I gleaned from Bill the idea that a company should start not so much with a business plan, but almost with a Declaration of Independence that begins with a statement of values: We hold these truths to be self-evident. Values come first, and all else follows —in business, in career, in life.

In the early phases of an organization, a company’s vision comes directly from its early leaders; it is very much their personal vision. To become great, however, a company must progress past excessive dependence on one or a few key individuals. The vision must become shared as a community, and become identified primarily with the organization, rather than with certain individuals running the organization. The vision must actually transcend the founders.

If you’re a company of one, your mind-set is to build your business around your life, not the other way around. For me, being a company of one means not having to bother with infinite growth, since that was never the purpose of my working. Instead, I just focus on maximizing work in a way that works for me, which can sometimes mean doing less.

I believe it is appropriate – indeed necessary – to view the business organisation in the same way. The proper goal of corporate activity is the flourishing of the multiple stakeholders of the corporation: employees, investors, suppliers and customers, the communities in which it operates and the corporation itself. For the corporation to flourish, it must contribute to the flourishing of the society in which it operates. And ‘the doctrine of the mean’ is as relevant to the business organisation as it is to the individual. The directors and executives of a flourishing company operate within a mediating hierarchy, which meets the needs of all its stakeholders, gives them an opportunity for voice and protects the business from the adverse consequences of stakeholder exit.

He was searching for a way to meld them together. He emerged from the fog clear in his mind to define the core purpose of the company in terms of ideals he learned studying Plato and other philosophers. He rejected conventional business school dogma that the purpose of a company is to maximize shareholder wealth, replacing it with the purpose to provide a place for people to flourish and to enhance the community. To be clear, the company would also seek to grow profits and generate robust cash flow, but mainly as a necessary means to fuel the core purpose.