当代最伟大的12位企业家

从梦想家到行动家

    当杰夫•贝索斯有了关于亚马逊（Amazon.com）的构想后，他在纽约中央公园散步时，和他当时的老板谈到了这个创意。

    那是1992年，当时贝索斯是纽约D.E. Shaw对冲基金的高级副总裁。他描述了创办网上书店的梦想。他的老板认真地听完后，给了点建议：“听起来真是个好主意，但它更适合那些没有一份好工作的人。”

    主动改变自己的人生轨迹，有这种念头的人不多，真正付诸实施的更少。但这就是梦想家和行动家的区别。贝索斯只花了48个小时就作出了决定，辞职开始创业。18年后，他仍执掌着亚马逊，这家网络公司几乎颠覆了人们全部的购物模式，雇佣着5.62万人，估值超过800亿美元。

    作为一名作家以及在《商业周刊》（Business Week）和《快速公司》（Fast Company）工作多年的资深撰稿人及编辑，多年来我一直在研究贝索斯以及很多像他一样的人们，我可以告诉你，贝索斯是少数在我们的经济生活以及在这个世界上留下积极意义的人之一。他当然会入选当代最伟大的12位企业家名单。除此之外，还有谁会跻身这个行列？过去一年，为了我的新书《世界的变革者：25位改变我们商业版图的企业家》（World Changers: 25 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business as We Knew It (Portfolio Penguin)），我花了很多时间来思考这个问题。《财富》杂志（Fortune）也问过我，哪些人能登上榜单？我们能从他们每个人身上学到些什么？

    很多上榜者都显而易见——从已故的史蒂夫•乔布斯，他帮助苹果公司（Apple）成为了这个星球上最受追捧和最具价值的公司，到马克•扎克伯格，他的Facebook即将上市，预计将成为有史以来规模最大的IPO（超过800亿美元）。但也有一些意外人选，如印孚瑟斯（Infosys）远见卓识的创始人纳拉雅纳•穆尔蒂，他打造了印度最大的公司之一，推动了当地经济转型，令其跻身世界舞台。

    另外一个意外是，虽然女性在当今商界影响空前，但没有一位女性入选这份名单。奥普拉•温弗瑞已凭借个人名望建立了庞大的媒体王国，已故的美体小铺（Body Shop）创始人阿妮塔•罗迪克则证明，人们可以兼顾社会及环境责任和销售产品。她们显然值得尊敬，但在我看来，她们对商业或社会面貌的影响不如榜单中的人们那么深远。

    应该承认，这份当代最伟大的12位企业家榜单存在主观性。基本上，我是参考了社会和经济影响；创始人的革命性远见（同样激励着员工和其他企业家）；创新纪录；以及长期以来公司的实际表现。由这12位企业家创立和发展的、有益社会的可持续组织如今合计市值已超过1.7万亿美元。他们直接雇佣了超过300万员工，人数最高至沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）的210万员工，最低至Facebook的区区3,000多人。

    但这些数字还只是表面现象。每家公司都是一个蓬勃发展的生态体系的核心，滋养了其他公司，数量没有几百家，也有几十家。很多小公司是这些大公司的供货商，并借此获得了长足发展。比如全食超市公司（Whole Foods）就向当地2,000多家农场购买农产品等。因此，每家公司的影响力都远远超出了其自身界限。下面是我列出的当代最伟大的12位企业家：

From dreamers to doers

    When Jeff Bezos came up with the idea for what would become Amazon.com, he went on a stroll in Central Park with his boss at the time to share his epiphany.

    Bezos, in 1992, was a senior vice president for the New York hedge fund D.E. Shaw. He described his dream to create a company that would sell books on the Internet. His boss listened intently before offering a bit of advice: "That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job."

    Big ideas of the ground-shifting variety are rare -- and hard to pull off. But that's the difference between the dreamer and the doer. It took Bezos all of 48 hours to decide to quit his job and get started. Some 18 years later, he's still at the helm of Amazon.com, which has redefined the way people buy almost everything, employs 56,200 people, and is valued at more than $80 billion.

    Having spent years studying Bezos and others like him as an author, senior writer, and editor at both Business Week and Fast Company, I can tell you that Bezos is one of those rare birds who have made a meaningful mark on our economy and our world. He would certainly be on anyone's list of the 12 greatest entrepreneurs of my generation. Who else should make that cut? After spending the better part of the past year pondering that question for a new book, World Changers: 25 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business as We Knew It (Portfolio Penguin), I was asked by Fortune who deserves to be on that list -- and what we can learn from each of them.

    Many are obvious -- from the late Steve Jobs, who helped make Apple the hottest and most valuable company on the planet, to Mark Zuckerberg, who will take Facebook public in what is anticipated to be the biggest IPO of all time (at a value of more than $80 billion). But there will be a few surprises too, such as N.R. Narayana Murthy, the visionary founder of Infosys who has built one of the largest companies in India, helping to transform that economy and put it on the world stage.

    Another surprise: Not a single woman makes the list of the top 12 -- at a time when women have gathered more influence and power in business than ever before. Oprah Winfrey has leveraged her celebrity into a formidable media empire, and the late Body Shop founder Anita Roddick proved that you could market products by being socially and environmentally responsible. They clearly warrant honorable mention but have not, in my view, transformed the face of business or society in as profound a way as those singled out here.

    Admittedly this list of the world's greatest entrepreneurs is subjective. I based it largely on social and economic impact; the world-changing vision of a founder who has inspired employees and other entrepreneurs alike; a record of innovation; and the actual performance of their companies over time. These founders created and then nurtured healthy, sustainable organizations that now have a combined market value of more than $1.7 trillion. They directly employ more than 3 million people, ranging from a high of 2.1 million at Wal-Mart to just over 3,000 at Facebook.

    Yet those numbers only touch the surface. Each of their companies sits at the nucleus of a thriving ecosystem that has cultivated and nurtured dozens if not hundreds of other enterprises. Small companies have thrived as suppliers, for example, to Whole Foods, which, among other things, buys produce from more than 2,000 local farms. So the power of each of these organizations extends far beyond its own walls. Here are my choices: