Despite its sluggish stock price, Apple has topped Fortune’s list of most admired companies for 2013 — just as it did last year.

Apple has had a tough run the past few months, with an uncooperative stock price and shareholders pushing Apple to return cash to investors. Still, the company had the two best-selling smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2012 with the iPhone 5 and 4S, and it continues to be a powerful force in retail.

Google took a close second on Fortune’s list, with Amazon showing up in third place. In the tech realm, other companies also made the top 20 — IBM took sixth and Microsoft was 17th.

To make the list, Fortune ranked companies on the following criteria: innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment, quality of products/services, and global competitiveness.

Check out the top 20 of Fortune’s list below.

1. Apple
2. Google
3. Amazon
4. Coca-Cola
5. Starbucks
6. IBM
7. Southwest Airlines
8. Berkshire Hathaway
9. Walt Disney
10. FedEx
11. General Electric
12. McDonald’s
13. American Express
14. BMW
15. Procter & Gamble
16. Nordstrom
17. Microsoft
18. Nike
19. Whole Foods Market
20. Caterpillar

Apple Store photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Other tech companies on the list include SAS in second place, cloud services company NetApp at number six, and Qualcomm, Salesforce.com, and Intuit in the top 25. Rackspace clocks in at #22, Intel at #68, and Microsoft at #75.

Apple didn’t make the list, nor did Facebook.

My big question: How is this list made? What data goes into the mix? SAS is the second-best place to work in America? Really? And Wegman’s Food Market is the fifth best? Is retirement planning and personal financial services so much fun that Edward Jones is the eighth-best company?

Part of it is turnover — how many employees leave. And part of it is perks — the prototypical foosball tables and free food. Another part is salaries.

That can all be judged from the descriptions that Fortune includes in its blurbs about each company, and they make sense. But nowhere can I find an actual methodology — what data the publication looked at, what weighting each piece of data had, and why some companies appear on the list while others do not.

Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft topped LinkedIn’s list of most desirable employers, with Twitter not far behind. And college students have quite different ideas about who they want to work for.

Fortune’s list, which doubtless contains many good companies, ranks SAS second partly because it has two artists in residence. Really? And CGH Healthcare Services is third because its employees can compete in talent shows and have dress-up days in which they can “dress as your favorite president.”

I’ve contacted Fortune for details and will update if the company responds.

Meanwhile, here are the top 10:

1. Google
2. SAS
3. CGH Healthcare Services
4. Boston Consulting Group
5. Wegman’s Food Markets
6. NetApp
7. Hilcorp Energy Company
8. Edward Jones
9. Ultimate Software
10. Camden Property Trust

photo credit: @FiverWeed via photopin cc

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos was named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year today for his part in changing both the bookstore and the book itself.

Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 and has since redefined what a bookstore is. Most recently he introduced a 7-inch Kindle Fire HD tablet that competes directly with Apple’s iPad Mini and is seemingly very bullish on the e-reader market. As opposed to his competitors, Bezos often pushes the idea that Amazon won’t make money off of its hardware, but rather, Amazon will make money off of the content that brings those tablets alive.

Fortune chooses the businessperson of the year by looking at the financial standing of the candidate’s company, stock performance, and market value. It also looks at the person’s leadership, how they “gracefully steer a very large organization,” if they’re risky, if they’re strategic. Lastly, it looks at whether the company itself has “cultural significance,” perhaps has maybe changed the way we do something. In Amazon’s case, this is the overhaul of the book market.

Specifically, Fortune factored in Bezos’ management style, which includes asking his employees to submit new ideas through a six-page written narrative. He told Fortune in order to write a memo like this, you have to have a clear head, an understanding of what you’re writing. Bezos also stresses the focus on the consumer. He says his competition spends time in the shower thinking about overcoming their biggest adversaries, while his employees spend that time thinking about better products for their customers.

Runners-up include Apple CEO Tim Cook, eBay CEO John Donahoe, and Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon.

Other tech favorites on the broader list of 50 best businesspeople of the year include Google’s Larry Page, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, IBM’s Ginni Rometty, and Square’s Jack Dorsey. Fortune says Dorsey made it to the list because of metrics looking at leadership and cultural disruption.

Jeff Bezos image via jurvetson/Flickr