Fortune March, 17, 2008

America’s most admired companies… Apple is No. 1 in an exclusive interview Steve Jobs tells how he got there.

In this day and age, it is unimaginably antiquated to continue to measure business success in terms of 200-year old industrial-age yardstick of consumerism-through-marketing manipulation. Sure, I get the planned obsolescence in introducing new iPods every six months. But do we really need 437 mp3 players? Or 20,000 brands of beer? Excess is not success. It is equally insane to idolize these egomanical captains of industry whose consumerism-above-all methods of business have forced millions of us to question the food we eat and the water we drink. And it surely is a high time to question our own value system when we begin to idolize industrial tyrants who take pleasure in being universally feared and who can make people cry. Think different. But make it different enough to make a difference. Our only hope is that in the next lifetime, Jobs will come back as Jeff Skoll.