The very notion of “Innovative” is, of course, inherently subjective. But with this new list, Forbes relies solely on hard data that capture dozens of different indicators of sector-leading innovation no matter their industry or age.

The ranking is driven by Forbes’ new Innovation Index™, which measures innovation based on volume of patents and intellectual property, research focus, investor confidence, return on equity, media and social media sentiment from data partner SignalAI, and evaluation of company news and statements by synthetic audiences (more on that later). The Index analyzes every company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 list, with the top 100 making the Forbes list.

Led by pharma giant Eli Lilly (No. 1) and tech titan Apple (No. 2), the top 10 includes sectors as diverse as manufacturing (Boeing, No. 8) and financial services (Mastercard). But whether it's through R&D investments, market and consumer confidence, and/or the creation of new IP, they all outpace their peers in driving America's business engines forward.

Read the full story on Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hnewman/2026/08/25/big-bold-breaking-ground-why-lilly-amazon-and-mastercard-headline-our-new-most-innovative-companies-list/

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When the Boston Red Sox were in the midst of an early-season swoon, the principal owner of the holding company that controls the team was moved to make rare public comments. “When I arrived to live and work in Boston 25 years ago, I was told if you win the World Series in Boston, you’ll never have to buy another drink in this town,” Fenway Sports Group’s John Henry recalled in May.

Unfortunately, “it doesn’t actually work that way,” lamented the 76-year-old billionaire, who has become a lightning rod for criticism—including some “sell the team” chants from Boston’s notoriously passionate fans—even after snapping an 86-year drought with a storybook championship in 2004 and adding three more World Series rings in the ensuing 14 years.

Perhaps that is why Mike Gordon, Fenway Sports Group’s president, prefers to stay anonymous.

Unlike Henry, whose face is recognizable to most Red Sox fans and who can often be spotted in the owners’ box at home games, and Tom Werner, the group’s billionaire chairman, who likewise has spoken publicly about the team over their quarter-century of ownership, few fans would recognize Gordon well enough to buy him a drink even if they wanted to. Still, the 61-year-old partner owns a stake of around 10% in FSG, which Forbes values at around $1.4 billion, making him a billionaire.

By Hank Tucker

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Josh Kushner—The Kushner scion and younger brother of Jared—rode the AI wave to an eleven-digit fortune, as his VC firm Thrive Capital nearly tripled its assets thanks to smart bets on OpenAI and SpaceX. Now he’s looking to spend some cash on the NBA’s Lakers.

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Elon Musk’s DOGE gutted staffing and budgets at NOAA and the National Weather Service early last year. It left America’s fishing fleets, farmers and insurers exposed to the fallout.

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In 2017, James Dacombe dropped out of high school to found brain monitoring startup CoMind. Four years later, he took a Thiel Fellowship to skip college and build his first startup. Now the 25-year-old is Europe’s youngest self-made billionaire thanks to his two-year-old chipmaking company Olix, as well as an undisclosed stake in CoMind—which he still runs separately. 

Founded in 2024, Dacombe’s London-based Olix tripled its valuation in six months to $3.3 billion in early August, after raising $312 million from investors including NYC-based investment firm Fundomo, Nasdaq-listed chip designer Arm, American quant fund Hudson River Trading and Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings. The UK government’s Sovereign AI fund also backed Olix in the round. The new round pushes Dacombe, who owns an estimated 30% of the company, into the three comma club. He also has a 12% stake in CoMind, which raised $102.5 million in August 2025 but did not disclose its valuation. Olix and CoMind did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment.

Dacombe is one of eleven self-made billionaires in the world who have yet to turn 30 and one of just four from outside the U.S.

By Alicia Park,

Reporter

and Iain Martin,

Forbes Staff

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The homeowners association of Four Seasons Resorts Nevis filed a lawsuit against Nevis Peak Holdings on Tuesday, August 11 in Delaware Chancery Court. Nevis Peak owns the luxury resort and surrounding property, which sits at the base of a volcanic mountain in Pinney’s Beach, a roughly three-mile stretch of beach on the Caribbean island—just north of Charlestown, Alexander Hamilton’s birthplace.

Nevis Peak is owned by Cascade, the family office of Bill Gates, which bought the resort a decade ago. As of January 2022, Cascade also owns 71.25% of the Four Seasons, according to the suit. While Four Seasons manages the property, it wasn’t named as a defendant in the suit. He’s owned the Four Seasons with Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud of Saudi Arabia, whose Kingdom Holding has a 23.75% stake, since 2007.

