There is more to it I think. In a masters level course I took, our Instructor was a nearly retired Ph.D in Taxation. He had spent a lifetime in the halls of corporate power as an expert, conducting research and giving policy advice to corporations, governments and institutions.

Among the friendly banter during breaks, some interesting conversations came up about ethics in business. He interjected and offered an explicit personal opinion. He was very clear he was speaking as a person eating his lunch, not as our instructor and in no way does what he was about to say reflect the course material in any way:

If you want to understand how corporations' executives and more importantly, how Boards of Directors, and a lot of high level civil servants and political actors really measure performance under these ethical scenarios, read Machiavelli's "The Prince". It explains everything.

I read it the next day. Then I went on to read Xenophon's "The Education of Cyrus" because Machiavelli referred to it in the book.

Edit: Having read a few more of OPs responses, I think OPs subject is just saying they agree with/admire Machiavelli's The Prince, and to the point of my story, so do a LOT of powerful people. You know, the types who tend to score high on the DSM's dark triad and run global corporations.