????企業是人類用來生產和傳播變化的工具。回顧過去，我們會看到這樣一個世界。它充滿了發明創造，但也充滿了始料未及的后果。

????讓世界運轉的因素包括占主導地位的愛情和咖啡，但是任何因素都不能像企業研究那樣闡明我們的過去和未來。詩人阿契博德?麥克勒擔任《財富》雜志（Fortune）特約撰稿人時，把自己的工作描述成“把商業世界當作理想國度和多變世界的一種表現形式、而且是一種極富啟發的表現形式來進行報道。”科技人員所謂的某公司將“改變世界”的說法幾乎成了一種口號。許多公司確實在以微小的方式改變世界。但是，如果說出租車業務不會讓未來的歷史學家為之興奮（也許Twitter會），難免讓人心生困擾。筆者對《財富》雜志的智囊團進行了調查，列出在最大程度上改變我們生活方式的一些公司。當然，我們不會止步于此。當您閱讀本文時，可以點擊姊妹篇報道：《令人震驚的11家另類公司》（11 quirky companies that totally blew your mind）和《改變世界的20家虛擬公司》（20 companies that changed the world—in fiction）。

????12. 麥當勞

????快餐業巨頭麥當勞（McDonald's ）通過自動化，把食品加工轉變成了一種科學技術，讓我們習慣看到食品的一致性。（這要歸功于公司創始人雷?克拉克提出的“把漢堡包搬到流水線上”。）麥當勞（MCD -0.46%）在全球推出了象征美國美食的巨無霸漢堡（Big Mac）和薯條，每天在120個國家的3.5萬多家餐廳為7,000萬顧客提供服務。海德堡大學（Heidelberg University）教授、快餐界學者戴維?霍根說：“漢堡是我們這個世界的象征，而麥當勞理所當然是這種觀念的形象大使和推廣者。” —Beth Kowitt

????Business is the instrument that mankind has settled on to propagate change. Take a long step back and what do you see? A world of invention and unintended consequences.

????Other things make the world go round as well—love, principally, and coffee—but there is nothing quite like the study of business to illuminate where we have been and where we are going. The poet Archibald MacLeish, when he was a staff writer at Fortune, described his job as to “report the world of business as an expression—a peculiarly enlightening expression—of the Republic, of the changing world.” It has become a bit of a catchphrase among tech people to say that one’s company is going to “change the world.” Many companies do, in small ways. But disrupting, say, the taxi business is not going to set future historians atwitter (though Twitter conceivably might). We surveyed Fortune’s brain trust to come up with a ranking of the 27 companies that have done the most to alter the way we live. Then, of course, we couldn’t stop. So when you’ve considered this compilation, click through to two companion pieces, 11 quirky companies that totally blew your mind, and 20 companies that changed the world—in fiction.

????12. McDonald's

????The fast-food giant turned food production into a science through automation, training us to expect consistency from our food. (Founder Ray Kroc has been credited with saying, "I put the hamburger on the assembly line.") McDonald's MCD -0.46% made the Big Mac and fries synonymous with American cuisine around the world, serving 70 million customers a day in more than 35,000 restaurants in 120 countries. "The hamburger is symbolic of our society," says Heidelberg University professor and fast-food industry scholar David Hogan, "and McDonald's is of course the ambassador and marketer of that concept." —Beth Kowitt