a market to propel iPhone sales and provide a manufacturing boost.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:771,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:16770457},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0}">Apple has been eyeing India, where it opened its first store in April 2023, as a market to propel iPhone sales and provide a manufacturing boost.</li> 
</ul>

The 300 companies on this list are transforming industries from the inside out.

The companies on this list are mobilizing the creative tools of capitalism to help solve social problems.

CTW-2023-Apple_Carbon_Neutral_infographic

The eighth-biggest company in the world by revenue is rapidly going back to the basics of sustainability—reduce, reuse, and recycle. In recent years, Apple has made it a priority to build out its environmental efforts, from reducing the plastic in its packaging to developing robots that better recover materials from discarded electronics. It plans for every product it makes to be carbon-neutral by 2030. Last year, 20% of materials in Apple products were from recycled or renewable sources, and the company intends to eventually reach 100%. The company recently announced its first-ever carbon-neutral Apple Watch and discontinued the use of leather in its product lines. Since 2015, the iPhone maker has cut emissions by more than 45% while its revenue increased by 68%, and its corporate operations are fully carbon-neutral.

Change the World

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

F500 2023-Apple

The maker of personal computers, tablets, and other devices saw particularly strong gains with its smartphones and entertainment products this year. Apple brought in a Fortune 500 record $99.8 billion in profit last year, and is the most profitable company on the list for the eighth time in nine years. 
<ul> 
 	<li>The iPhone 14 lineup drew consumers after its September 2022 release, contributing to Apple’s 1.5% year-on-year growth in iPhone sales.</li> 
 	<li>Streaming offerings including Apple Music and Apple TV+ also drove revenue growth, as services sales hit a record of $20.9 billion in the first three months of 2023.</li> 
 	<li>Apple has been eyeing India, where it opened its first store in April 2023, as a market to propel iPhone sales and provide a manufacturing boost.</li> 
</ul>

Just as it dominates our economy, Big Tech now dominates Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation.

WMAC-2022-01-Apple

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

G500 2022-07-Apple

Despite facing global setbacks, Apple hit multiple positive milestones in 2021. After many of its factories and those of its suppliers were shut down in China owing to COVID, Apple was forced to rethink its supply chain. The global chip shortage added further pressure, costing Apple billions in revenue. But after the company switched to designing more chip components in-house, sales picked up. And Apple finished the year with a gargantuan $94 billion in profits—outperforming every other U.S. company on that front. Apple also gained significant market share in the U.S. personal computing market with its Mac lineup, bringing in a record $37.4 billion in sales. In entertainment, the company made headlines at the Oscars after Apple TV+ became the first streaming service to win the coveted Best Picture award, for its coming-of-age drama CODA. Apple remained the big dog of the Trillion-Dollar Club, too: Its market valuation briefly topped $3 trillion in January 2022, though by August it had receded to a mere $2.4 trillion—still higher than any other publicly traded company. Not everything was rosy for CEO Tim Cook: In early 2022, he faced considerable employee backlash for receiving a hefty $99 million pay package in 2021, and the company has been forced to delay its return-to-office plans.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

F500 2022 Apple

Despite facing global setbacks, Apple hit multiple positive milestones in 2021. After many of its factories and those of its suppliers were shut down in China owing to COVID, Apple was forced to rethink its supply chain. The global chip shortage added further pressure, costing Apple billions in revenue. But after the company switched to designing more chip components in-house, sales picked up. And Apple finished the year with a gargantuan $94 billion in profits—outperforming every other U.S. company on that front. Apple also gained significant market share in the U.S. personal computing market with its Mac lineup, bringing in a record $37.4 billion in sales. In entertainment, the company made headlines at the Oscars after Apple TV+ became the first streaming service to win the coveted Best Picture award, for its coming-of-age drama CODA. Apple remained the big dog of the Trillion Dollar Club, too: Its market valuation briefly topped $3 trillion in January 2022, though by May it had receded to a mere $2.7 trillion—still higher than any other publicly traded company. Not everything was rosy for CEO Tim Cook: In early 2022, he faced considerable employee backlash for his hefty $99 million pay package in 2021, and many Apple staff were disgruntled with the company’s return-to-office plans.

