Inside Apple: How Apple's way of doing business violates everything you learned in business school.

It has been said about Apple that its business practices are like a bumble bee: It shouldn't fly, but it does. And how well it does. Apple is the first or second most valuable company in the world, and it got that way by doing business differently from how it is taught in Harvard Business School. The whole world loves Apple products, but even sophisticated business people don't understand how Apple does what it does. Lashinsky discusses in detail Apple's approach to leadership, personnel, secrecy, design, product development, marketing, public relations, and other seemingly mundane but extraordinarily unique approaches to business. The topics make for a particularly lively Q&A session: Everyone has an opinion about Apple (How much did Steve Jobs matter? Can my company be as secretive as Apple? What happens when an Apple product flops?). What's more, the contemporary case study is playing out before the audience's eyes. Each week's news brings fresh discussion points.

Adam Lashinsky is the author of INSIDE APPLE: How America's Most Admired—and Secretive—Company Really Works.

Adam Lashinsky covers Silicon Valley and Wall Street for FORTUNE. He has been on the magazine's staff since 2001, and for two years before that was a contributing columnist. In addition, he is a weekly panelist on the Fox News Channel's "Cavuto on Business" program on Saturday mornings, and he appears frequently on other Fox News and Fox Business Network programs. He also co-chairs FORTUNE's annual technology conference, Fortune Brainstorm Tech, and is a seasoned speaker and panel moderator.

Lashinsky's cover-story subjects in FORTUNE have included Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Google. He also has written in-depth articles on Wells Fargo, Intel, Oracle, eBay, Twitter, and the venture-capital industry, as well as on diverse topics from San Francisco politics to oil-exploration technology to the post-Katrina economic recovery of New Orleans. His book, Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired -- and Secretive -- Company Really Works, is scheduled to be published in January, 2012, by Hachette Book Group's Business Plus imprint.