29. Instacart
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Year founded: 2012
Number of employees: 501 - 1,000
Elevator pitch: Instacart is an online grocery delivery service.
Source: LinkedIn
28. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Headquarters: Pasadena, California
Year founded: 1936
Number of employees: 5,001 - 10,000
Elevator pitch: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a national research facility for robotic missions in space and scientific missions on Earth.
26. Virgin Hyperloop One
Headquarters: Los Angeles, California
Year founded: 2014
Number of employees: 300
Elevator pitch: Virgin Hyperloop One is developing a "new mode of transportation," according to its website. The hyperloop vehicle moves people and cargo "via electric propulsion through a low-pressure tube. The vehicle floats above the track using magnetic levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances due to ultra-low aerodynamic drag."
Source: Virgin Hyperloop One
25. Squarespace
Headquarters: New York, New York
Year founded: 2003
Number of employees: 502 - 1,000
Elevator pitch: Squarespace is a website building and hosting tool.
Source: LinkedIn
23. Robinhood
21. WeWork
Headquarters: New York, New York
Year founded: 2010
Number of employees: 5,001 - 10.000
Elevator pitch: WeWork is a coworking space company.
Source: LinkedIn
Read more: The WeWork IPO fiasco of 2019, explained in 30 seconds
20. Kickstarter
Headquarters: Brooklyn, New York
Year founded: 2009
Number of employees: 51 - 200
Elevator pitch: Kickstarter is an online fundraising platform for artists and creators.
Source: LinkedIn
17. The Walt Disney Company
Headquarters: Burbank, California
Year founded: 1923
Number of employees: 10,001-plus employees
Elevator pitch: The Walt Disney Company is comprised of media networks (e.g. Disney Channel, ABC), parks (e.g. Disneyland), experiences (e.g. Disney Cruise Line), studio entertainment (e.g. Pixar, Marvel Studios), and direct-to-consumer streaming services (e.g. Disney Plus).
Source: LinkedIn, Walt Disney Company
16. Facebook
Headquarters: Menlo Park, California
Year founded: 2004
Number of employees: 10,001-plus
Elevator pitch: Facebook is a social media giant; it also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. Though the company has faced its fair share of scandals over the past 15 fifteen years — including the Cambridge Analytica scandal, for which cofounder Mark Zuckerberg had to testify before Congress — its market cap is $529.14 billion as of September 2019.
Source: LinkedIn, Forbes, Business Insider, Harvard.
13. Hulu
Headquarters: Santa Monica, California
Year founded: 2007
Number of employees: 1,001 - 5,000
Elevator pitch: Hulu is a streaming service for television and movies. Its original series "The Handmaid's Tale" won the Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding drama series in 2017, making Hulu the first streaming service to win a best series award.
10. SpaceX
Headquarters: Hawthorne, California
Year founded: 2002
Number of employees: 6,000-plus
Elevator pitch: SpaceX "designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets ... with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets," according to its website. It has contracted more than 100 launches to date.
8. Amazon
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington
Year founded: 1994
Number of employees: 10,001-plus
Elevator pitch: Amazon is an online marketplace. The company crossed a $1 trillion market cap for the first time in September 2018.
Source: LinkedIn, Business Insider
3. Apple
Headquarters: Cupertino, California
Year founded: 1976
Number of employees: 10,001-plus
Elevator pitch: Apple, the visionary consumer electronics company behind the iPhone, became the first company in the US to reach a $1 trillion market cap in August 2018.
Source: LinkedIn, Markets Insider
1. Google
Headquarters: Mountain View, California
Year founded: 1998
Number of employees: 10,001-plus
Elevator pitch: Google runs not only its search engine, but also Android, the OS used by nearly 87% of world's smartphones, and YouTube, the video platform used by millions each month. The company is involved in everything advertising to consumer hardware to self-driving car technology as well.
