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Looking forward to reading this. Still have a signed copy of The Lean Startup from an event in Seattle from 15 years ago. The book had a big part in pushing me towards doing my own lean startup just a year later, so, thank you.
I listened to a podcast interview you did where you talked positively about the Novo Nordisk Foundation as a successful governance story, but when I think of long lived foundations, I think of the Ford Foundation and the Hewlet Foundation that have significantly drifted from the founders' visions despite being non-profits. Many people think it is better for foundations to spend down all their resources before the founder is gone to prevent this drift and loss of efficacy.
Have you done any studies of what made long lived foundations drift on their mission despite no profit incentive?
Are the lessons you have distilled applicable to other institutions in society which decline due to corruption? How is corruption different from your concept of financial gravity?
Corruption = the symptom Gravity = the force that causes it
In the book, I give the example of a bridge that collapses. If you ask an engineer "why did it collapse" you'll be annoyed if they say "gravity" even though that is technically correct. If we go examine the wreckage and notice that the metal bolts have been corroded beyond recognition, we can start to think through what went wrong and what to do about it going forward.
What parts of The Lean Startup would you update for the AI era?
Of course, many of the tactics and examples in the book are now a bit dated, so if I did an "AI edition" I guess we would update it with new stories and new tips on how to use various AI-powered tools to accelerate. But I think the principles have stood up pretty well.
I'm curious if you think cooperative businesses leveraging non-voting preferred shares, community shares and other coop investment instruments are more resilient against this type of corruption.
I'm wonder how you see the tradeoffs these models have against traditional LLC/VC models and how you would mitigate them.