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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

#421

Post by eries »

charles_f wrote: post #412

Hi Eric! Sounds like an interesting topic! > Why do good companies go bad I find interesting the systemic explanation of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith in "The Dictator's Handbook"^1: In any publicly traded company, if the executives (or the board) are not ready to do whatever it takes to maximize profit, they will be replaced by people who are. It becomes a selection process creating tyrants. If you're l…

The fundamental question is what the people who work at an org are incentivized to maximize for "whatever it takes." Today, by default, orgs are aligned to maximize shareholder value (even at the expense of long-term viability) but there is nothing natural or logical about this.

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

#422

Post by eries »

deweywsu wrote: post #417

I'd love to know how you got your book into the public eye. What kind of marketing and sales channels did you target to get noticed? Thanks

I am finding this exceptionally difficult, to be honest. It has been nearly impossible (so far) to get traditional media to take the book seriously (there have been a few exceptions). And the perversity of the modern social media algorithms means that it is extremely difficult to get discussions of the book to break through that barrier. I've had people who follow me say their feed is absolutely saturated with content about the book, and others who have no idea the book has come out. The algorithm decides all, having hundreds of thousands of followers is next to useless anymore.

So, to the extent the book is getting attention at all, it's being driven primarily by word of mouth. People who read the book are inspired to become evangelists for it, far more than my prior books. I think this one is more emotionally resonant for folks, and has applicability way beyond founders or even product people. So I'm extremely grateful for all that support.

I've also done a metric ton of podcast interviews, many of which you can watch here: https://howisincorruptiblegoing.com/

But if you look at the view counts on YouTube, you'll see that they are all also suffering from the algorithm's fickle attention. Most have very few views (with a few notable exceptions).

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

#423

Post by meteor333 »

Hi Eric, very excited to read your book. Im fan of The Lean Startup and it helped shape my couple of startups that I did (and got successful exit). Recently i've been having crisis and loss motivation on starting a new one after seeing SV getting corrupted in recent years, but im hoping your new book helps me revive the fire and show that starting a startup with the right ethics is possible.

Anyway, my question is - Have you had a chance to research OpenAI and it's path to getting "corrupted" i.e. going from Non-profit to this weird structure to then, what it looks like, absolutely regular for-profit company? whats your take on it? what are the lessons of the convoluted company structure they persuaded?

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

#424

Post by gorfian_robot »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #35

> how a handful of companies (like Costco[..]) have successfully been structured to resist gravity "I came to (Jim Sinegal) once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty," Jelineck recalled[..]. "We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you." That's not structure, that's leadership. They were about to change the price, but one guy at the top with au…

Acquired has an excellent episode on Costco: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco

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

#425

Post by [deleted] »

clarkdale wrote: post #383
eries wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't understand your comment, so let me try and recapitulate what I think you're saying and what I think I was saying, and then you can tell me where I missed the mark. What I hear you saying is that the original comment simply said that leadership by itself is enough to preserve the Costco ethos. It didn't say anything about size or Wall Street or anything else. Is that right? The reason I responded the…

This reply genuinely reads like AI and I don't mean to insult you. Perhaps large language models have been trained too much on your books. Your first 2 to 3ish paragraph (explanation and rephrasing) is very characteristic of an AI when they're pressed (e.g. on why they recently hallucinated).

[deleted]

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

#426

Post by webglfan »

cj wrote: post #55
eries wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just watch Lenny's Podcast and you'll see how those principles are alive and well :)

can you share a TLDL for the sake of the AMA?

By "Lenny's Podcast" I believe Eric means this 2 hour podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzebbzIntFc

Eric did a more recent one about his new book as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoJ1vTdHpks

I'd also love to see a proper TLDL, since Youtube's own Gemini-powered summary seems a bit too brief:

"This conversation features Eric Ries, the creator of the Lean Startup methodology, discussing his philosophy, the current state of the startup movement, and his vision for the future of business.

Key Takeaways & Concepts: The Lean Startup Methodology (14:04 - 27:52): Ries reflects on how his methodology has evolved from a controversial, insurgent idea to the industry standard. He clarifies common misconceptions, noting that a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is not about low quality or"

EDIT: Actual Gemini (not YT embedded) can do a proper summarization: https://gemini.google.com/share/f9e0a84b95be

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

#427

Post by insaider »

Hi Eric, thoughts on capitalism? Call it 'financial gravity' but I think capitalism is the underlying insidious force. Obviously there's nuance but a world ran by companies with shareholders and profit margins isn't going to be a good one, is it?

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

#428

Post by zoogeny »

SauntSolaire wrote: post #408
zoogeny wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We have 10,000+ years of human civilization at this point. There must be some other active ethical maxim operating other than "choose the lesser of two evils" to explain why there is so much cooperation amongst humans. Evidence is not on the side of the preeminence of races to the bottom.

You should investigate the repeated prisoners dilemma.

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

#429

Post by iancmceachern »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #35

> how a handful of companies (like Costco[..]) have successfully been structured to resist gravity "I came to (Jim Sinegal) once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty," Jelineck recalled[..]. "We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you." That's not structure, that's leadership. They were about to change the price, but one guy at the top with au…

And leadership that respects and "gets" it's customer base. Customers that feel respected and who genuinely feel like the company they are supporting is in their corner are the most rabidly loyal. If you build a customer base like that, and keep respecting them, the problem solves itself.

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

#430

Post by sizzle »

“We've all experienced watching a company we love or admire be warped and broken beyond recognition; until it's a husk of its former self, or worse. I wanted to understand why. And I wanted to know what all of us can do to stop that from happening.”

Enshittification and maximizing founder/shareholder/c-suite profit?

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