

They are the unsung heroes of the U.S. economy. Companies with annual revenue between $50 million and $2 billion. They're lithe enough to maneuver, but big enough to have a broad impact. They employ 35 million people--about one in four U.S. workers. They deliver nearly 40 percent of the country's economic vitality. They are America's midsize companies, and it's time they are recognized. Looking at 14 different points of comparison, Inc. is for the first time ranking management excellence across the middle market--because thriving companies tend to be well run. In aggregate, the 250 public and private companies, identified here with the help of Inc. chief data scientist Arnobio Morelix and Shango Labs, created more than 540,000 jobs and generated more than $140 billion in annual revenue. The results are the following kernels of hard-won wisdom and sage advice--on everything from hiring and retaining top talent to putting out fires and managing amid a crisis. Because it's one thing to sing the praises of these heroes of the U.S. economy. It's a far better thing to learn from them.

"I do try to stay away from politics… but I do believe in standing up for things that are fundamentally right."
No. 68
Arnold Donald
CEO, Carnival Corporation

"If you’re the CEO of a fast-growing company and you’re not learning your next job right now, you’re not doing it right."
No. 30
Emily Leproust
Co-founder and CEO, Twist Bioscience

"I felt a real responsibility to step up and say, ‘This isn't right, Google. You need to either stop copying what we're doing or pay us."
No. 13
Patrick Spence
CEO, Sonos

"I’ve taken a page out of Jeff Bezos’s book and gotten rid of slides in our organization, and I make everyone write narratives."
No. 36
Jennifer Tejada
CEO, PagerDuty

"It's not necessarily the mistakes themselves that become mission critical, but more so how you handle them as a leader."
No. 202
Jen Rubio
Co-founder and CEO, Away

"People want to be around someone who has a strong set of values and who is living their values."
No. 32
Ethan Brown
Founder and CEO, Beyond Meat

"We instruct our teams to close their eyes, envision the person they love most in the world, and do what they would do for that person."
No. 33
Ed Park
Co-founder and CEO, Devoted Health

"It doesn’t matter how good Matthew and I are anymore. It’s: How good are our leadership teams? And how good are their leadership teams?"
No. 7
Michelle Zatlyn and Matthew Prince
Co-founders, Cloudflare
