The United States is home to more than 33 million businesses, the vast majority of which are small businesses, with millions being created (and others closing shop) every year. These businesses often rely on loans, provide the goods and services that keep the economy flowing, and sometimes even grow large enough to enter public markets or provide private investment opportunities. Explore key topics central to business and finance, from the role of the Federal Reserve to how initial public offerings work, how millions of American students finance higher education, and more.
Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.
From the oldest operating McDonald's in the world to the farthest north, a photographer visited hundreds of the world's most popular restaurant chains over several years. He watched to see what the locals would order, bought food, took pictures of the food, and then ate it. He calls the work social anthropology, and compiled his images in a book titled the "McAtlas." See the photos here.
Unlike the gold standard, where a nation’s currency is linked to the value of gold, fiat money gets its power from the public’s trust in its value.
If a company is “in the red,” however, it is unprofitable. The expressions stem from the days before computers were widely used in accounting, when accountants updated financial data in their books by hand, using different colored ink (black and red) to signal a company's profitability.
Want to know how much your wedding will cost? Simply enter your wedding date, location, and a few more details about your wedding plans, and this tool will spit out an estimate for how much it will all cost, with details on how each estimate was figured, from a wedding dress or tux to ordering the cake. If you’re planning a wedding soon (or just dreaming about planning one), explore this wedding cost generator.
Just like a horse with a spiraling horn on its head, private companies with a more than $1B valuation are rare creatures. But unlike the mythical creature, this type of “unicorn” is occasionally spotted in the wild. Unicorn companies include SpaceX, OpenAI, Skims, and more.
The "case method" style of education is core to most MBA programs across the country. Recent research posits that Wallace Donham’s (who is credited with establishing the method as a force at Harvard Business School in the 1920s) views on the method changed in later years.
An art heist in the crypto world plunges listeners of the "Search Engine" podcast into another mystery about why so many celebrities suddenly started selling the public on NFTs in 2021.
This list includes the spots (like Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign and Snickers’ Betty White cameo) that transcended advertising and became genuine pop culture sensations.
Eighty-five percent of those women were white. A data visualization breaks down what the face of corporate America looks like, plus provides information about the history of female CEOs on the Fortune 500 list.
The Global Risks Report is the World Economic Forum’s annual assessment of the most pressing threats facing the world. The 2025 edition highlights declining global optimism, deepening geopolitical and economic tensions, and rising social fragmentation across societies.