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I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
591–600 of 618 posts
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#592The meta discussion about HN culture where a book recommendation became the top comment on an AMA is more interesting than the actual topic. People here love to analyze each other more than engage with the author.
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#593Earlier 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.
I upvoted it - because I loved those two suggestions and have already have them open in another tab. I believe a bunch of others would have done the same.
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#594Eric – Is Anthropic betraying its core values by going public in the current environment?
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#595Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, happy to. This is a very common source of confusion, so definitely worth clarifying. We agree that Costco's difference is due to its superior leadership. The question is why has the company been able to maintain this leadership advantage over multiple generations of managers, when other companies have not. In the book, I give dozens of examples of companies that were well-lead and then suddenly destroyed, often…
> ... Costco has a variety of "bad governance" provisions, such as a super-majority (of all shares, not just votes) provision threshold for shareholder votes Do you believe there's a fundamental tradeoff between structural constraints (i.e. the 'democratic' model, where dispersed shareholders and markets have a voice) vs. insulated leadership (i.e. the 'benevolent dictator' model, where competent leaders are shielded…
From my perspective, there is such a thing as "too much democracy." I don't know how to quantify the exact right amount for a given situation.
In the case of companies, a benevolent dictatorship is fine because employees, customers and investors can all exit and find other companies. It's at the nation state level where you need more structural veto points. (Arguably true for towns/counties/states too, but you still have the right to exit so...)
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#596I am interested in your opinion of Southwest Airlines. It had a very specific culture and acted differently than most USA-based airlines. But it was recently bought and changed to behave like all the other airlines. Was that a good thing?
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I think most of us are happy to believe that most companies simply have bad leadership" I don't believe this for a second. I don't know if this makes me the minority or not though! It trivializes forces influencing large public companies. Yes - there can be good and bad leadership - and bad leadership is just bad. But good leadership can be totally helpless in a public company. Not recognizing this is a huge gap. Th…
I think you’re right, however, I think the person you’re replying to may also. And is shorthanding “everyone without direct experience of the influential power of market forces” into “most of us.” I think it’s fair to say that the fact that more or most people _don’t_ understand that and _do_ think it’s “all just leadership” explains much of the sentiment about capitalism generally.
And government in general. Populist demagogues capitalize on the misperception that one man can just make all the "easy" fixes. DOGE was a good example of that.
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#598The founders and business models of Costco, Patagonia and Novo Nordisk are so radically different from so-called "tech startup" founders^1 that one must consider this in any analysis 1. Who lack a legitimate business model hence have resorted to "data collection from/about computer users, surveillance of computer users even when engaged in non-commercial activity and online advertising services" with generally free,…
Was 7
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#599Curious if Eric actually addresses the argument that Costco's resistance to corruption is more about leadership than structure. That hot dog story is a powerful counterexample to his structural thesis.
Yup. The hot dog story is in the book, and although it is a leadership story, that leadership is protected by a unique structure. Without which, I think it's very clear that it would be insufficient. You'll have to read the book to get al the details :)
Re: I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA
#600Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
> Your first 2 to 3ish paragraph (explanation and rephrasing) is very characteristic of an AI What you're seeing in those paragraphs is patience and empathy. Let's not let LLMs have a monopoly on these.
Oof, this comment is too real.
There's a dark future timeline where snark becomes the new "don't use any em-dashes" that people inject even more of to intentionally look human, since empathy and patience read as..robotic.