Chasing Brilliance Brilliant companies are innovators, trailblazers and influencers--sometimes without even knowing it.

Somewhere in the shadow of the gratuitously covered corporations and their well-heeled CEOs lies a far less obvious and far more colorful subset: entrepreneurial companies and their leaders. We like to call them the Brilliant 100.

These companies are the influencers and trailblazers who innovate and reinvent--sometimes without even knowing it. Collectively, they are companies that eviscerate Jurassic business models and sometimes democratize entire industries, much to the chagrin of said industries. These companies constantly recast notions, and occasionally they fly in the face of reason. (Keep reading.)

These are, to us at least, the 100 brilliant companies to watch. Led by dazzling 'treps, they will inspire the next generation of greatness. They will effect change. They will directly impact the economy.