Eric Ries+

Why do great organizations eventually fall apart?

Why do great organizations eventually fall apart? I call it financial gravity, an invisible force that slowly warps organizations and pulls them away from their original purpose. Just as engineers design bridges to withstand gravity, founders and leaders need to build organizations that can resist the pressures that erode their values. Daniel Kivatinos, Harshith Vaddiparthy, and I discuss why understanding financial gravity is only the beginning. The real challenge is designing companies strong enough to withstand it. #IncorruptibleBook #FinancialGravity #Leadership #CorporateGovernance #B

How do companies slowly lose sight of what they believe in?

How do companies slowly lose sight of what they believe in? It often starts with something as simple as “investors might not like it” or “the market might not approve.” Over time, these assumptions shape decisions, behaviors, and eventually the values of the entire organization. People begin conforming without even realizing their priorities have changed. John R. Miles and I discuss on Passion Struck how invisible organizational pressures can quietly reshape a company’s values and why leaders need to recognize these forces before they take hold. #IncorruptibleBook #Leadership #BusinessStra

Why do some companies inspire extraordinary loyalty from customers, employees, and investors?

Why do some companies inspire extraordinary loyalty from customers, employees, and investors? The strongest organizations share three qualities: they act consistently with their values, pursue a mission that contributes to human flourishing, and have the strength to resist pressures that would compromise what they stand for. Those are the companies people trust, admire, and want to be part of. Kuba Filipowski and I discuss on the Next in Commerce podcast what gives mission-driven organizations their magnetic pull. #IncorruptibleBook #MissionDriven #Leadership #Trust #NextInCommerce

What happens when the metrics we rely on stop reflecting reality?

What happens when the metrics we rely on stop reflecting reality? When growth becomes the goal at all costs, even well-intentioned metrics can be stretched beyond what they were meant to measure. Healthy businesses are built on trust, and that starts with reporting performance honestly, not finding more creative ways to tell the story. Scott Albro, Craig Rosenberg, and I discuss on The Transaction why transparent metrics matter and why cleaning up bad practices benefits the entire startup ecosystem. #IncorruptibleBook #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #Startups #TheTransaction

What if the conventional way isn’t the right way?

What if the conventional way isn’t the right way? If you don’t believe a conventional approach will work, following it just because it’s expected doesn’t remove your responsibility for the outcome. Sometimes the harder choice is to stay true to your principles, work iteratively, and build with conviction, even if it comes with personal risk. Vlada Bortnik and I discuss on Heartful Wonders why leadership sometimes means choosing the path you believe in, even when it’s the less conventional one. #IncorruptibleBook #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #LeanStartup

What is strategy, really?

What is strategy, really? I think of strategy as the bridge between vision and execution. But a bridge isn’t defined only by what it connects. It’s defined by everything it doesn’t cover. Strategy is choosing the narrow path your organization will commit to, while saying no to all the other possibilities that could distract from your mission. Kaihan Krippendorff and I discuss on the Outthinkers Podcast why strategy is ultimately about making deliberate choices in service of your mission. #IncorruptibleBook #Strategy #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #MissionDriven

Why is it often easier to do the right thing 100% of the time than 98% of the time?

Why is it often easier to do the right thing 100% of the time than 98% of the time? As Clay Christensen observed, making a clear commitment removes the temptation to compromise. When your principles are non-negotiable, decisions become simpler and trust becomes easier to build. Joe Hart and I discuss on Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast why strong commitments create stronger organizations. #IncorruptibleBook #Leadership #Trust #CompanyCulture #BusinessStrategy

What if we’ve been defining profit the wrong way?

What if we’ve been defining profit the wrong way? Rather than thinking of for-profit companies as vehicles for maximizing shareholder returns, what if we saw them as organizations that maximize human flourishing? The real goal isn’t founder control or investor control. It’s building mission-controlled companies that create lasting value. Kuba Filipowski and I discuss on the Next in Commerce Podcast why it’s time to rethink what it means to be a for-profit business. #IncorruptibleBook #MissionDriven #BusinessStrategy #Leadership #NextInCommerce

What creates a lasting competitive advantage when products and markets become increasingly similar?

What creates a lasting competitive advantage when products and markets become increasingly similar? For decades, great sales leaders have understood that the answer is trust. The most valuable salesperson isn’t the one who makes the biggest promises, but the one customers trust most. Trust may be the most underrated asset in business, and the companies that build it gain an advantage that’s difficult to replicate. Scott Albro, Craig Rosenberg, and I discuss on The Transaction why trust remains one of the most powerful drivers of long-term success. #Incorruptible #Leadership #BusinessStrate

What is the real purpose of a forecast?