After a year in which humanity leaned more heavily than ever on tech giants, see which companies topped Fortune's ranking of corporate reputation.

WMAC 2021-01-Apple

Total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year—the first decline in half a decade.

G500-2021-006-Apple

The pandemic created challenges and opportunities for Apple. CEO Tim Cook had to close stores and send home engineers. But with Apple customers worldwide working and learning from home, iPad and Macintosh computer sales skyrocketed to their highest levels ever. And fiscal-year revenue hit an all-time record too, of $275 billion. That helped Apple’s stock price soar; it gained 80.7% in 2020. As that year wound down, regulators fixed their sights on Apple for potentially abusing its power over the iOS app store. A House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee report in October concluded that Apple “exerts monopoly power” in its app store to harm competition and increase prices for consumers. Meanwhile, testimony in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Fortnite developer Epic Games will likely increase pressure on legislators to limit Apple’s power.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-03-Apple

For an astounding 13th straight year, Apple claims the top spot in Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a survey of almost 3,800 executives, directors, and analysts.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $33.3 trillion in revenues and $2.1 trillion in profits.

G500-2020-012-Apple

Mighty Apple dipped a smidge in 2019, down 2% to $260 billion in sales. The computer and phone maker’s ability to make money cushioned the blow. Apple earned $55 billion. Three categories tell the story of Apple’s sales doldrums. iPhone sales, 55% of Apple’s total, fell 14%. Increases in sales of services like streaming and subscriptions, 18% of the total, grew 16%. And wearables (AirPods and Watches) and other non-phone accessories (iPods, HomePods, and Beats products) leapt 41%, but account for only 9% of the pie.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-004-Apple

Mighty Apple dipped a smidge in 2019, both in terms of sales, down 2% to $260 billion, and in its ranking, from No. 3 to No. 4. The computer and phone maker’s ability to make money cushioned the blow. Apple earned $55 billion. Three categories tell the story of Apple’s sales doldrums. iPhone sales, 55% of Apple’s total, fell 14%. Increases in sales of services like streaming and subscriptions, 18% of the total, grew 16%. And wearables (AirPods and Watches) and other non-phone accessories (iPods, HomePods, and Beats products) leapt 41%, but account for only 9% of the pie.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2019 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.7 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

These 52 companies from across the globe are doing well by doing good.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2018 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

Here’s our look at 57 companies that do well by doing good.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2017 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

Here’s our look at 50 companies that do well by doing good.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2016 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.6 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

Business insiders have spoken: Asked which companies they most admire, more than 4,100 executives, directors, and analysts chose these top 50 All-Stars.

The world's 500 largest companies generated $31.2 trillion in revenues and $1.7 trillion in profits in 2014. Together, this year's Fortune Global 500 employ 65 million people worldwide and are represented by 36 countries.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Shale rules! That’s the lesson of the latest edition of our annual list of public companies with the most stellar three-year profit, revenue, and stock growth. 

100 Fastest-Growing Companies

Location

Industry

Sector

Change The World

Impact Segment

Current All-Star Rank

Previous All-Star Rank

Industry Rank

Previous Industry Rank

Overall Score

Innovation

People Management

Use of Corporate Assets

Social Responsibility

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Apple designs, manufactures, and sells smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories. Its best-known products include the iPhone, the Mac line of personal computers, iPad tablets, and accessories like the Air Pods and the AppleWatch. The company’s services include Apple Music, which offers on-demand radio stations; Apple News+, a subscription news and magazine service; the streaming service Apple TV+t; and Apple Pay, a cashless payment service. Apple also distributes third-party applications for its products through its App Store.

