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Ask yourself this question: Aside from the companies where you or members of your family work, how many do you actually care about? We think that for a lot of us, there are only four: Starbucks (SBUX), Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Amazon (AMZN)—call them the SAGA companies. Of course, reducing what's exciting about American business to SAGA is an exaggeration—but stay with us for a bit while we make a case that these four corporations represent a distinctive, and distinctively American, contribution to 21^st -century capitalism.

The SAGA companies do very different things and are of hugely different sizes: Google's market capitalization is about $158 billion; Starbucks is down to below $12 billion. Yet they share some remarkable traits. At the most basic level, each has transformed not just a specific commercial marketplace but some important aspect of contemporary life—computing and music for Apple, information and advertising for Google, coffee for Starbucks, books for Amazon. In doing so, each has had an appreciable impact on our daily routines, taken on a looming presence in popular culture, and often engendered an intensity of feeling more frequently associated with tastes in entertainment or political views. Together, they've created a new model of business innovation, culture, and values.

But what, really, do the SAGA companies have in common? Here's a start:

They have a ubiquitous, everyday presence. Ubiquity doesn't necessarily make SAGA companies global market leaders; the worldwide proportion of computer users who own Apples is small and will probably never catch up to the formidable PC. But in many countries iPod usage is surging, and all the world wants an iPhone. As for the others, Yahoo retains a slight Web-traffic edge over Google worldwide, but that will not likely last much longer, and it is Google whose name is synonymous with finding information on the Web. (We figure that between us we perform 100 Google searches a day and can easily go for weeks without using another search engine.) Amazon may not dominate e-commerce sales outside the United States as much as it does inside, but in few of the countries where Amazon operates Web sites is there a competitor that sells more books online. Starbucks manages to be everywhere and also across the street.

They reflect the comparative advantage of today's America ... Dial back to the Fortune 500 list of 1958 and there's no mistaking the difference: A half-century ago, the iconic American companies were about making and moving stuff: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler were all in the top 15. Oil companies and steel manufacturers filled all the other top slots, along with General Electric, Eastman Kodak, and the company still widely called in those days International Business Machines. Granted, SAGA companies do not rank that high on today's list, although they are often more profitable than firms that bring in larger revenues. Nonetheless, they represent the dramatic shift away from domestic manufacturing and toward an idea-driven, consumer-focused, value-added economy. It is also not coincidental that all four companies are based on the West Coast, reflecting the shift in America's demographics and centers of innovation.

... yet they are genuinely global. Not very long ago, the undisputed symbols of American business abroad were Disney, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola. Those brands remain tremendously powerful, but they have long felt as if they were monoliths imposed on other countries from abroad. (It's hardly surprising that McDonald's outlets are frequently the targets of anti-globalization protests.) By contrast, SAGA companies blend more easily into their environments by allowing international customers to explore their own tastes and preferences. Amazon could never get away with selling only American books and DVDs; an iPod has no obvious nationality, and despite some carping from European regulators, Google functions fairly seamlessly as an international Internet tool.

They are restless innovators. None of these companies made its business by being the first to add any new physical thing to peoples' lives: Starbucks did not invent coffee or even the coffeehouse; with the exception of the Kindle, almost every single item available on Amazon is conceived of and produced off the Amazon campus; Apple didn't invent the computer, the cell phone, or the MP3 player; and Google invented neither the search engine nor the paid search model.

For the most part, SAGA companies don't invent—they perfect. The SAGA triumph is a triumph of tweaks and of packaging. That can sound lightweight, even derogatory, but it shouldn't be underestimated: Remember that when Amazon first started doing business in 1995, the vast majority of Americans had never bought anything online and had legitimate reasons to fear doing so. What SAGA companies have taught the world is that there is strong business sense in focusing maniacally on what customers want and then finding the most effective ways to deliver it.

They follow their founders. Howard Schulz, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergei Brin, and Jeff Bezos are as different as personalities come in business: Schulz is a famously nice guy, Jobs pretty much the opposite of a nice guy. Page, Brin, and Bezos don't fit the stereotype of the charismatic CEO at all. But each of these leaders continues to be central to his company's identity and has remained an embodiment of the company's culture and values. Jobs has kept Apple intensely focused on product and advertising design; Bezos has rooted Amazon to delivering top-notch customer service; Paige and Brin exemplify Google's belief in algorithmic solutions, experimentation, and bottom-up creativity.