What is the real purpose of a forecast? Entrepreneurs build under conditions of uncertainty. The goal of a forecast isn’t to predict the future perfectly. It’s to help you learn, adapt, and make better decisions as new information emerges. Vlada Bortnik and I discuss on Heartful Wonders why embracing uncertainty is one of the most important disciplines in entrepreneurship. #IncorruptibleBook #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #BusinessStrategy #HeartfulWonders

What happens when a company’s mission and its governance point in different directions?

What happens when a company’s mission and its governance point in different directions? If you say your company exists to build great products, care about quality, and serve customers, your governance should reinforce those commitments, not contradict them. Mission isn’t just something you communicate. It has to be reflected in the way your company is structured. Kaihan Krippendorff and I discuss why aligning purpose with governance is essential to building organizations that stay true to what they stand for. #IncorruptibleBook #CorporateGovernance #MissionDriven #Leadership #BusinessStrat

Why is it so hard to speak up, even when you know something is wrong?

Why is it so hard to speak up, even when you know something is wrong? Organizations are shaped by invisible forces that influence how people think, act, and make decisions. Like gravity, you may not notice those forces, but they’re always there. The challenge for leaders is to build environments where people feel empowered to question ideas instead of simply conforming. John R. Miles and I discuss on Passion Struck why understanding these hidden forces is essential to building healthier organizations. #IncorruptibleBook #Leadership #CompanyCulture #OrganizationalCulture #BusinessStrategy

How Veeva Became the First Public Company to Convert to a Public Benefit Corporation | Peter Gassner

What if maximizing shareholder value can actually make a company less valuable? Peter Gassner is the founder and CEO of Veeva Systems, a cloud software company serving the life sciences industry. Before founding Veeva, Peter built enterprise software at IBM, PeopleSoft, and Salesforce. Under his leadership, Veeva became the first publicly traded company to convert to a public benefit corporation. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, Peter joins me to explain why profit is necessary for a healthy company but should be the result of fulfilling its mission, not the mission itself. We discuss

How Veeva Became the First Public Company to Convert to a Public Benefit Corporation | Peter Gassner

<p>What if maximizing shareholder value can actually make a company less valuable?</p><p>Peter Gassner is the founder and CEO of Veeva Systems, a cloud software company serving the life sciences industry. Before founding Veeva, Peter built enterprise software at IBM, PeopleSoft, and Salesforce. Under his leadership, Veeva became the first publicly traded company to convert to a public benefit corporation.</p><p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show, </em>Peter joins me to explain why profit is necessary for a healthy company but should be the result of fulfilling its mission, not the missi

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Why do founders spend so much time defining their vision, but so little time designing the governanc

Why do founders spend so much time defining their vision, but so little time designing the governance that protects it? The legal structures already exist. Public benefit corporations, perpetual purpose trusts, and other governance models can help preserve a company’s mission. If you don’t get governance right early, the long-term decisions about your company may eventually be made by someone else. Daniel Kivatinos, Harshith Vaddiparthy, and I discuss why governance isn’t just legal paperwork. It’s one of the most important design decisions a founder can make. #IncorruptibleBook #Corporate

What if the real value isn’t in what AI produces, but in what it helps you learn?

What if the real value isn’t in what AI produces, but in what it helps you learn? The biggest gains come from using AI to strengthen your own judgment and capabilities, not to outsource your thinking. Research on early users of AI coding tools suggests that while productivity can increase, people’s ability to evaluate the quality of their own work can decline if they rely on AI too heavily. Kuba Filipowski and I discuss why the goal isn’t to let AI do the learning for us, but to use it to become better learners ourselves. #IncorruptibleBook #ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #Learning #In

What happens when optimizing a metric starts undermining what made your company successful?

What happens when optimizing a metric starts undermining what made your company successful? Groupon built its business around one great email a day. Then it tested sending more. Revenue went up, but over time customers lost trust and churned. Short-term gains can be addictive, but they often come at the expense of long-term value. Vlada Bortnik and I discuss why protecting customer trust sometimes means saying no to metrics that look good today. #IncorruptibleBook #Groupon #Leadership #CustomerTrust #BusinessStrategy

What does it look like when a company truly puts its customers first?

What does it look like when a company truly puts its customers first? During a severe Texas ice storm, an H-E-B store lost power. The registers stopped working, and customers were there trying to stock up on essentials for their families. Instead of turning them away, the store told everyone to take their groceries and go home. No payment required. John Miles and I discuss on Passion Struck how moments like this reveal what a company really stands for and turn trust from an idea into something people can feel. #IncorruptibleBook #HEB #Trust #Leadership #CustomerFirst #CompanyCulture #Busin

Why is it so hard for companies to communicate a higher purpose?