Apple (AAPL): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Apple

apple

Apple designs, manufactures, and sells smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories. Its best-known products include the iPhone, the Mac line of personal computers, iPad tablets, and accessories like the Air Pods and the AppleWatch. The company’s services include Apple Music, which offers on-demand radio stations; Apple News+, a subscription news and magazine service; the streaming service Apple TV+t; and Apple Pay, a cashless payment service. Apple also distributes third-party applications for its products through its App Store.

Apple (AAPL): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Andrew Nusca

China evaluates sale of TikTok U.S. to Elon Musk, report says

/2025/01/14/china-evaluates-sale-of-tiktok-u-s-to-elon-musk-report-says/

Supreme Court likely to uphold TikTok ban, favoring security over speech

/2025/01/13/supreme-court-likely-to-uphold-tiktok-ban-favoring-security-over-speech/

Oliver Devos

Bloomberg

Billion pound lawsuit in U.K. trial set to determine whether Apple abused app store dominance

/europe/2025/01/13/billion-pound-lawsuit-uk-trial-apple/

Stuart Dyos

Mark Zuckerberg slams Apple on innovation during Joe Rogan podcast — ‘They haven’t invented anything great in a while’

/2025/01/11/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-podcast-apple-innovation-iphone-sales-third-party-developers/

Apple CEO pay rises 18%; company opposes anti-diversity measure

/2025/01/11/apple-ceo-tim-cook-pay-compensation-stock-award-salary-increase-anti-diversity-measure/

Mark Zuckerberg slams Apple on innovation during Joe Rogan podcast — 'They haven't invented anything great in a while'

https://fortune.com/2025/01/11/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-podcast-apple-innovation-iphone-sales-third-party-developers/?itm_source=parsely-api

https://fortune.com/2025/01/11/apple-ceo-tim-cook-pay-compensation-stock-award-salary-increase-anti-diversity-measure/?itm_source=parsely-api

Sydney Lake

Steve Jobs adopted a no ‘bozos' policy and said the best managers are those who never wanted the job—here are his 3 best management tips

https://fortune.com/article/steve-jobs-management-quotes-advice-apple/?itm_source=parsely-api

https://fortune.com/2025/01/14/china-evaluates-sale-of-tiktok-u-s-to-elon-musk-report-says/?itm_source=parsely-api

Sheryl Estrada

Apple's new chief financial officer will use the same 'CFO playbook' say top analysts—and that's good news for investors

https://fortune.com/2025/01/07/apple-chief-financial-officer-cfo-playbook-top-analysts-good-news-investors/?itm_source=parsely-api

Paolo Confino

NFL legend Rob Gronkowski’s best-ever investment: $69,000 worth of Apple stock he bought on advice from his contractor

https://fortune.com/2024/11/26/rob-gronkowski-net-worth-apple-stock/?itm_source=parsely-api

https://fortune.com/2025/01/13/supreme-court-likely-to-uphold-tiktok-ban-favoring-security-over-speech/?itm_source=parsely-api

Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez

Protecting a billionaire CEO costs millions. Here’s how the world’s biggest companies measure up

https://fortune.com/article/billionaire-ceos-security-costs-united-healthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-meta-tesla-apple-nvidia-google/?itm_source=parsely-api

Fortune Next to Lead editor Ruth Umoh sits down with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.

Airbnb CEO says chief executives should pick favorites

Uncategorized

Who's your favorite at airbnb right now? Favorite? What you said you pick favorites. Who's your, who's your number one? Oh, I have so many favorites. That's such a political answer. That's a politician's answer. I mean, I don't even know if I have a single favorite. You've repeatedly said you tried to emulate how Steve Jobs ran Apple. He had a predilection for hosting about 100 of the most important people at Apple and those selected were hierarchy. Agnostic. Would you ever replicate this at Airbnb? I did and I do it twice a year. You do? I don't call it top 100. OK. Um You know, why is that? Well, I think top 100 quite literally means these are the most important 100 people in the company at most companies. There'd be a protest if the CEO picked people because they would be considered their favorites and it would be considered unfair and not systematic. And I think ultimately the CEO should have favorites. The favorites have to be unfair criteria. But if you can't have favorites, if you can't say this is a high performer and this is what excellence looks like, then you're going to be in big, big trouble. That is just not good leadership. Now, it can be fair criteria. You can have people making sure there's not unconscious bias. People keeping you honest looking for disparate impact inside the organization. You can do a lot of surveys and you can use that to reinforce your assumptions. But the notion that a CEO should not have discretion in decision making of who should be in a room like the President States would pick. We should pick too. It depends, doesn't matter what level you're at.

