Google, Amazon, and Netflix Know Their Most Important Product Is You

The first industrial sociologist, Frenchman Frederic le Play, revolutionized business strategy by recognizing that the coal mine’s most essential asset. It wasn’t the raw material extracted from the mine, said le Play, but the miner himself was the most valuable commodity. When we translate that message to the present day, we are no longer just talking about a company’s employees. Instead, we are talking about the customers who exist on a network — think Google, Amazon, Netflix, and LinkedIn — serving essen