Back in the day, when IBM, General Motors and Procter and Gamble drove the national economy, a list of 500 "fastest growing privately held companies" was sufficient to capture the depth and breadth of entrepreneurial achievement in America. Launched at the same time CED was being formed as a spin-out of the Raleigh Chamber, the Inc. 500 has featured many companies before they became world-renowned, including Microsoft, Domino's Pizza, and Oracle.
Starting in 2007, the list was expanded ten-fold to 5,000. The deadline for the 2008 list, to be publicized in September, is April 30, 2008. For more information, visit www.inc.com/inc5000apply/.