Fortune’s inaugural list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business includes agile disruptors, name brand titans, Fortune 500 CEOs, and behind the scenes power players. They span 40 industries and 17 countries, and together represent the world’s most influential business leaders.

Fortune’s 100 Most Powerful People in Business 2024

Franchise_Lists

Fortune’s inaugural list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business includes agile disruptors, name brand titans, Fortune 500 CEOs, and behind the scenes power players.

The words that I use with them was only if not us, then who it's our destiny to try to, to make the difference. I was telling some of my mother's stories in the green room which were hilarious. But I think in work, her number one lesson was make myself indispensable. So we said, make it so you couldn't lose your job that everyone would want to work with you. There's this notion that power is zero sum, either I have the power or the employees of power. There's a scenario where we're all powerless. It's called a lot of Fortune five insurance companies. There's also a scenario where I have power and I give that power to you. It's not zero sum. You know, it's important as leadership teams to be able to both zoom out and zoom in, in the sense of what you're going to drive today. But how you think about the future today, it's about authenticity. And if you aren't in touch with the people that you're needing, you don't deserve to leave them, you haven't earned the right because it's easy to talk about your values when everything is going well. If you truly demonstrate them as you go through a crisis. That's when your employee base knows, hey, they mean this and one of the things I talk about all the time is we're going to do the right thing. Even when it's hard for Apple, we've always been about changing the world. It became clear to me some number of years ago that you don't do that by staying quiet. Trump is very enthusiastic about deregulation just which does not say we don't want any regulation. We just want sensible regulation. I feel like America is like, like gulliver, you know, tied down by a million little strings and, and we need to cut those strings and free the giant.

Experts share how technologies like stem cell therapy, gene therapy, and plasma exchange might extend the human life span to 120-150 years.

Can Humans Live to 150?

