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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

#581

Post by Maestro_dev »

Hi Eric,

Im a 17-year-old student working on launching my first startup. The idea is about improving the reliability of AI agents solving the issue of them ignoring instructions, lying, generating code that doesnt match what was requested and is broken. I am a first-time founder with basically no practical startup experience, Im trying to figure out where to focus my time and effort. Given your experience helping early-stage companies, what would you recommend a young founder to validate first: customer demand, technical feasibility, or something else?

I'd really appreciate any advice. Thanks for your time.

Alex

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

#582

Post by throwaway2037 »

utopiah wrote: post #579
throwaway2037 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why this comment is downvoted. You raise some interesting points. First, for-profit vs non-profit. This is a great point. I have only worked for huge for-profits orgs my whole career. On the other hand, my mother worked as a first grade teacher (teaching children to read) for 35 years. The difference in our view of the workplace is night and day: She views it as much more benevolent because other teacher…

Sincerely appreciate you took the time to reply and clarify. Honestly I don't care for downvotes but I admit it's frustrating that somebody believes I'm wrong (perfectly fine! I'm wrong very VERY often.) but doesn't try to make me understand how (not fine, it's depriving me from a potential opportunity to see flaws in my reasoning or understanding). So yes, thanks!

+9000

It is a personal vendetta of mine to upvote reasonable comments that have been downvoted without comment. It is so irritating and childish on HN. Fortunately, it is a tiny fraction of downvotes!

    > I'm wrong very VERY often.
I love you for saying this. Honestly, I am too afraid to say it myself! This is pretty much a(n) OG/GOAT comment on HN. Anyone who has "strong beliefs, but weakly held" is normally loved on HN. It is a fundamental belief of Paul Graham.

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

#583

Post by recursivegirth »

unholiness wrote: post #559
wavemode wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta love HN. A commenter does literally nothing other than recommend a book and the top reply is "don't recommend books to him - he's written books, don't you know that?"

TBF I think it's just a remark on the upvotes. It's a perfectly cromulent comment with no business being at the top of an AMA.

Gotta love HN. You can't just have a thread without a psycho-analysis on how people interact with each other on a social media website.

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

#584

Post by jacques_chester »

forlorn_mammoth wrote: post #574
jameslk wrote: post #461

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…

> 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. > His theory was introduced in 1970 and it seems has since become the standard for the corporate world questions: WHY has it become the standard? Should it still be the standard-- the world has changed a lot since 1970, is the context that supported Friedm…

> questions: WHY has it become the standard?

1. It coincidentally aligns with the interests of the C-suite. They are mostly compensated in stock, and compensation mostly set by other members of the C-suite elite. And gosh darn it wouldn't you know it, they all think it's a jolly good idea.

2. It is taught in B-school, so most of the C-suite believe it or have never thought seriously about its deeper meaning. "Shareholder value" is easy to mouth, but breaks down almost immediately after trivial scrutiny. Which shareholders, pray tell Mr Babbage? What is value to them? Are they just are hivemind with perfectly identical interests, opinions, attention span, background knowledge, experience, access to capital, prestige, ...?

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

#585

Post by tonymet »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #474

I'll give you a read. If you haven't read it already, I strongly recommend the Knapp Commission Report. Its about police corruption in New York City in 1972, but its lessons on systemic and institutionalized corruption are highly transferable to other contexts. Probably the most common naive mistake I see is people thinking their subfield is special and they are the first to really notice / understand fraud within it…

Why did things worsen afterward ?

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

#586

Post by IIAOPSW »

tonymet wrote: post #585
IIAOPSW wrote: post #474

I'll give you a read. If you haven't read it already, I strongly recommend the Knapp Commission Report. Its about police corruption in New York City in 1972, but its lessons on systemic and institutionalized corruption are highly transferable to other contexts. Probably the most common naive mistake I see is people thinking their subfield is special and they are the first to really notice / understand fraud within it…

Why did things worsen afterward ?

For the most part it didn't, but to the extent it did, the answer is in the later Mollen Commission Report.

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

#587

Post by insaider »

eries wrote: post #433
insaider wrote: post #427

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?

I do make critiques of capitalism in the book, but I try to be very careful when using that word, since at this point most people can't even agree on what the word means. Here are some things that seem to me unequivocally true if we look at the historical record and the data available to us: 1. These kind of value-destroying actions in the name of profit have been going on for a very long time, at least 200 years. 2.…

I think the focus should be more on creating governments that are resistant to those forces. Contrary to popular belief, governments are the greatest force for good in the world, the best ones are the ones that are best at keeping capitalism in check, companies will always be vulnerable.

Unpopular opinion but I'm very much pro-china and anti-us because of this.

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

#588

Post by blazespin »

ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #537
laszlojamf wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gotta love HN. Top comment on an AMA with an author who's actually written books is "Here is a book you should read".

[flagged]

Very very patronizing of him to get upvoted.

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

#589

Post by Lucasoato »

eries wrote: post #497
Lucasoato wrote: post #493

> co-founded an AI R&D lab called Answer.AI with Jeremy Howard How is Jeremy Howard doing? I remember studying machine learning with his videos, he’s been so inspiring!

He's every bit as brilliant and generous as you remember. You can still learn from him, btw, once we re-open the solveit course: https://solve.it.com/ stay tuned

May the sun shine bright on your projects!
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