In 2003, Apple introduced the iPod with the iTunes store, revolutionizing portable entertainment, creating a new market, and transforming the company. In just three years, the iPod/iTunes combination became a nearly $10 billion product, accounting for almost 50% of Apple’s revenue. Apple’s market capitalization catapulted from around $1 billion in early 2003 to over $150 billion by late 2007.
However cynical it may seem, Machiavelli’s The Prince has long been recognized as a source of insights for anyone trying run a business or gain power in one. A ferocious little treatise of under 100 pages, The Prince was aimed at Lorenzo de’ Medici, the iron-handed Florentine ruler, by an author hoping to regain the proximity to power that he formerly enjoyed.
The capitalist system is under siege. In recent years business increasingly has been viewed as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies are widely perceived to be prospering at the expense of the broader community.
Clayton Christensen’s book How Will You Measure Your Life has turned into a well-deserved best seller. Beyond drawing individual lessons from the book, corporate leaders should turn the central framing question on their organizations — asking how they will measure their company’s lives.
