Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek is generally regarded as a staunch neoclassical economist. And yet, read this, a portion of what he has written about Steve Jobs:
His success illustrates the sterility of the mainstream approach in economics to corporate strategy and the theory of the firm. The theory of the firm in neoclassical theory focuses on how much the firm should produce and optimal capacity. Game theory looks at strategic issues arising under various payoffs. Neither approach captures the nature of innovation, the trial and error risk-taking of the visionary entrepreneur or the power of creative destruction to enrich our lives.
I love teaching the sterile theory of the firm. I love explaining MR=MC, the irrelevance of sunk costs, etc. I love teaching the prisoners' dilemma. But Roberts is right. These are comparatively sterile concepts relative to risk-taking and entrepreneurship.
For more on "creative destruction", see here. An excerpt:
In Schumpeter's vision of capitalism, innovative entry by entrepreneurs was the force that sustained long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies and laborers that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power derived from previous technological, organizational, regulatory, and economic paradigms.