Best Big Companies in the U.S.

We take a quick look at 14 of the best 400 firms in America.

You can find the full report on the Platinum 400, the Best Big Companies in America, at www.forbes.com/platinum/. Online you will find tear sheets on all 400 companies; industry median charts; reports on stock market winners and losers, Platinum newcomers, drop-offs and long-term members; a slide show of the Best Managed Company in each of 26 industries and much more. Below: a look at 14 of the standouts from the list.

McDonald's

Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure | Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, and Chicken McNuggets-- McDonald's has served some of the world's favorite fast foods for more than half a century. The yellow letter M is the largest global food service retailer with more than 30,000 restaurants serving 52 million people in more than 100 countries each day. More than 75% of McDonald's restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by franchisees and affiliates.

Westinghouse Air Brake

Capital Goods | George Westinghouse founded an air brake company in 1869, shortly after he demonstrated that air pressure was a clever way to operate the brakes on a string of railcars. This 19th-century business lives on. After a series of owners, Westinghouse Air Brake Co. became Wabtec Corp. (nyse: WAB - news - people ) in a November 1999 merger with MotivePower Industries. Wabtec, with $1.5 billion in sales, manufactures a broad range of products for locomotives, freight cars and passenger transit vehicles. The company also builds new locomotives up to 4,000 horsepower in size.

Gilead Sciences

Drugs & Biotechnology | In a little over two decades after its start in 1987, Gilead Sciences has become one of the largest biopharmaceutical companies in the world, with a rapidly expanding product portfolio, growing pipeline of investigational drugs and operations on three continents. Primary areas of focus of the Foster City, Calif. company include antivirals (such as for HIV/AIDs and chronic hepatitis), cardiovascular conditions and respiratory diseases. Truvada, a drug used in the treatment of HIV infection in adults, is its sales leader with $1.54 billion in revenue for the first nine months of 2008.