According to the suit, each homeowner paid $100,000 to get in the door at Four Seasons Resort Nevis, the luxury Caribbean island resort long reported as a quiet retreat for such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep and Justin Trudeau. They then pay upwards of $13,000 a year to keep using the place, plus a management fee of 25% on any bills for work the resort does for them and another 15% for major construction.

By Alicia Park,

Reporter

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Bob Parsons is navigating his golf cart through the twisting dry dirt road of the golf course he built in the Sonoran Desert in Scottsdale, Arizona, avoiding lizards, rabbits and giant saguaros. He stops near the ninth hole, named Catfish, which overlooks a manmade lake and surrounded by three million acres of preserved land. It cost Parsons hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and renovate Scottsdale National, which has two 18-hole courses and the “Bad Little Nine,” a punishingly difficult nine-hole par-three course. He points to the center of the lake where a small black hut sits with the words “Suggestion Box” painted in white. 

“This is a marvelous spot to put a suggestion box,” the 75-year-old Parsons tells Forbes. “The vent is painted on. I guess you could try.”

After all, Parsons did not become a billionaire by taking other people’s suggestions. He built his fortune thanks to his nonstop hustle, often working 60-plus hours straight. He sold his first company, Parsons Technology, which made personal finance and tax software, to Intuit for $64 million in 1994 (or about $165 million today). In 1997, he started domain name registrar GoDaddy and sold a 71% stake for $2.3 billion in 2011 (or $3.4 billion today).

By Will Yakowicz,

Forbes Staff.

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Form Energy, which makes iron-based batteries to hold electricity for days, said it raised $750 million to expand production. That follows a $550 million raise by rival Antora Energy to accelerate production of its thermal batteries made from carbon blocks that also hold power for at least 100 hours. Unsurprisingly, data center power demand underpins the investment spike.

Form, which began shipping its iron-air batteries this year built at its Weirton, West Virginia, plant, said the latest round, led by T. Rowe Price, boosts its total funding to $2 billion. The company didn’t immediately provide a valuation figure with the latest funds, though Pitchbook estimates the deal values the Somerville, Massachusetts-based company at $4.3 billion. Sunnyvale, California-based Antora has raised $1 billion as of July 31 and is seeking a second plant beyond its current factory in Silicon Valley. 

Both companies are focused on making batteries out of cheap, domestically available materials that can store power at much lower cost than shorter-term lithium-based battery chemistries, and that also have little to no risk of catching on fire. The technology is also ideal when paired with large-scale solar or wind farms, ensuring a steady supply of cheap, carbon-free energy.

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Last week Wells Fargo, the country’s fourth-largest bank with about $2.3 trillion in assets, said it would offer tokenized deposits to corporate and commercial clients this fall. Not long ago, the announcement would have been written off as yet another blockchain trial balloon. Today, it looks more like keeping up with the competition.

JPMorgan and Citigroup already operate similar services. JPMorgan’s Kinexys network processes more than $7 billion a day and has handled over $4 trillion since launch. Both banks along with Wells Fargo, Bank of America and more than a dozen other large lenders are also participating in an initiative operated by The Clearing House, a bank-owned payments company, like Zelle, that is developing a shared system for moving tokenized deposits between institutions.

The market’s plumbing is moving in the same direction. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which clears and settles some $15 trillion in U.S. securities trades per day, processed its first live transactions using tokenized securities in July and plans to launch the service in October. The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, introduced two tokenized money market products this month.

By Nina Bambysheva,

Deputy Editor

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Leonard Tannenbaum’s newest venture was supposed to be a sure thing. In 2020, after selling his previous company, Fifth Street, under a cloud of investor litigation and an SEC settlement, the veteran financier recast himself as a pioneering lender to underbanked cannabis firms. Weed was booming as Americans sat out the pandemic stressed and bored. But marijuana was illegal at the federal level, leaving most pot operations shut out of traditional banking. 

Tannenbaum had the perfect Wall Street pitch: Become the dominant institutional lender to the fast-growing $19 billion industry by offering high yields to stock investors. 

In early 2021, Tannenbaum and his third wife, Robyn, took their West Palm Beach, Florida–based AFC Gamma (later renamed Advanced Flower Capital) public as a mortgage REIT on the Nasdaq, raising $124 million. Within two years, thanks to successive stock offerings, AFC’s equity value rose to nearly $400 million, as did its loan book. 

“What amazed me was there was no institutional lender in the space, no reputable lender,” said Tannenbaum on the From Pot to Popular podcast in 2022, part of a media blitz coordinated with his entrance into the sector. “This was a chance to be number one in the industry.”

By John Hyatt,

Forbes Staff

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