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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

#401

Post by [deleted] »

eries wrote: post #151
mehulashah wrote: post #135

Eric - I've worked for NASA, ATT, IBM, HP, Amazon, and Google, not to mention a couple of startups that I started in between. None of them (except the startups, but they were brief) stayed true to their original mission. I haven't read your new book, but IMO, it's because the founders leave and the next leadership don't share the vision or values of the founders in the same way. After all, a company is a collaboratio…

One of the sad truths that the book tries to confront about the world we live in today: that most companies simply fail the test of succession. This does not have to be the reality that we live in. It is absolutely 100% possible to build organizations to resist gravity and even to transform organizations that have fallen into its clutches. The fact that this is rare tells you something about the incentive design and…

[deleted]

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

#403

Post by eries »

burnto wrote: post #396

Hm, so it’s almost like the corporation is not an ideal format for long-lived values driven institutions?

You might be surprised to learn that some of them are, but not if done according to today's so-called "best practices" about how to structure corporations

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

#405

Post by Lionga »

eries wrote: post #245
Lionga wrote: post #33

You give advice on startups, yet the two Startups mentioned raised lots of money and have not achieved any real success. Those who can do, those who can't teach?

I know you meant this comment as a criticism, but it actually raises a really interesting point of what we mean by "real success." I hope you will elaborate.

[flagged]

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

#406

Post by aquariusDue »

felooboolooomba wrote: post #380
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…

Totally agree about the people. I've seen a bad hire blow up a 20 person startup. I've seen 5 person company excel since they worked more like 5x5 persons than 5 individuals.

Yeah, I generally dislike platitudes yet "one bad apple spoils the bunch" seems to apply more often than not sadly.

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

#408

Post by SauntSolaire »

zoogeny wrote: post #349
csallen wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 stan…

I mean, your proposed logic seems to be quite consistent from a basic game theory perspective. Defecting in a prisoners dilemma and races to the bottom are both well observed phenomena.

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

#409

Post by z3t4 »

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…

Sometimes being evil will make you win - but only what money can buy.
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