Health

So with the technology that we are having right now, for our entire humanity, we believe that human can live up to 100 and 20 years old, to 100 and 50 years old or who are bored by this moment with IP S CS plasma exchange peptide gene therapy. There are so many exciting technologies now for humanity to be able to extend not only the health plan but also the life span. So we are believing with the extension of the health, we will be able to solve disease one by one. But at the same time, really able to be extending the health plan. So people can live longer. But also at the same time, healthier. People always ask, what is the best way to extending their health and live healthier better? Well, it really comes down to the four real pillar of your life. Eat well, sleep for at least eight hours. Behave well, do exercise at least three times per week and also behave mentally. So take care of your brain and be mentally positive that's solving 80% of the problem. And we can go to extreme like doing stem cells, doing plasma dilutions, doing anything that's with the technology that can extend even more. One thing that almost all people can do today to promote their lifespan 20 to 60 minutes of aerobic activity a day. There are really strong data to show that even very small levels of very moderate activity significantly impact health outcomes. I think we're really focused culturally and a lot of the efforts that I see on the longevity piece and on trying to be young forever instead of really maximizing an optimal life at every age. And acknowledging that there are limitations at every age too. And hopefully we can change some of those. So I think in longevity is really, there's a spectrum of interventions that you could follow. And we're very much at the clinical uh medical end of that spectrum. So we help our patients really who come in and get scanned every year or two, just understand how the way they're living their life is impacting the underlying physiology of their body. And by providing them with that information, we are able to empower them to intervene early. And that intervention may be sometimes to obtain medical treatment early. Other times, it might be just to make an adjustment to lifestyle and those two things together that can really make a huge impact on the trajectory of one's health. I think one little known fact about longevity is that women who enter menopause later tend to live longer. And the converse is also true. And one thing that's cool is this has actually been demonstrated experimentally in a way where if you take an ovary out of a young mouse and transplant that into an older mouse, you can actually see lifespan extension in that older animal by to 11% with the effect size proportionate to the relative use of the ovary transplant. So this really underscores that ovaries and ovarian function are, are really inherently linked with longevity of the host of that ovary. And I think this really can drive home for women. You know, we think of ovaries as being essential for fertility and they're, they are, but they're important beyond that. I mean, their, their function is essential for cardiovascular health, for immune function, for sexual health or sleep, uh for brain function, for cognitive health uh mood. I think, you know, one thing that I think is important to say as it relates to health and longevity is, is is women really recognizing that and doing what they can to support their ovarian health. What I'm very excited about is there's so much more data than there was a decade or two ago. We now are able to do routine blood tests every few months. We can measure the uh age of ourselves using epigenetic techniques at provo, we're starting to really understand through having imaged so many people, what a normal organ, be it the brain or the liver looks like for someone of a certain age and then we can start to look at each individual and say, well, how are you tracking which organs are, are you doing well for your age and which organs do perhaps you need to focus on? So this data I believe is so valuable to individuals who otherwise are sort of just moving through life, not really knowing or having a lot of feedback about what's going on under the skin and through this data, hopefully we'll live a more positive uh and healthy life. As a result, I am excited about some of the technology that's giving more power to the user, like the wearables that we have the diagnostic technology that's coming out so that we can better understand our own health at a more granular level. And I think there's a very important place for doctors, but I think that especially in the community of folks, you know, that are in this kind of room and, and the communities that we run in there is a greater advocacy at the individual level for what a person can and will do for their own health. And I think ultimately, it is up to the individual to have a good healthy lifestyle. I mean, I think being able to have, you know, some of the stuff like the Apple watches and some of the very cool, I think VR based technology that's coming for mental health and, and some of the things coming down the line for, you know, being able to do ultrasounds, whether it's for treatments focused ultrasound or being able to replace like mammograms for breast exams. To understand if women have breast cancer, using some of the technology that's being developed for a more noninvasive methodology for that, I think is really cool to allow us to have a more preventative lens and understand our health ballistically and be able to intervene ideally with cheap and effective lifestyle transitions that can prevent the onset of diseases. Right now, we have already arrived into health care 3.0 which is we are focusing on prevention rather than being very reactive after solving the problem when we have the disease in our own body. So healthcare 2.0 is sicker. You only go to doctors when you are having disease. The healthcare 3.0 which is right now is health care. That means we are caring about our health and who is having the most information should be yourself? Because you are the one who is understanding what is the lifestyle, how are you behaving? What medicine will cause side effect to you? What is the dosage effect? How many caffeine will make you starting to shake all of these? Your doctor doesn't know because all of these is more focusing on health rather than disease or sick. Why we are encouraging people to do diagnostic test is because this is the launch pad for you to actually start your own health journey to have the power back to you and responsibility and rights being healthy, back to you to able to start the journey of the health.

Murati sat down with editor-at-large Michal Lev-Ram at a Fortune MPW dinner in San Francisco to discuss the Apple partnership, new CFO Sarah Friar, customer trust and safety, how she found her love for AI, and more.

OpenAI CTO Mira Murati responds to Elon Musk calling Apple partnership ‘creepy spyware’

Tech

Murati sat down with editor-at-large Michal Lev-Ram at a Fortune MPW dinner in San Francisco to discuss the Apple partnership, and more.

