Even for whoever may not appreciate Apple products (at least, not as much as the authors, which seems possible), Apple Inc. is a fascinating company from a purely business standpoint.

When a company becomes so successful, over such a significant period of time, (which excludes happy coincidences), it is worth analyzing so to draw conclusions which are as general as possible.

Of course, there is no such thing as a silver bullet: success requires effort, risk taking and some people appear as programmed for success, even though they make wrong decisions from time to time, or good decisions based on incorrect reasoning, which defies logic – but probably not business.

Apple, which came so close to disappearing from planet Earth in 1996, has produced ever since such an incredible success that few people may realize that it is the logical sustained endeavor of inner guidance.

Now, on a rocketing track of an approximate $200B annual turnover, $40B profit after taxes and market capitalization on its way to $1 trillion in the near future. On an average stock exchange day, 1% of Apple stock is traded, which is equivalent to the total of exchanges for most European financial places, on the same day. In the past, IBM only achieved a comparable success. IBM market dominance in the 1970s is now something difficult to figure out.

At that time, so-called “IBM watchers” pretended to decipher the giant’s strategy from its smallest single moves.

Apple now enjoys the same kind of attention with the notable difference that if only IT industry was concerned in the past with IBM moves, few economic sectors can nowadays safely claim to be unconcerned with Apple moves.

Even though some executives in automobile, banking, watch making industries may issue such claims, these appear to be risky ones, close to the sin of pride, because many companies in recent history (such as RIM and Nokia) have paid a high price for this.

Even Microsoft has undeniably suffered from Apple’s success, which amounts to a total reversal of situation, compared with the one existing when Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1995.

“If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”

Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Whether you, dear readers, are an Apple customer, a partner or a competitor, or find yourself in a management position, it is of utmost importance to understand Apple’s recipe for success.

Through this book, we would like to show that this recipe relies on a small number of guiding principles, contradicting what is usually taught in business schools.

By doing so, we therefore follow Guy Kawasaki (former Apple’s Chief Evangelist of the Macintosh period) footsteps, from his iconic title “The Macintosh Way” [KAW 90]. This book (and his author too) is somewhat legendary in the Apple community and beyond, as a rare insider testimony about the radical novelty of early Apple business culture. At that time, however, Apple was the little David fighting against giants, and therefore relying mostly on guerrilla techniques adapted to such situations. Guy Kawasaki's book, although still very insightful, reflects this past situation.

Before passing away, Steve Jobs initiated an Apple University, in order to maintain and propagate Apple’s core values internally. The precise content of the courses is likely to remain a secret, but we like to think of our book as an attempt to come closer to it.

Identifying and characterizing what hopefully makes Apple unique, and explain its success, is therefore nothing else than sequencing its DNA.

Each and every company is indeed characterized by a specific DNA, resulting from its history, and key personality aspects of its leaders. May this book open the way to a sort of “genetic engineering” applied to those companies desiring to take advantage of the genes that have been identified therein. And perhaps inspire the founders of new ones.