Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL; previously Apple Computer, Inc.) is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture, a professional photography package; Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; Logic Studio, a suite of music production tools; and iOS, a mobile operating system. As of August 2010, the company operates 301 retail stores in ten countries, and an online store where hardware and software products are sold.

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, often dubbed the "Google Guys", while the two were attending Stanford University as Ph.D. candidates. It was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998, and its initial public offering followed on August 19, 2004. The company's stated mission from the outset was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and the company's unofficial slogan – coined by Google engineer Paul Buchheit – is "Don't be evil". In 2006, the company moved to their current headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A, NYSE: BRK.B) is a conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies. The company averaged an annual growth in book value of 20.3% to its shareholders for the last 44 years, while employing large amounts of capital, and minimal debt. Berkshire Hathaway stock produced a total return of 76% from 2000-2010 versus a negative 11.3% return for the S&P 500.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is a global American pharmaceutical, medical devices and consumer packaged goods manufacturer founded in 1886. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company is listed among the Fortune 500.

Johnson & Johnson consistently ranks at the top of Harris Interactive's National Corporate Reputation Survey, ranking as the world's most respected company by Barron's Magazine, and was the first corporation awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy by the U.S. State Department for its funding of international education programs. A suit brought by the United States Department of Justice in 2010, however, alleges that the company from 1999 to 2004 illegally marketed drugs to Omnicare, a pharmacy that dispenses the drugs in nursing homes.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is a US-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc., as of January 2010.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994 and launched it online in 1995. The company was originally named Cadabra, Inc., but the name was changed when it was discovered that people sometimes heard the name as "Cadaver." The name Amazon.com was chosen because the Amazon River is the largest river in the world, and so the name suggests large size, and also in part because it starts with 'A' and therefore would show up near the beginning of alphabetical lists. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and toys. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and China. It also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products.

Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G, NYSE: PG) is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio that manufactures a wide range of consumer goods. It is 6th in Fortune's Most Admired Companies 2010 list. P&G is credited with many business innovations including brand management and the soap opera.

Procter & Gamble is a leading member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a Washington D.C.-based coalition of over 400 major companies and NGOs that advocates for a larger International Affairs Budget, which funds American diplomatic and development efforts abroad.

Toyota Motor Corporation commonly known simply as Toyota and abbreviated as TMC, is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. In 2009, Toyota Motor Corporation employed 71,116 people worldwide (total Toyota 320,808). TMC is the world's largest automobile manufacturer by sales and production.

The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. Three years earlier, in 1934, while still a department of Toyota Industries, it created its first product, the Type A engine, and, in 1936, its first passenger car, the Toyota AA. Toyota Motor Corporation group companies are Toyota (including the Scion brand), Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino Motors, along with several "non-automotive" companies. TMC is part of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world.

Toyota Motor Corporation is headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi and in Tokyo. In addition to manufacturing automobiles, Toyota provides financial services through its Toyota Financial Services division and also builds robots.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a global investment banking and securities firm which engages in investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869 and is headquartered at 200 West Street in the Lower Manhattan area of New York City, with additional offices in major international financial centers. The firm provides mergers and acquisitions advice, underwriting services, asset management, and prime brokerage to its clients, which include corporations, governments and individuals. The firm also engages in proprietary trading and private equity deals, and is a primary dealer in the United States Treasury security market.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (formerly branded as Wal-Mart, branded as Walmart since 2008) (NYSE: WMT) is an American public multinational corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores and a chain of warehouse stores. In 2010 it was the world's largest public corporation by revenue, according to the Forbes Global 2000 for that year. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. Wal-Mart, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, is the largest majority private employer and the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51% of its US$258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business. It also owns and operates the Sam's Club retail warehouses in North America.

Wal-Mart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, with 55 different names.[9] The company operates under its own name in the United States, including the 50 states. It also operates under its own name in Puerto Rico. Wal-Mart operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the United Kingdom as Asda ("Asda Wal-Mart" in some branches), in Japan as Seiyu, and in India as Best Price. It has wholly owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. Wal-Mart's investments outside North America have had mixed results: its operations in the United Kingdom, South America and China are highly successful, while it was forced to pull out of Germany and South Korea when ventures there were unsuccessful.

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is a beverage retailer, manufacturer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in 1886. The Coca-Cola formula and brand was bought in 1889 by Asa Candler who incorporated The Coca-Cola Company in 1892. Besides its namesake Coca-Cola beverage, Coca-Cola currently offers more than 500 brands in over 200 countries or territories and serves 1.6 billion servings each day.

The company operates a franchised distribution system dating from 1889 where The Coca-Cola Company only produces syrup concentrate which is then sold to various bottlers throughout the world who hold an exclusive territory. The Coca-Cola Company owns its anchor bottler in North America, Coca-Cola Refreshments.

The Coca-Cola Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Its stock is listed on the NYSE and is part of DJIA, S&P 500 Index, the Russell 1000 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index. Its current chairman and CEO is Muhtar Kent.

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system (OS) market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of OSs. Microsoft would also come to dominate the office suite market with Microsoft Office. The company has diversified in recent years into the video game industry with the Xbox and its successor, the Xbox 360 as well as into the consumer electronics market with Zune and the Windows Phone OS. The ensuing rise of stock in the company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) made an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees.

Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) is an American low-cost airline and the world's largest low-cost carrier. The airline has its headquarters on the grounds of Dallas Love Field in Dallas, Texas. Southwest is the largest airline in the world by number of passengers carried per year (as of 2009). Southwest maintains the fifth-largest passenger fleet of aircraft among all of the world's commercial airlines. As of December 31, 2009, Southwest operates more than 3,200 flights daily.

Southwest Airlines has carried more passengers than any other U.S. airline since August 2006 for combined domestic and international passengers according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Southwest Airlines is one of the world’s most profitable airlines, posting a profit for the 37th consecutive year in January 2010.

Southwest's successful business model involves flying multiple short, quick trips into the secondary (more efficient and less costly) airports of major markets, and using only one aircraft type, the Boeing 737.

FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX), originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1973 until 2000.

FedEx Corporation is a Delaware corporation, incorporated October 2, 1997. FDX Corporation was founded in January 1998 with the acquisition of Caliber System Inc. by Federal Express. With the purchase of Caliber, FedEx started offering other services besides express shipping. Caliber subsidiaries included RPS, a small-package ground service; Roberts Express, an expedited shipping provider; Viking Freight, a regional, less than truckload freight carrier serving the Western United States; Caribbean Transportation Services, a provider of airfreight forwarding between the United States and the Caribbean; and Caliber Logistics and Caliber Technology, providers of logistics and technology solutions. FDX Corporation was founded to oversee all of the operations of those companies and its original air division, Federal Express