Mira, thank you for being here with us. I know you must be a little bit busy. Um So I have like a gazillion questions for Mira, but we have 20 minutes. So I just wanna set everybody's expectations. We're going to stick to a few topics including um some uh recent news and some areas that Mira oversees as, as CTO. Um And hopefully we can dive into some of those. Um I think my, my first question for you actually is just given how insanely busy and given the barrage of news that, you know, some good, some bad. Um You joined around six years ago, I think um at that time, it was a very different organization. You were relatively speaking, kind of, you know, under the uh off the radar. Um Do you ever miss those days of being able to be head down and doing the work? I mean, we're still very much heads down doing the work. It's just that the work has evolved. Uh And it's not just about the research is also now that, you know, research has progressed so far, it's also about figuring out how do we bring this into the world in a way that's helpful and safe. Um So the mission remains the same, but we made a lot of progress on research and the work has extended. Um And yes, there is a lot of public attention on it as well. Um, which can feel unusual when you're working on technology and building products. Um But, you know, it's also very much necessary given the importance of what we're doing and is good. OK. Um Let's go back even further. Um For those who don't know your trajectory, um give us kind of the, the, the, the highlights I know you grew up in Albania at a time when even uh decent access to the internet wasn't a given. How did your interest in A I start? And what do we need to know about? What led you to your current role? I've always been interested in math and physics. And so my, my background uh is very much math heavy. And uh I went on to study engineering work in aerospace and then in automotive at Tesla. And that sort of, that's where I started to get more and more interested in applications of A I in the real world through self-driving cars. Um And then I went on to apply A I and computer vision and um um applications of virtual reality and augmented reality sort of trying to understand how do you create a new interface where you interact with information in a more natural way more intuitive. Um And that's, that's sort of where I was pushing the applications of A I in the real world in different domains. Um And then, you know, thought about how do I, how do I learn a lot about A I? And um at the time I was considering, you know, um applications of A I in different domains and thought ultimately what I wanted to do the most was learn about general artificial intelligence and really diving deep into research. Um And then from there understanding what, what we could do with it in the real world. Um And I was really attracted to open mission, uh which is, you know, at the time opening, I was a nonprofit and now we're a cap profit, but the mission is still the same. Uh If the company B and OK, um I wanna get into some of the, the latest news and again, there's, there's a lot. Um but um I know Maram mentioned Sarah Fryar. Um you hired on just yesterday, the company announced that you have a new um chief product officer and um CFO. And um I think probably a lot of the women in this room are familiar with Sarah. Um She is a seasoned uh public company executive, both, you know, former CEO and CFO. And I feel like it's kind of like when you get married and the next day someone asks you, when are you gonna have kids? Uh this is like you hire a seasoned publicly public company executive. And the next day people ask you, does it, what should we be reading into this as an IP O in the, in the midst, what, how should we be uh deciphering these hires? What does it mean for the company? What it really means is that we're, you know, in this next phase of the company where we're serving hundreds millions of users and developers and companies out there. And, you know, we need to have the most competent and best executives, helping us to grow in this next phase of the company. And we're very excited about Sarah and Kevin and the skills and uh the leadership they bring into the company. OK. Um I had a feeling you wouldn't say anything about the IP O. Um So I want to talk about um the news with Apple. Um I'm guessing everybody saw this or you wouldn't live in this area. Um um But so I help us like unpack a little bit. Um you know, from a technology perspective, just how differentiated and significant this is. Um I know Apple and this is Apple, not open is, but Apple referred to it as the most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud A I compute at scale. Um First of all, do you, do you agree with that for this integration um with Apple Intelligence and again, just help us understand what's going on behind the scenes that theoretically makes it so private and secure. Um Well, so the partnership with Apple is we're super excited about it because it's such a great opportunity for us to bring our technology to as many people out there as possible in a very seamless way where, you know, they don't have to switch devices, they can interact with, you know, the technology comes to you in the best way possible and safest way possible. Um And the partnership with Apple is very aligned, we care very deeply about privacy and safety of our products. Um and how we develop the technology and how we ultimately deploy it. So that's very much um we're very much in alignment and it's, it's going to push us forward in a better direction. Um So Apple obviously is, you know, has