June 15, 2016 / Fortune Asia / Volume 173 / Number 8 / FORTUNE 500

features

The Annual Fortune 500

30 CAN MONSANTO SAVE THE PLANET?
The world's most vilified company?now a takeover target-has a plan to feed us all. Will it work?
By Beth Kowitt

40 THE LAST STAND OF KEN CHENAULT
The longtime CEO of American Express was supposed to be cruising into retirement. Then his heir apparent died suddenly, Wall Street began to question his strategy, and the stock price tumbled. Can he win back investors and fix what ails AmEx before his time runs out?
By William D. Cohan

49 FORTUNE'S 21ST-CENTURY CORPORATION
Today's companies will be bigger, faster, and nimbler than their predecessors, and enabled by transformative new technologies. We imagined the perfect future corporation-then cracked it open to show how differently it operates.
By Clay Dillow and Andrew Nusca

58 MICROSOFT WILL SERVE YOU NOW
The newly customer-friendly tech giant is bulking up on data centers, betting its future on cloud computing, and learning to be agile again.
By Andrew Nusca

66 THE OUTSIDERS
Netflix's campaign to crank out original content is changing the way TV shows and movies get made-whether Hollywood likes it or not.
By Michal Lev-Ram

74 CAN P&G FIND ITS AIM AGAIN?
It's been a humbling decade for the consumer products giant. Now leaner and more focused, with its third CEO in three years, can the king of brands regain its relevance after years of subpar returns?
By Jennifer Reingold

82 PAYPAL PLAYS CATCH-UP
The company once dominated the online-payment world. But for years its technology languished as competitors gained ground. Can an independent PayPal get back on top?
By Leena Rao

90 HORMEL'S NEW RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
As it celebrates its 125th birthday, the old-school maker of processed meats is riding a wave of growth driven by product innovation, and boldly moving into the world of organic food and healthy snacks.
By Ken Otterbourg

100 PHOTO ESSAY: YOU DO WHAT?
Most people only talk about finding a dream job. Here are four employees of Fortune 500 companies with careers so engaging and unusual that it's hard to believe they call it work.

Photographs by Benjamin Rasmussen

109 THE LIST

F-1 The 500 Largest U.S. Corporations

F-23 Explanations and Notes

F-24 Index

departments

MACRO

8 Closer Look
Fortune 500 profits run out of gas.
By Scott DeCarlo, Nicolas Rapp, and Shawn Tully

11 Secret's Out
New disclosures show how digitized modern warfare has become.
By Robert Hackett

13 Beijing Climbing
Don't look now, but China's economy is doing pretty well.
By Chris Matthews

14 The 500's Food Fight
Walmart is rethinking groceries, its most important business. It's not alone.
By Phil Wahba

15 Leadership
The art of doing the unpopular.
By Geoff Colvin

VENTURE

16 Human Capital
Some Silicon Valley startups are turning to fasting to boost productivity. Is that better than a Snickers bar and a Red Bull?
By Jennifer Alsever

PASSIONS & PERKS

19 Working Out Smarter
Do fitness wearables really improve performance? Our writer puts Under Armour's gear to the test.
By John Kell

TECH

21 Person of Interest: Zeroing In
Meet Scot Drake, the Imagineer behind Shanghai Disney's most futuristic attraction.
By Michal Lev-Ram

24 Contents May Be Hot
Riding early success with its mobile app, Starbucks doubles down on extracting dollars from devices.
By Leena Rao

INVEST

25 Oil and Gas Stocks
Oil prices have risen sharply in 2016, but not all energy stocks will benefit from the rebound. Here's who is poised to win.
By Lauren Silva Laughlin

136 BING!

ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL CLINARD

[IMAGES]

Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble (No. 34)has 21 billion-dollar brands, including Crest toothpaste.
PAWEL NOLBERT

Master clay modeler James Dunham of Ford Motor (No. 9)
BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN

NICOLAS RAPP

c Time Inc.