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Entrepreneurs with immigrant roots founded top firms
Immigrants or their U.S.-born offspring played a founding role in 44 of the top 100 Fortune 500 companies, including Apple, Ford, and AT&T.
BySean McNaughton and Kelsey Nowakowski
This story appears in the February 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Entrepreneurial immigrants have always contributed to U.S. economic growth: First- or second-generation Americans were instrumental in founding 44 of the top 100 Fortune 500 companies listed in 2018. The companies range from innovators such as Apple and Amazon to financial blue chips like AT&T and Procter & Gamble. The free-market economy provided opportunities—for immigrants and nonimmigrants alike—to create companies delivering new services, products, and visions of the future.
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