He believed that capitalism, if harnessed to moral leadership, could democratize commerce and eradicate poverty. Too often poor people are patronized, but CK Prahalad wanted them to have real power in the marketplace. As always, his thinking was inclusive.

If you look at the opportunity for companies, I’m making three simple points in all three books. One: look at six billion people as your market, not just the billion at the top of the pyramid. Look at six billion people as potentially micro producers, micro innovators and micro consumers.

“The second thing I’m saying is if you want a very good way of serving the consumers and, therefore, retaining consumers, then you have to understand the uniqueness of each one and create a unique personalized experience. That means you cannot just give them a product and think of the relationship as a transaction. You have to build a relationship that is more enduring. That’s the cocreation idea.

“And third, in The New Age of Innovation, I’m taking these two ideas and then saying, how do you do it operationally? What is the glue? The glue is information architecture, or IT architecture, and the social values that you create are the social architecture, in terms of skills, training, approach to talent and so on.

“So they all come together and I believe that we are on the verge of the largest growth opportunity that any firm has ever seen. Just imagine: even if you don’t take six billion people as your market, if you can just go from one to three billion — that’s still the biggest growth opportunity people have ever seen. I think we are on the verge of something extraordinary.”