We canvassed the experts, analyzed the products, and crunched the numbers. From visionary upstarts to storied stalwarts, here are companies that dazzle with new ideas-- and prove beyond a doubt how business is a force for change. We call them the Fast 50. By Mark Borden, Bill Breen, Jeff Chu, Josh Dean, Rebecca Fannin, Amy Feldman, Charles Fishman, Paul Hochman, David Kushner, Mark Lacter, Robert Levine, David Lidsky, Ellen McGirt, Danielle Sacks, Chuck Salter, Elizabeth Svoboda, Linda Tischler
Google is different, even on a list of distinctive companies. Here, more than a dozen describe what life is like at a place where no goal is too audacious, agility means more than power, and even cafeteria food represents an opportunity to change the world.. By Chuck Salter
What's happening this month: Shiny new airport terminals in London and Beijing take off; why baseball's first pitch is in Tokyo; and Austin's South by Southwest by the numbers. By Ellen Gibson, Jeff Chu, David Lidsky, Theunis Bates, Bianca Bosker, Clayton Neuman
Over the last 20 years, the South by Southwest Festival has grown from a small Texas gathering of songsters into a star-launching mega-event with music, film, and tech components. This year, it runs from March 7-16. By Clayton Neuman
From this month's academic journals, four views on what makes a top-notch 21st-century leader: curiosity, charisma, neuroscience, and Ivy League thinking By James Kuczmarski
Alan Trounson, the new president of California's stem-cell agency, talks about the science, the opposition, and his qualms about working with embryos. By Elizabeth Svoboda
When it comes to attracting the lucrative, fast-growing Hispanic demographic online, don't go with what you know--go with what you know works. By Ellen McGirt