been known for uh taking a privacy and, and, you know, secure approach um to roll out. Do you think that for people who have anxiety about interacting with gen A I products, not just chat GP T, do you think that this kind of helps uh uh you know, push in that general direction of more trust? Ultimately, we have to do a lot to build um trust around A I in general, right? There are so many aspects to it. Um And I think this partnership is uh hopefully, you know, something that, that moves the needle in the right direction as we bring A I into so many products and different integrations. And um specifically with our partnership, you know, people can log into charge GP T or through their Apple account. And we have, um, you know, the, the product policies that apply to either Cha GP T or Apple. Um But, you know, we both strongly believe in privacy and safety of the products. Um We will not be logging information through the um Apple accounts. Um But you know, when people log in on CHA GP T, then we will be, we will be, and, and, and you know, they have not specifically opted out from us being able to uh look at the data. Then in that case, I in in those cases, we will um we will be looking at the data and when people have specifically opted out, then we will not be looking at the data more broadly. We do not train on uh any customer data in general um or you know, other or, or data where people have, have specifically opted out. And by the way, does, on that note, the fact that the models can't train on the da user data um of of Apple os users. Um I mean is that a downside here uh to pushing forward the ability for these models to keep training and that's a lot of data. Um I'm look the the reality is that we have to do the right thing for the users. And it's very important that people are trusting the technologies and the products in which they're deployed. And it's important for people to have control over their data, how it's used and very, very important for them to understand how it's used and where it's used. Um So that comes first and that's a priority regardless of the impact that it has in how, how much, how much it drives the technology forward or, and all. So you're gonna have to forgive me because I'm gonna quote Elon Musk. Um I'm sorry, but uh but he is one person that has, is, is not uh in agreement with this being a model for privacy and security. He called the integration creepy spyware. What's your response to that? Huh. Don't care. That's, that's his opinion. I, I mean, I'm not, yeah, I uh obviously, I don't think so. We don't think so. Uh And we care deeply about the privacy of our users and about the safety of our products and how we're developing and deploy this technology. Um Our track record in deploying the technology safely is very strong. We've done that with G BT 34. We're doing the same thing with 40, right now, and we're trying to be as transparent as possible with the public and communicate how we're making decisions with a preparedness framework that shares how we think about frontier models and our approach to safety there. Um And we will continue to be transparent through the preparedness framework through things like the spec where I don't think anyone else has such a developed and transparent framework for what happens with model behavior. Um It's, you know, from the high level rules all the way to very technical decisions and how complex they are. Uh We're sharing that with, with the public and we're providing an opportunity for people to provide input. And we're also working on um a lot of experimental ways to gather input from non users as well. Um I think these are the important things, the work is not done, we have a lot more to do here. Um And not just opening eye, I think the whole industry in sort of explaining what's going on with the technology, um creating more participation, more agency. But we have to start with actually explaining because the biggest risk is that stakeholders um misunderstand the technology. So in the, in the midst of all of um these developments and you know, current partnerships um that, that you guys are striking, um you are also currently training a new model, a new A I model which is expected to bring the company closer to A G I. And I know you spend a great deal of time thinking about this. Um And, and also thinking through worst case scenarios, best case scenarios, like I'm curious, um you know, and I think probably everybody in this room is very curious about what that future looks like. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you um think about it. Um how you scenario plan for it and what's like the the the mirror case scenario like what's the ideal view of this future in, in your view? Um So my framework for thinking about the progress that we're making uh and where this technology is going is that it's definitely going to be incredibly transformative technology. Um And it requires a lot of work, not just from the companies that are developing and deploying these technologies, but also from uh other stakeholders like civil society, media, um governments regulators, the general public people in every domain. You know, we, we have to create some sort of shared responsibility around the general preparedness for bringing this technology into the, into the world. But in order to have shared responsibility, we need to understand it and we need to make it very accessible. Um And so we've been focusing on this, this last two parts, making it accessible. Um engaging with people educating with educating various stakeholders on what what the technology means, what it's capable