Private companies, in my opinion, have more of a small business feel even though they can be very large in size. They have a small number of owners, they are not traded publicly, yet the shares are amongst its employees. Public companies can be traded publicly and must report their financial data quarterly, so in my opinion they will receive more publicity. Both private and public companies are motivated by their shareholders, but I believe it would be easier for public companies to obtain more investors compare to private companies, where their financial data is not reported publicly. Below is a the top 5 public and private companies from Forbes in 2017 as a reference. I personally have heard of every public company in the top 5, while I haven’t heard of one in the top 5 for private companies.

List of America’s largest private companies – Top 5 for 2017
1. Cargill – revenue of 109.7 billion – agricultural services
2. Koch Industries – natural gas, plastics
3. Albertsons – produce
4. Deloitte – accounting organization
5. PricewaterhouseCoopers – accounting organization

List of America’s largest public companies – Top 5 for 2017
1. Apple – revenue of 230 billion
2. Berkshire Hathaway
3. JP Morgan Chase
4. ExxonMobil
5. AT&T