Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 618 posts

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

#461

Post by jameslk »

Eric, thank you for taking time to answer questions! I read The Lean Startup early in my career and it shaped a lot of it. I’m keen to read your new book

As I read through your comments, one question popped into my head: what’s your thoughts about the Friedman doctrine? Do you address it in your book?

Specifically, the Friedman doctrine makes the argument that the social responsibility of the firm is to increase its profits. That policy making should be left to governments.

Milton Friedman states in his essay:

Insofar as [a business executive's] actions in accord with his "social responsibility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.

His theory was introduced in 1970 and it seems has since become the standard for the corporate world

How does this square with what you present in your book? Do you disagree with his theory?

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

#462

Post by rjrinffj284 »

zaphar wrote: post #436
eries wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, and yet the evidence shows that some companies have been able to do it. I think there's something to be learned by studying those companies as a data set.

They have been able to "so far". This isn't to say that we shouldn't learn from them how to push the failure date as far into the future as you can. I just don't think you can truly make something incorruptible.

It’s perhaps idealistic, but maybe we’ll figure out a way to limit the blast radius of any failures by driving a culture that rewards those that push out the future date as you say

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

#463

Post by roggenbuck »

eries wrote: post #177
roggenbuck wrote: post #169

Hey Eric! How often do you see companies recover from financial gravity? Or is it mostly irreversible? How much do you attribute worsening of company values to things like professional managers, too much hierarchy, and less founder-mode; versus financial gravity? In a case like GitHub where their focus seems less on open-source these days, should developers try to help GitHub better support open-source or should the…

You've framed this question as if these things are separate phenomena, but from my point of view, they are all symptoms of the same underlying cause. The sad truth is that, as I say in the book, "It's always too early until it's too late." The truth is we don't ever know if something is too late until we try. If you love an organization and you think you have the opportunity to try to help them get better, go for it.…

Thanks Eric! That makes sense and I appreciate the thoughtful response! Excited to read the new book (arriving tomorrow)!

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

#465

Post by mgfist »

zaphar wrote: post #436
eries wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, and yet the evidence shows that some companies have been able to do it. I think there's something to be learned by studying those companies as a data set.

They have been able to "so far". This isn't to say that we shouldn't learn from them how to push the failure date as far into the future as you can. I just don't think you can truly make something incorruptible.

That's where competition and creative destruction comes to play.

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

#467

Post by petrev01 »

eries wrote: post #136
creamyhorror wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that incredible sense of idealism The idealism that has been sucked out of the tech industry. It was so (naively) hopeful at one point, and now the arms race and profit-maximization has eroded it all. Your observations really resonate with me. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, it seems like a much healthier direction for the market.

You might want to ask yourself why, in all these years, you haven't heard of it. There's quite a few people invested in keeping it that way.

Would love to hear your take here, @eries!

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

#468

Post by jkingsbery »

Not a question, just thought I'd throw out that I worked through Black Art of Java Game Programming when I was learning Java in 1997 or so. I still have my copy because I don't like getting rid of books. I found it really helpful for learning patterns for building medium sized software projects. I hadn't realized that you wrote that until years later when you mentioned something about it in The Startup Way.

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

#470

Post by ramesh31 »

sdellis wrote: post #413
eries wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah! Your point about Claude Code is very funny. At a minimum, you can find links to many of the interviews I've done. If it comes across as too promotional, you can always use the "official" website incorruptible.co which is more staid. Your skepticism is well earned, and all I can really say is that I hope you'll read the book and judge for yourself. I tried really hard to lay out the evidence for two things that ar…

Thanks for being a good sport about my joke! And also thanks for answering a gazillion questions here on HN with care, patience, and curiosity. I have to say, to your first point, that exploitation (of humans, labor, resources, consumers, etc.) has always been the primary driver of accumulating large wealth under capitalism. Sure, "innovation" sometimes has a role in softening the blow, but let's be real. That was tr…

>"I have to say, to your first point, that exploitation (of humans, labor, resources, consumers, etc.) has always been the primary driver of accumulating large wealth under capitalism"

Under all forms of human civilization, since the beginning of agriculture allowed one person to accumulate more cattle than another. Capitalism is actually a great equalizing force from that yoke - it allowed for the first time to get out of it through ingenuity and hard work. The rule for practically all of existence before that was "you do what the biggest baddest guy around tells you to do or you die", and your entire life and your children and their children's will be the exact same, with no hope of betterment whatsoever. It's what led to the rise of slave morality religions like Buddhism and the Abrahamics; if you have no chance at happiness in this life, best to believe there's something better after, and that those responsible for your suffering will be punished.

Post reply on HN