Fast Company March 2016

When we set out to build this year’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, we didn’t begin with macroeconomic parameters. Instead our reporting team dug into details on thousands of companies around the globe. Our axiom has always been that whatever challenges may be buffeting business—political uncertainty, market instability, international unrest—there are always pockets of extraordinary achievement. That is what we were looking to uncover. And we were inspired by what we found. Our top 50 companies (beginning on page 28) includes only six repeats from a year ago, underscoring the dynamism of the innovation landscape. Our top 10 lists (page 106) spotlight leaders in more than 20 different sectors, from architecture to virtual reality, China to India. We partnered for the first time with data-analysis outfit Quid, whose machineintelligence…

PANDORA Pandora is changing its tune. As more and more music fans sign up for on-demand streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, the Internet radio giant has lost some momentum, but now the company is transforming itself via a slew of recent deals and acquisitions. In July, Pandora bought musicdata-analytics startup Next Big Sound, giving the company deep insight into how people listen to songs online. Then last fall, it acquired concert-ticket site Ticketfly, which it’s now integrating into its core service, and signed a licensing deal with Sony/ATV, settling a longrunning dispute that threatened the company’s access to songs from big stars such as Adele and Taylor Swift. And in December, it purchased ondemand streaming site Rdio, which will let it compete with Spotify and Apple Music. “We have…

“The Frédéric Malle Fleur Mecanique diffuser looks cool in my home. It’s also wireless and rechargeable.” Justin Fuisz Founder and CEO, Fuisz Media “Thrive Market’s social mission is to make healthy food available to everyone by creating an online platform that sells in bulk at a discount and allows you to filter by food type, like gluten-free, vegan, or paleo.” Anna Kaiser Founder and CEO, AKT InMotion “Elle Luna is an incredibly talented San Francisco– based artist and designer. She created the user interface for Uber and most recently wrote an amazing book called The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion.” Jonathan Wegener Cofounder and CEO, Timehop “ The ceramics at artshack brooklyn are gorgeous, and you will never find anything else like them. Everything is conceived and designed by kids, then…

Ask BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti about his influences, and his answer sounds like, well, a BuzzFeed post—one titled “The Three Historical References That Explain BuzzFeed Will Make You Say WTF.” Peretti first points to a company that started more than 100 years ago, Paramount Pictures, which owned a film production studio, its own cast of talent, and its own distribution channel in the form of theaters. “That allowed them to adapt and change as the market changed,” says Peretti. Peretti’s second fascination is with CNN—how founder Ted Turner ran a 24-hour news operation at a fraction of the cost of what the networks spent, due in part to prescient use of satellite and cable technology. And then there’s Jay Z. In the early 1990s, Peretti, who grew up in Oakland, California, attended…

Facebook’s financial performance is to die for—$17 billion in 2015 revenue, a blistering 58% growth rate—but it’s the steady confidence with which it’s improving that makes it a killer. The new Instant Articles platform has smoothed out the process of sharing content for publishers, while offering readers ultrafast story downloads. Facebook’s efforts to encourage direct video uploads have helped push daily views from 1 billion to 8 billion in just over a year. And the 10-month-old Moments app, which backs up photos and leverages the company’s growing prowess in artificial intelligence for sharing suggestions, is increasingly popular. Facebook’s fastestgrowing app is Messenger, which also uses AI to help businesses interact more naturally with their customers. Some of these applications are pure fun: When Disney unleashed Miss Piggy on Messenger to talk…

CVS Health isn’ content merely to be a $153 billion drugstore chain. It wants to completely redefine retail health care. “About half of our patients come on nights and weekends,” says CEO Larry Merlo. “About half of our patients don’t have a primary-care physician.” That’s why CVS has bet on in-store clinics—just one of the ways in which Merlo has made the company synonymous with storefront health care innovation. 1 Just say “no” Though sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products brought CVS $2 billion in annual revenue, Merlo viewed them as “a barrier to our long-term growth.” The decision to end the company’s tobacco business may have raised eyebrows, but it refreshed CVS’s reputation overnight. 2 On-demand health care CVS has doubled down on its MinuteClinics, in-store walk-in medical facilities that offer patients…