First of all, all 3 companies have very different business models.
Second, Apple never sold "commodity junk". The company sold (and sells) on the high end of the market, they take a different approach to design than competitors, use more expensive materials, machining, etc., design lots of their own internals (from logic board part to processors, even their own OS and programming languages, and create their products end to end (hardware to software), and come to market with lots of firsts (e.g. from small stuff like magsafe or the best trackpad in PC-land, to hi-dpi etc). And of course have won all kinds of design, quality awards.
Third, Facebook doesn't sell anything (except ads). What's the "commodity junk" they sell? Their service is junk? Compared to what? MySpace and similar competitors, whose websites were crap even at the time? What's the better social network people aren't on?
Fourth, Amazon? Has a first tier store, a first tier web service business. What's the commodity junk they sell? If you mean actual products on their store, then they sell everything, from expensive high end stuff to mass market cheap products. And of course, for ages, they started with books -- where there's nothing "commodity crap" about them, books are books, whether a high end bookstore sells them or Amazon does.
>Same way. They had leaders whose business won the lottery
If your explanation of 3 of the biggest companies on earth is "won the lottery" then you're missing a lot. Might a well invoke God.
>Selling crap isn't interesting. Show me somebody that makes a similar-sized dent in human health, the environment, or world peace then I think the fawning Medium articles will be worth it.
You conflate businesses with NGOs or revolutionary parties.
Which is a valid comparison for some aspects, but not one that can conclude that "businesses are not interesting" when speaking about business.