A view that is becoming more widespread in the US is that Corporate America is heartless, corrupt, and too powerful. I won’t weigh in on that right now because I have not thought it through adequately. I currently view corporations much the same way that I view people: I realize there are good ones and bad ones.
I am unready to generalize about the “heart” of corporations, but I do have at least one generalization about them: I do believe there are too few visionaries in corporate leadership positions. But, there are a couple of corporations that appear to me to have visionaries at the helm: Apple and Google.
And, it appears to me that these visionaries have a heart, a desire to truly help make the world a better place. A recent example about each corporation will help illustrate this:
- Google recently announced five core initiatives to help address climate change, global poverty, and threats such as pandemic disease. Google’s blog has more information on this.
- There have been dozens of articles written on Apple’s new Macbook Air, with some praising it, some whining about the price, some complaining about the non-removable battery (without praising its phenomenal 5-hour life), and so on. But, few have mentioned that it is pretty darned environmentally friendly. Ars Technica notes that Greenpeace had good things to say about the Macbook Air (despite pressuring Apple to go further with its “greenness”).
I was personally delighted to see that Apple is keeping the environment in mind in its new products. While I personally think Al Gore is a pompous ass, he is very much right that we, individually and corporately, need to do more for our environment.
Anyway, I am glad to see that there some corporate visionaries whose visions include helping all of us, and not just shareholder profits.
Your thoughts?