But back in 2013, when I first met Chip, Airbnb was still just getting started. Though we had nearly four million guests staying in homes around the world, most people saw us as strictly a technology company. But Joe, Nate, and I knew we had more to offer. We knew that we weren’t just in the business of home sharing. We envisioned a community that helped people with not only where you stay, but what you do—and whom you do it with —while you’re there. In other words, a complete end-to-end trip. What we were actually selling was hospitality.

This means we don’t just obsess upon our financial results; we look at our long-term impact on the communities we serve and we adapt policies and programs to be a positive force. And, given there’s much less cofounders’ drama than most other companies, our employees can focus on how this start-up, which became one of the world’s most valuable hospitality companies nearly overnight, can live its mission helping our customers ‘belong anywhere.

Seventh Generation is another business that’s built around purpose—so much so that the purpose is part of their name: they consider the impact every product they create will have on the next seven generations. This purpose has guided them to create plant-based, nontoxic cleaning supplies and to become a B-corporation (B-corps are certified through rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency).

A second example of a great idea comes from Mary Lou Shockley, now chief financial officer of the Spectrum Services division of Pacific Telesis. She relates that she had presented to her company, at that time Pacific Telephone, an analysis of their poor performance in the timely installation of data services. She was flying back to Los Angeles with her boss, Doug Fagg, having an end-of-the-day drink, when:

It dawned on me that the responsibility for the installation of the service was in the hands of only fifteen people in a department of sixteen hundred. Why not set up a club that would meet every two weeks over lunch to discuss the roadblocks to service intervention?

Some innovative programs even combine education with temporary assignments. For example, UK-based onpurpose.org recruits young law, finance, and consulting professionals who want to shift to careers that are more socially and environmentally focused. Over the course of the transition year, they take part in an intensive learning program with their cohort as well as two assigned rotations working in purpose-led businesses.