Apple’s book value is about $32 billion (you can adjust that up or down by a few percent depending on how you define book value). But Apple’s market cap is over $262 billion. That difference of more than $200 billion? Maybe not every penny of it’s the result of a few ground-breaking designs, but I’d be willing to bet that a sizable chunk of it is the result of the capability to be able to break new ground in design — which they do by taking it seriously. Taking design as seriously as most companies take (yawn) “strategy” creates more value for Apple in a year than most companies create…ever. So why did design create so much value for Apple? Consider: having suffered decades of relative underinvestment, it’s one of today’s rarest capabilities. When you think about it, Apple chose an industry that was bereft of design altogether. Walk into Best Buy today and you walk into design desolation, aesthetic aridity, a dystopia of designlessness. There’s not a drop of joy, delight, amazement, or just plain well-though-out usability in sight; it’s a little bit like the emotional equivalent of taking a holiday in Sparta. And unless you’re a masochist, you’re probably not going to pay much of a premium for that.