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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

#341

Post by byoung2 »

th0raway wrote: post #297
byoung2 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Disney has an especially difficult problem, as optimizing for revenue for an org might actually lower total revenue for the entire company. See how many movies do badly because people expect them to see them in D+ quickly. A company this complicated need a very special kind of leadership, along with creative teams that reliably deliver hits. Now the batting average is way worse than it needs to be, and a lot of the l…

In some ways that “problem” is an escape hatch for Disney. Other studios have to write off huge losses for underperforming movies (and Disney definitely does this too). But even a flop can drive Disney+ subscriptions, park visits, merchandise purchases, hotel stays, cruise bookings, etc. Star Wars is an excellent example, even though many of the Disney era movies underperformed (it’s hard to say flop), Disney has made back more than the purchase price of Lucasfilm, the budgets of all movies and shows, and construction costs of 2 Galaxy’s Edge lands and turned a profit. They’re like Costco in that way where the food court doesn’t need to profit as long as they sell memberships.

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

#342

Post by mekoka »

I haven't read the book, but I've thought about similar problems. Sharing my attempt at a solution.

First, the organization must have an original steering body made up of "true believers" in a shared mission and vision. This body must make preventing the short or long term erosion or dilution of its mission a priority. Meaning that there's awareness that this particular corruption is a possibility from the start. Also, an understanding of the typical mechanisms through which it can happen (usually very human).

Second, as part of its survival strategy the steering body has the responsibility to identify other genuine true believers and integrate them in its makeup. There must be built-in assumptions that many outsiders will be attracted to its powers of influence and will try to infiltrate it.

Joining the steering council should thus be done primarily based on "culture fit". Admittedly a rather segregating practice, but one which in this case comes with the advantage that certain signals are just hard to fake on the long run. So, although many could try to dress, look, talk, or walk the part for a while, there will always be some shibboleth that trips up impostors.

I foresaw some problems to this structure that I haven't yet worked out, but it feels like a step in the right direction, if I had to come up with a solution.

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

#343

Post by alphaomegacode »

eries wrote: post #202
alphaomegacode wrote: post #60

I'm about to launch a startup, do you do consulting for small companies with what I'd like to think is a big mission (likely similar to all startups lol)? In other words, is there some way to contact you and do you work with non-billion dollar startups if you find it worthwhile? Or is it more in line with 'read my books and call me when you raise your first million'?

Yes, I'd be happy to help you. Just drop me an email, and I can connect you to a variety of resources that might be stage appropriate for you.

Thank you. Going to buy your books to read up first. Thanks again for the AMA and all your thoughtful responses for the HN crowd

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

#344

Post by svilen_dobrev »

eries wrote: post #126
Eridrus wrote: post #12

Is it realistic to make organizations that stay on mission long after the founder is gone? 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…

I'm not an academic, so no, I have not done any of these studies, but good news, everyone: other people have. The specific structure of Nova Nordisk is not just a foundation. I think the two-entity structure, where a foundation oversees or governs a for-profit company, is uniquely suited to longevity of a mission precisely because it combines the stewardship orientation of the foundation with the performance orientat…

some association... the Japanese studied their temples that withstood hundreds of years and thousands of earthquakes.. and found that there's one common pattern: there are two skeleton structures inside one another, with different loading and strengths, each keeping the other from falling (and they built the Tokyo Skytree this way).

Would be interesting to see if other lasting things in other domains, natural or human-made, physical or virtual, are built this way..

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

#345

Post by wilkommen »

Good companies go bad because the American financial system and thus the companies that live within that system are geared for "shareholder returns" as the primary objective of existence for the corporation. If the objective of the corporation was simply to protect its continued existence, more akin to a nation-state or a club, then it would be possible to have a wider variety of corporations which each behave differently and behave more according to their own internal rules and principles instead of behaving according to the demands of external shareholders who only want money, even if it distorts or kills the company in the long run.

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

#346

Post by dmofp »

eries wrote: post #316
dmofp wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks a ton! I have called several local firms about these structures and it hasn't been very successful (note; i have complex requirements in addition to wanting the protections in your book). One other thing i've grappled with while reading the book is this: Some of the internal issues you describe seem to come from companies growing too big. The Founders who lose control, weakening culture etc. The size of a comp…

Staying small is definitely one way to increase your "span of control" over what happens. But honestly, size is not as much up to you as you think. If you hit product/market fit, you often will be forced to scale up whether you really want to or not. Better to have a structure that can handle it.

