Steve Jobs fucking gets it

From an interview in Business Week.
[O]ur primary goal here is to make the world’s best PCs — not to be the biggest or the richest.
We have a second goal, which is to always make a profit — both to make some money but also so we can keep making those great products. For a time, those goals got flipped at Apple, and that subtle change made all the difference.
My dad, who teaches graduate courses in Business Administration, and I disagree about this all the time. If you have no product, or you don’t give a damn about making a great product, you will never make a profit. And when profit is your only motive, everything else suffers. Make a good product, treat your customers well, treat your employees well, then worry about how much you’re going to give back to your shareholders.
This is also why I think fewer companies should be publicly-traded. When you’re bound by the whims of Wall Street, it’s very, very difficult to keep sight of what’s important.