of. Uh The, the most recent thing we did was the release with the release of GB D 40 which is our only model. Um We made it accessible to everyone for free. And you know, I I don't think I don't think there is um enough emphasis on, on how unique that is for the stage where the technology is today in the sense that, you know, inside the labs, we have these capable models and, you know, they're not that far ahead from what the public has access to for free. And that's a completely different trajectory for bringing technology into the world that what we've seen historically. And it's a great opportunity because it brings people along. It gives them uh intuitive sense for the capabilities and risks and allows people to prepare for the advent of this, of, of bringing advanced A I into the world. And obviously, the opportunities are huge. Now, it's, it's normal that we talk a lot about the risks uh because they're so important. Uh But also we wouldn't do this if we didn't believe that the opportunities here are huge. I personally think that there are incredible. Um There is just this incredible promise with advanced A I and health care and education. We're just kind of touching on some of these capabilities and opportunities with personalized tutors like from Khan Academy. But you can imagine that, you know, anyone in the world, in the most remote areas, they would have access to custom tutoring that is, you know, personalized to the way they think to their um cultural background, to their interests. And that's just amazing. Like we normally don't really think about how we learn or how we think until, you know, 10 years of education or so on. And it's just such a missed opportunity. And I really do believe that if you can push human knowledge forward, you can push society and civilization forward. Um And I mean, there's so many opportunities in health care, um, thinking about solutions in climate change. There's a long list of things that we haven't tackled. And I think, uh bringing this advanced A I systems in the world will help us a lot. Um And obviously, you know, there's, there are always risks whenever you have something so powerful, you have to deal with, with the downsides with the misuse. Um And if you think about the world around us, you know, it's all engineering and engineering carries risks and we have learned to, you know, build systems and build um build trust and uh to figure out how to, how to make engineering safe around us, you know, the buildings, the roads, the bridges, everything. Um And so this is quite similar where we have to build all this infrastructure that we trust and makes the deployment of these technologies safe and useful. Um And it's actually very congruent with business needs because people want products that they can trust and that are safe. So, and I wanna ask you one more question just on the safety side, um this is moving so fast, faster than bridge building and, you know, uh real life infrastructure. Um I know you oversee safety, the safety teams. Um and one of the things that uh when you were on our cover last year, we talked about was your belief that the unique structure at open A I provides the necessary guardrails to make sure that you have safety in mind. Obviously, there's been a lot of scrutiny, there was a lot of upheaval late last year. It's hard to remember that you were interim CEO for uh for a little while there. Um because so much had has happened, tell us uh why and how uh you think that you believe that the right guard rails, the right structure on the safety side is still in place. Um I assume you believe that or you wouldn't be there at this point. Well, so uh I, I think you're referring to the board structure, right? OK. Um So the way that opening I was set up was, you know, the question has always been what is the best administrative structure, the best incentive structure, alignment and design? So the company can fulfill its mission in the best possible way. And there have been a couple of iterations, you know, as, as we, as we work towards the mission and we learn more. It is a process of discovery. I mean, we're literally in the pursuit of discovery, we're doing research and with that, you have to kind of learn and adjust and make changes. So there was the initial change from nonprofit to cap profit um in order, you know, to actually be able to fund the supercomputers and hire talent while, you know, putting the mission first. And so that is the goal always to put the mission first. Um But as we discovered in November, you know, with a nonprofit board structure that we had, it doesn't put um the, the non profit board structure didn't have accountability to anyone but themselves. Um And we're building and deploying the technology that will affect everyone. So, ideally, there would be, you know, some sort of accountability on, on, on the board as well. And uh our, our current board uh which is very ex experience in nonprofit and uh larger companies. They are doing a lot of thinking on the governance structure and what is the best way that you can balance the incentives and put the mission first while having a lot of accountability? Ok. Well, as I said, we will not get to uh uh you know, a tiny fraction even of the questions I'd love to ask you, but I really, really appreciate you taking time um and, and sitting here and just being so thoughtful. Um There's so much interest in what you guys are doing and we appreciate you coming here and talking to us and thank you so much with that. We'll let everybody eat. Um Thank you so much. Thank you, Mia.

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