Good point. I haven't thought much about being forced to grow headcount. One can only hope for such PMF. And if you get it, i guess you become more of the target for the kinds of behaviors mentioned in the book.

I hope we get PMF with what we're building. But also hope to stay as small as possible however unrealistic that is.,

Thanks!

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

#347

Post by aturek »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #74

Just dropping in to thank you for writing this book and raising awareness around it. A lot of builders are really disillusioned by how "corruptible" the tech industry has been. I wrote a blog post called "Revenue Model is More Important than Culture" (it made the #1 spot on HackerNews a few years ago) arguing that the way to avoid that corruption is by making sure the business model is immune to it, but having read y…

Link for anyone looking for it

https://somehowmanage.com/2020/09/20/revenue-model-not-cultu...

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

#348

Post by dmofp »

eries wrote: post #315
dmofp wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be missing something here but the Virgil website doesn't appear to have a CTA / Get Started / Sign Up / Contact Form or any other way to get in touch?

I see a "book a call" button in the lower-right, at least on chrome/macos. Apologies if it's not working on other platforms. TBH, the team has been so overwhelmed with word-of-mouth leads, they probably have neglected the website-entry pathway. We are working hard to scale up so that they can accommodate more demand and then will probably also have time to get a working website :)

Ahh I see it now (sorry for the false alarm).

I do think the site could use some more prominent CTAs. I think i vaaguely noticed that button but thought it was one of those AI chat bubble.

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

#349

Post by zoogeny »

csallen wrote: post #339
takinola wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of it also had to do with declining market power: when Google was universally on top, they felt like they could do the right thing without serious negative consequences, but when they were fighting for control of a market, they felt they had to make compromises lest some other firm (being honest: Facebook) would end up in power and do the wrong thing anyway. I would argue it's not a real value if you are not…

> I would argue it's not a real value if you are not willing to lose something in order to hold on to it. It is admirable to want to do the right thing when you can get away with doing the wrong thing. It is only a true value if you are willing to do the right thing when you cannot get away with doing the right thing. I don't think it's that simple. For example, let's say your desire is to minimize harm in Area X. Wh…

Your logic doesn't hold up well to simple escalation logic.

Company A founds itself on doing 0 harm to Area X. Competitor B shows up and starts finding success doing 10 harm to Area X, so Company A makes a "moral" decision: If we do 9 harm to Area X, we are preventing 1 entire harm. Isn't that real value? then Company C shows up and starts finding success doing 100 harm to Area X, so Company A changes it's moral stance to "unless we do 99 harm to Area X ..."

I know an old lady who swallowed a fly kind of logic going on here.

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

#350

Post by bensyverson »

eries wrote: post #233
bensyverson wrote: post #69

Hi Eric, former IDEOer here. I know you spent some time at IDEO observing how we work. In my time there (2014-2024), it felt like most clients misinterpreted "MVP" to mean "the absolute lowest-effort barely-working code that we can rush out to say we shipped something." When they did manage to ship a low-quality MVP, they had no budget for maintenance or iteration. Basically, they shipped a rushed, crappy product, an…

Man, "universally misunderstood?" That's harsh. I don't think you can put an idea out into the world without understanding that some people are going to willfully misunderstand it. We live now, especially in the age where literally ignorance is optional. When you see someone who misunderstands what an MVP is, you know that they haven't spent even five minutes reading the Wikipedia page or made any effort to try to un…

Thanks for the reply, and I didn't intend it to sound as harsh as it came off! I did encourage our clients to actually read The Lean Startup to understand the full context of the MVP concept, and with the benefit of that context, we did use the term "MVP" to describe initial builds. The frustration I describe came mostly from secondary (not day-to-day) client stakeholders, who probably got their information about MVPs by scanning a LinkedIn post (okay, maybe that's harsh).

I'm legitimately excited to read Incorruptible, because in all honesty, 10 years of working with the Fortune 500 left me pessimistic about the ability of $1B+ companies to successfully do anything new. There were exceptions (some of my friends came up with Pay It Plan It for Amex), but they were rare enough that it was hard to come up with themes or patterns that connected them. I'm so curious to hear what you've learned by talking to companies that have been able to avoid ossification and continually reinvent themselves.

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