This basically goes back to the conflict between idealism and materialism. The article is putting forward an idealist position - that ideas (lore, memes, cultur

This basically goes back to the conflict between idealism and materialism. The article is putting forward an idealist position - that ideas (lore, memes, culture) matter, and in some cases matter more than material facts. In this view, there are many potential cultural niches, and entrepreneurs are engaged in finding them. Production is downstream of ideals: certain products can only be made, or made well, by cultures with the necessary ideals, so the formation of ideals is an important part of innovation and entrepreneurship. This would be contrasted with the materialist view, which says that culture is downstream of material reality and modes of production. In this view, "company culture" is just an emergent phenomenon that arises from the material activities of the firm, and its rules and policies, which emerge out of material conflicts over resources. Far from being a new thing, this debate is as old as modern capitalism itself, and is prefigured by religious and philosophical debates going back many centuries before that.