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

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

#1

Post by eries »

Hey gang, you may remember me from such books as _The Lean Startup_ and _The Startup Way_.

It's been fifteen years since I wrote The Lean Startup, and in that time I've seen some things. In both big companies and tiny startups, NGOs and governments, in almost every industry you can name.

I've helped a lot of people create a lot of amazing companies, but I've also seen so many ways this can go wrong. There's a darkness in our industry that we often don't talk about.

I kept watching good companies drift away from the missions they were founded on. Not because anyone woke up one day and decided to be evil, but because the structure they were built on slowly pulled them there. I call that pull "financial gravity."

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.

My new book _Incorruptible_ is my attempt to explain the invisible forces that shape organizations, and how a handful of companies (like Costco, Patagonia, and Novo Nordisk) have successfully been structured to resist gravity and thrive for decades -- or even centuries.

Along the way, I founded the Long-Term Stock Exchange, co-founded an AI R&D lab called Answer.AI with Jeremy Howard, and helped a number of notable companies with their governance (yes, including Anthropic).

I won't pretend I have this all figured out, but I've probably spent more time than is healthy on the "why do good companies go bad" question. Ask me anything!

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

#2

Post by zelias »

Big fan of your work!

Let's say this has already happened and ossified across large, formerly-innovative companies that now have so much size and inertia behind them that it might take decades for one to "fail" in a traditional sense. What can be done to reverse the process?

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

#3

Post by eries »

For those that want to go deeper with _Incorruptible_, I've spent the past few months doing hundreds of interviews and events discussing its various themes and topics. I'm having Claude Code summarize this progress along the way at https://howisincorruptiblegoing.com/

You can also see the various accolades, reviews, and awards that it's accumulated so far.

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

#4

Post by eries »

zelias wrote: post #2

Big fan of your work! Let's say this has already happened and ossified across large, formerly-innovative companies that now have so much size and inertia behind them that it might take decades for one to "fail" in a traditional sense. What can be done to reverse the process?

I won't sugar-coat this, for many companies this will be extremely difficult. but, as I wrote about it my previous book, sometimes conditions conspire to make radical transformation possible. it usually takes a crisis or an extremely bold leader to decide to take such a big swing.

Unfortunately, a lot of leaders who do have the moral authority and power to attempt such a thing do not really know what structural changes to demand. in fact, they tend to focus on the typical management/leadership stuff: business model, org chart, strategy, vision. These things are important. But there is a deeper layer that tends to get overlooked or ignored: structure, governance, boards, the relationship with investors.

In the new book, I try to tackle both topics in a new way, so that future leaders will know what to ask for when and if they have the opportunity to try.

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

#5

Post by andsoitis »

eries wrote: post #4
zelias wrote: post #2

Big fan of your work! Let's say this has already happened and ossified across large, formerly-innovative companies that now have so much size and inertia behind them that it might take decades for one to "fail" in a traditional sense. What can be done to reverse the process?

I won't sugar-coat this, for many companies this will be extremely difficult. but, as I wrote about it my previous book, sometimes conditions conspire to make radical transformation possible. it usually takes a crisis or an extremely bold leader to decide to take such a big swing. Unfortunately, a lot of leaders who do have the moral authority and power to attempt such a thing do not really know what structural chang…

> sometimes conditions conspire to make radical transformation possible. it usually takes a crisis or an extremely bold leader to decide to take such a big swing.

Example of a company where this has happened?

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