Southwest Airlines

American low-cost airline founded by Herb Kelleher in 1971 — which built the point-to-point, no-frills model that disrupted the hub-and-spoke majors — and whose employee-first culture became the most studied example of culture as competitive strategy in business.

Built the only consistently profitable major airline in US history through a combination of operational simplicity (single aircraft type, no assigned seating, faster turnarounds) and employee culture — demonstrating that a company's culture can be a moat that competitors cannot copy even when they understand what it is.