What would the best company in the world look like?

I was meeting with some friends recently and I shared with them that my hope is to build Dragon Army into the best company the world has ever seen. And I realize that the word best is very subjective in this case.

There was a time when I thought a company like Apple, creating these unbelievable products, was the world’s best company. Or that by simply being the biggest, a company would be the best.

And for some people that probably is the case. But to me, the best company in the world looks very different.

What if a company could build great products, have great margins, grow much faster than the industry it is in, but also be a place that truly makes the world a much better place. What if a company could genuinely improve the lives of every person it comes into contact with?

There are few companies that I look to as a start to this model. Companies like Patagonia, for instance. I believe Patagonia truly wants to make the world a better place and uses its influence (and dollars) to do so. And Barry-Wehmiller seems to do some of the best ‘focus on your people’ work I’ve seen.

While impressive, my vision for what Dragon Army could will become goes beyond anything I’ve seen.

There certainly has to be a size component otherwise the impact of the company would not be large enough to affect enough people to make it the best in ‘the world’. But size of the company (revenue/people/market share/etc) is not the indicator of greatness, in my opinion. The size of the POSITIVE IMPACT is the indicator.

So my question to you is, what would make a business truly the greatest company the world has ever seen?

How would you define greatness in this context?