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I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

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Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#181

Post by byoung2 »

eries wrote: post #108
byoung2 wrote: post #101

I haven't read the new book yet, but I'd be interested in your take on Disney's trajectory over the last, say, 2 decades. It seems to have strayed pretty far from Walt's original vision, largely due to the actions of Bob Iger. He took what used to be a company that was fueled by creativity and turned it into a machine that strip mines IP and extracts value. Iger purchased IP (Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Fox) as a risk…

I recently had the chance to meet Abigail Disney, who has been a very vocal critic of what's happened to her grandfather's ethos. It sounds quite sad.

I recently left Disney after working there for almost 5 years. It's much worse on the inside than people realize. Very sad indeed.

Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#182

Post by eries »

realityfactchex wrote: post #153

Do you think that building what the "market wants" (finding traction/gold, and leaning into that) comes at the cost of people (not) making and promoting "things that should exist" (e.g., companies and products/services aligned with ideal visions of the world they want to be in)? If so, how is the tradeoff justified? (Make money first, then do "ideal" things?) If not, why not? (Other than that it's unsuccessful strate…

I'd encourage you to study the story of Tony's Chocolonely. I included a version of that story in chapter 12 of the new book.

Tony's make some of the most delicious chocolate in the world, but their mission is actually to eradicate child slavery in the production of cocoa. I bring this up because before Tony's, it was widely assumed that "the market" didn't care about child exploitation. They just wanted delicious chocolate. Yet Tony's found a way to prove that this was not true.

The more general lesson is that many of the stories we tell ourselves about "what the market wants" are mere fabrications or just-so stories designed to make us feel better about how crappy our alternatives are. Sometimes it just takes a bold entrepreneur to show us that we already collectively are committed to a different set of ideals. We've just never had the opportunity to vote with our wallets to make it happen.

Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#183

Post by eries »

rib3ye wrote: post #99

Hi Eric, I worked for IMVU shortly after you left and tbh I didn't see a ton of "lean startup" ideas implemented well. And today, company is not healthy. Why do you think IMVU never hit escape velocity?

Well, there is a reason that I left after all. What's funny is that, although IMVU is today mostly famous because it appears in "The Lean Startup," many of the people who were there at the time were quite annoyed with me and found the ideas grating or even irritating. It reminds me of that old quote that "nobody is a prophet in their own hometown." Well, that kind of happened to me.

What happened in the years since? I don't really know. The company has not been in close touch with me, so I can only speculate or guess.

Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#184

Post by eries »

jamisteven wrote: post #133

Your first book was my like my bible, used many of the concepts when building gomacro.ai, at the same time found it so easy to get sucked into non-lean methodology. Very hard these days to come up with a sound idea, so many people building things that nobody asked for to begin with and in the age of AI its even more so the case. Best of luck with the new one, will give it a read!

Thank you and good luck!

Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#185

Post by elictronic »

Boxxed wrote: post #110
nradov wrote: post #87

It will be interesting to see how many of those companies remain "incorruptible". Your new book seems a bit like a sequel to Jim Collins's 2001 book Good to Great . Several of the "great" companies including Circuit City, Fannie Mae, and Wells Fargo later ran into serious problems. And from an investor perspective, as a group they have underperformed the S&P 500. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/good-to-great-j…

> And from an investor perspective, as a group they have underperformed the S&P 500. This should be kind of obvious -- if they are avoiding doing awful things in the name of money, then they are leaving something on the table. You can't have your cake and eat it too. This is why the real solution is some kind of governance/regulation, because otherwise the market incentivizes being awful.

As a note, Wells Fargo is underperforming for doing terrible things and getting caught multiple times.

Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#187

Post by eries »

ngriffiths wrote: post #178

My biggest struggle with this question is that "going bad" sometimes coincides with not just financial incentives, but also more people getting value out of it. For example Spotify gradually shifting from "we make it easy to curate and share playlists" to "we make them for you to use as background music constantly." Sometimes what's bad for the early power user is great for the late adopter, and it's difficult to mak…

I don't have the link in front of me, but someone who used to work at Spotify wrote a really nice reflection about this change through the lens of incorruptible over on LinkedIn. If someone can find it and post it here, that'd be great. If not, I'll try to remember to come back and post it later.

I think these changes very rarely have to do with what customers want shifting, but when people say "the market," they are often confused about whether they're talking about customers or our financial markets. Frankly, it's far more often for this kind of correction to originate in the pressure from financial markets than any other single source.

Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#188

Post by lebovic »

eries wrote: post #174
lebovic wrote: post #168

I worked at Anthropic, and I wouldn't attribute much to the structure itself – so I'm wary of using it as a positive example here. I do attribute a lot to specific people. Concretely, to much of the intitial team, who they recruited on the research/infra side, and some very close personal relationships within research/infra. That dynamic, paired with their unwillingness to accede to something against their values, is…

Your comment is very astute. A structure is like a shell. It can only protect what is within. It does not cause what's within to be vital, healthy, or unhealthy. But if you think that the courage that Dario has regularly shown would be possible with a conventional "best practices" structure, I think you're kidding yourself.

> If you think that the courage that Dario has regularly shown would be possible with a conventional "best practices" structure, I think you're kidding yourself.

Is there something that happened which you don't think would have come to pass with a standard PBC/C-Corp (without the LTBT)? I'm trying to think of one, but nothing is coming to mind.

I think the structure attracted many people to Anthropic (e.g. an RSP that could only be overridden by the LTBT), but I'm not sure it has demonstrated a practical impact.

As an aside, I think a lot about this problem too! But the answers that don't reduce to something like "the people, and the people to whom they give power" seem to break down when I look closely.

Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#189

Post by [deleted] »

Boxxed wrote: post #110
nradov wrote: post #87

It will be interesting to see how many of those companies remain "incorruptible". Your new book seems a bit like a sequel to Jim Collins's 2001 book Good to Great . Several of the "great" companies including Circuit City, Fannie Mae, and Wells Fargo later ran into serious problems. And from an investor perspective, as a group they have underperformed the S&P 500. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/good-to-great-j…

> And from an investor perspective, as a group they have underperformed the S&P 500. This should be kind of obvious -- if they are avoiding doing awful things in the name of money, then they are leaving something on the table. You can't have your cake and eat it too. This is why the real solution is some kind of governance/regulation, because otherwise the market incentivizes being awful.

[deleted]

Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

#190

Post by eries »

ryandrake wrote: post #142
eries wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had read that blog post because that is one of the chapters in the new book. I actually think that the phrase "mission-driven" for most companies is a total lie. They are at best "mission-hopeful". In fact, I tried to create a new term for the work that is required: the management system, leadership techniques, and structural elements that are required to 100% align the business model with the mission. I cal…

Maybe "mission-chauffeured." Revenue/business model is in the driver's seat and the mission just comes along for the ride and adapts to wherever the car is going.

An entrepreneur I used to admire a great deal was once described to me this way: "So and so doesn't do what's right. He makes whatever he does right." Ever since I heard that phrase, I haven't been able to unsee it in so many founders who I think sincerely want to do the right thing, but their ego gets in the way.
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