Every year, Fortune publishes the Future 50, a ranking of the world’s largest public companies by their long-term growth prospects, codeveloped with Boston Consulting Group (read more on the Future 50 and our methodology). In this series, we assess trends related to the future growth potential of businesses. A small fraction of all companies is responsible for the majority of wealth creation in the stock market over the long term: A recent study of 28,000 U.S. firms shows that almost all net shareholder value created between 1926 and 2022 was attributable to only 2% of the sample. Leading the pack…