via FastCompany.com

Welcome to our annual guide to the businesses that matter most, the ones whose innovations are having an impact across their industries and our culture. Click a company name to view the entry, or determine your own ranking of the top four companies using a series of quizzes, games, and brainteasers.

1 Apple
For walking the talk

2 Facebook
For 800 million reasons to share

3 Google
For expanding its hit lineup

4 Amazon
For playing the long game

5 Square
For making magic out of the mercantile

6 Twitter
For amplifying the global dialogue

7 Occupy Movement
For embodying all the traits that make a Fast Company

8 Tencent
For fueling China’s Internet boom–and boldly moving West

9 Life Technologies
For speeding up genetic sequencing

10 SolarCity
For brightening up the sun-power business

11 HBO
For being the only TV network to delight with digital

12 Southern New Hampshire University
For relentlessly reinventing higher ed, online and off

13 Tesla Motors
For boosting the art and technology of electric vehicles

14 Patagonia
For selling more by encouraging customers to buy less

15 NFL
For stoking insatiable, year-round demand for professional football

16 National Marrow Donor Program
For matching technology with critical transplant needs

17 Greenbox
For inventing the next-generation Chinese fashion brand

18 Jawbone
For rocking the mobile lifestyle

19 Airbnb
For turning spare rooms into the world’s hottest hotel chain

20 72andSunny
For winning at the intersection of Hollywood and Madison Avenue

21 Siemens AG
For its R&D ambitions in energy, transportation, and health care

22 Dropbox
For transforming file storage into a very big business

23 Kiva Systems
For turning squat robots into e-commerce giants

24 Starbucks
For infusing a steady stream of new ideas to revive its business

25 Genentech
For making targeted, genetics-based cancer therapies

26 LegalZoom
For bringing tech and accessibility to the hidebound legal industry

27 Tapjoy
For driving advertiser engagement in a million-app world

28 Polyvore
For turning everyone into a fashion editor

29 Red Bull Media House
For showing what it really means to transform yourself into a media brand

30 LinkedIn
For making itself useful even when you’re not job searching

31 Liquid Robotics
For going deep in ocean monitoring

32 Gogo
For delivering first-class entertainment to the coach-bound masses

33 Bug Agentes Biológicos
For breeding a natural alternative to harmful agricultural pesticides

34 Chipotle
For exploding all the rules of fast food

35 James Corner Field Operations
For creating intimate green spaces out of industrial urban blight

36 Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals
For bringing medical care to the masses

37 Recyclebank
For making eco-friendly behavior a big game

38 UPS
For solving its customers’ number-one pet peeve

39 Networked Insights
For using real-time social data to make better products and advertising

40 Chobani
For becoming a dairy superstar

41 Kickstarter
For connecting creatives with fans to raise funds

42 SoundCloud
For giving the Internet a voice

43 PayPal
For recharging the sale

44 Berg
For wildly imagining the marriage of the digital and physical worlds

45 Boo-box
For pioneering social-media advertising in Latin America

46 Amyris
For driving biofuels into the mainstream

47 Knewton
For teaching education a thing or two

48 RedBus
For taking the wheel of the $2.5 billion Indian bus-travel industry

49 OpenSky
For creating a social, celebrity-powered shopping experience

50 Y Combinator
For building the next great Silicon Valley mafia

Related posts:

1. Why Porter’s Model No Longer Works
2. The Age of Big Data
3. Nevada Becomes First State to Regulate Self-Driving Cars
4. Want To Boost The Economy? Boost Internet Speeds
5. H.R. 2930 and the Future of Angel Investment