Business is just about enabling human beings, nothing more

Host: The rain had just stopped, leaving the city glistening under a veil of neon reflections. Steam rose from the pavement like the breath of ghosts, and somewhere a guitar riff bled faintly from a nearby bar — rough, alive, unapologetically human.

Inside a loft office on the edge of the skyline, Jack stood by the window, staring down at the restless world below — rows of cars, hurried umbrellas, the pulse of commerce. His reflection in the glass looked half-corporate, half-tired philosopher.

Jeeny sat on a desk cluttered with blueprints, sticky notes, and cold coffee — a battlefield of ideas and fatigue. Her eyes held that familiar glow, the one that turned cynicism into challenge.

Jeeny: “Bruce Dickinson once said, ‘Business is just about enabling human beings, nothing more, nothing less. Businesses need to recognize this fundamental fact.’”

Host: Her voice cut through the silence like a riff breaking the air — steady, melodic, charged with conviction.

Jeeny: “It’s funny, isn’t it? How the frontman of Iron Maiden understands humanity better than half the CEOs in the world.”

Jack: without turning “Maybe that’s because he had to perform for humans, not shareholders.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. He saw that business, art, even metal — they’re all the same thing when done right: enabling people to become more alive.”

Jack: scoffing “Alive? You think the people in those buildings down there feel alive? They’re spreadsheets with skin, Jeeny. Human beings reduced to metrics — engagement rate, revenue growth, burnout index.”

Jeeny: “And that’s exactly the disease Dickinson was talking about. We built machines to serve us, then turned ourselves into machines to keep up with them.”

Jack: “That’s poetic. But poetry doesn’t keep the lights on.”

Jeeny: “Neither does dehumanization — at least not for long. You can’t scale a soul.”

Host: The city lights rippled across the glass, painting their faces in fragments — ambition and doubt, love and frustration, reflected like two sides of the same coin.

Jack crossed his arms, watching the traffic far below as if it were a bloodstream carrying the fever of modern life.

Jack: “You know what business is, Jeeny? It’s survival with better branding. We tell ourselves we’re creating value, empowering people — but underneath, it’s just about staying ahead of the next collapse.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound soulless.”

Jack: “It is. You’ve seen it. Meetings full of buzzwords, promises of ‘purpose-driven innovation,’ while people are quietly dying inside.”

Jeeny: gently “Then maybe the revolution isn’t outside — it’s inside. In the way we build, lead, and connect.”

Jack: “You think you can humanize capitalism?”

Jeeny: “I think capitalism forgot what humanity was. Dickinson’s point wasn’t to destroy business — it was to remind it of its purpose.”

Jack: turns, finally facing her “And you believe business ever had a purpose beyond profit?”

Jeeny: “Of course. Every creation starts with a need to help someone — to solve something human. Profit was supposed to be a side effect of usefulness, not the other way around.”

Host: The wind outside howled against the glass, rattling the window slightly — as if the storm wanted to join the argument. The office lights flickered, then steadied.

Jack: “You know what I’ve learned? The system rewards efficiency, not empathy. You try to be kind in business, you get outbid, outmaneuvered, outlived.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the system isn’t worth surviving.”

Jack: grinning faintly “You sound like a rebel with a LinkedIn profile.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like a man who forgot why he started working in the first place.”

Jack: “Remind me, then.”

Jeeny: “You started because you wanted to build something that mattered. Something that made people’s lives easier. Remember? Before the meetings, the investors, the quarterly reports.”

Jack: quietly “Yeah. Before it started building me instead.”

Host: The rain began again, soft at first, tracing new veins down the glass. The city blurred — skyscrapers melting into watercolor streaks of light.

Jeeny slid off the desk and walked to stand beside him.

Jeeny: “You know, Dickinson’s right — business is about enabling human beings. But we’ve twisted that into enabling consumption, enabling dependence. We replaced purpose with product.”

Jack: “And we call it progress.”

Jeeny: “No, we call it productivity. Progress is when people evolve — not just profits.”

Jack: “You think a company can have a soul?”

Jeeny: “No. But it can protect the souls of the people in it.”

Jack: after a pause “And if it doesn’t?”

Jeeny: “Then it deserves to die.”

Host: Her words hit like thunder without the lightning. For a moment, even the hum of the city seemed to hold still. Jack turned, searching her face — not for argument, but for belief.

Jack: “You’d really burn it all down, wouldn’t you?”

Jeeny: “Not burn — rebuild. Fire isn’t destruction if you use it to forge.”

Jack: slowly nodding “You think we can build something human in a world that’s forgotten what human means.”

Jeeny: “We have to. Because every innovation that doesn’t serve humanity becomes its enemy.”

Jack: softly “You talk like business could be sacred.”

Jeeny: “It could. If we treated it like a covenant instead of a competition.”

Jack: after a pause “You really believe in this?”

Jeeny: “I believe in people. Business is just the instrument — we’re supposed to be the song.”

Host: The rain intensified, but the light from the skyline glowed stronger now — as if the storm itself had given up trying to drown the world’s pulse.

Jack stared at the city again, but something in his gaze had shifted — less despair, more recognition. The reflection of neon across his eyes no longer looked cold; it shimmered like awakening.

Jack: “Maybe that’s the problem. We’ve mistaken profit for purpose. We keep chasing growth like it’s salvation, forgetting that every graph we draw is made of people.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The human equation got lost somewhere in the math.”

Jack: “You think we can fix that?”

Jeeny: “Only if we remember that the goal of business isn’t to build empires — it’s to build each other.”

Jack: quietly “Then maybe that’s where the revolution begins.”

Jeeny: “It always begins there.”

Host: The camera drifted slowly out through the window, over the skyline of the city — towers of light and glass glowing like circuits in a living machine. The rain shimmered on the rooftops, reflecting the pulse of the world below — a heartbeat, mechanical yet unmistakably human.

As the storm thinned, the scene held — two figures standing side by side in a high room full of plans, dreams, and half-broken hope.

And over it all, Bruce Dickinson’s words echoed like a challenge, not to corporations, but to every soul still fighting to create meaning in a monetized world:

“Business is just about enabling human beings — nothing more, nothing less.”

Because the true measure of any creation — company or otherwise —
is not how much it earns,
but how deeply it lets people live.