Why is it so hard for companies to communicate a higher purpose? Whether you want to tackle climate change, build a higher-quality product, or simply make someone’s life easier, you’re choosing to create value beyond extracting as much as possible. That puts you at odds with many of the incentives people encounter in modern business. Andrea Pacini and I discuss on Ideas on Stage why communicating purpose requires understanding the forces pushing organizations in the opposite direction. #IncorruptibleBook #PurposeDriven #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #CompanyCulture #Communication #ValueCrea

Why do so many great products, brands, and businesses seem to get worse after they become successful

Why do so many great products, brands, and businesses seem to get worse after they become successful? We’ve almost accepted that eventually quality will decline, customers will get squeezed, and value will be extracted from what made the business great in the first place. Our grandparents had a word for that: corruption. Craig Rosenberg and I discuss on The Transaction why making money without creating value isn’t really value creation at all, and why ownership and incentives can shape the products we experience every day. #IncorruptibleBook #BusinessStrategy #ValueCreation #Leadership #Pr

What happens when a short-term win undermines what made your company successful?

What happens when a short-term win undermines what made your company successful? Groupon built its business around one great local deal sent by email each day. Then the company tested sending more. Revenue went up, so they kept doing it. But what looked like success in the short term came at the expense of customer trust, and eventually customers churned. Vlada Bortnik and I discuss on Heartful Wonders why leaders need to recognize when optimizing a metric starts destroying the value that created the business in the first place. #IncorruptibleBook #Groupon #Leadership #CustomerTrust #Busin

Can a company be built to protect its mission from the very beginning?

Can a company be built to protect its mission from the very beginning? When insulin was first brought to Denmark, the people behind it believed scientific research shouldn’t exist inside a purely for-profit structure. So they designed something different: a for-profit company owned by a foundation. That structure helped create what would eventually become Novo Nordisk, while protecting the mission behind the business. Daniel Kivatinos, Harshith Vaddiparthy, and I discuss how governance can be designed to preserve purpose for generations. #IncorruptibleBook #NovoNordisk #CorporateGovernance

How do great organizations pass their values from one generation to the next?

How do great organizations pass their values from one generation to the next? Long before writing, humans used stories to transmit knowledge and values across generations. Organizations do the same through their lore. Most companies let those stories develop on their own. But great leaders actively cultivate them so the stories people tell reflect what the organization truly stands for. John Miles and I discuss on Passion Struck why storytelling can be one of the most powerful ways to preserve a company’s values. #IncorruptibleBook #Leadership #Storytelling #CompanyCulture #OrganizationalC

What if hitting your OKRs is actually costing your company trust?

What if hitting your OKRs is actually costing your company trust? When individual metrics become the goal, people can improve their numbers by making promises the company can’t keep. And in a competitive environment, even people with good intentions can feel pressure to play the same game. The result is a race to spend down the company’s trust account. The alternative is to build organizations around making and keeping promises, where trust becomes an asset we grow instead of a currency we spend. #IncorruptibleBook #OKRs #Trust #Leadership #BusinessStrategy

Want to understand an organization’s culture? Look at how it holds people accountable.

Want to understand an organization’s culture? Look at how it holds people accountable. Processes alone won’t change an organization if the underlying mindset and commitments stay the same. The way a company operates is ultimately an expression of what it truly values. Joe Hart of Dale Carnegie and I discuss why culture runs deeper than any process, framework, or management system. #IncorruptibleBook #Leadership #Accountability #CompanyCulture #OrganizationalCulture

A Founder’s Guide to Pivoting Without Killing the Company | Misha Esipov

<p>Misha Esipov is the co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit. In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I talk with Misha about what it takes to build a company inside one of the hardest parts of finance to break into.</p><p>Misha immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union as a child and watched his parents rebuild their lives from scratch. Years later, after a conventional path through math, finance, and business school, that experience resurfaced as a question that wouldn’t let go. Why do capable people lose access to credit simply because they cross a border?</p><p>Nova Credit

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Escaping the Zero-Sum Economy: A New Model for Local Prosperity | Zita Cobb

<p>Zita Cobb grew up on Fogo Island, a remote fishing community off the coast of Newfoundland that operated for centuries without cash. Her childhood was shaped by a deep sense of place, the collapse of the inshore fishery, and a belief that communities survive through mutual care. When she left to study business, and later helped build JDS Uniphase into one of the most successful high-tech companies of its era, she carried those ideas with her. The rise and fall of the telecom bubble gave her a front-row view into what happens when profit and speed outrun purpose, sending her searching for a

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The Ultimate Guide for Creating Products People Trust | Seth Goldman (Honest Tea)

<p>Most companies scale by cutting corners. Seth Goldman built a brand by refusing to.</p><p>Seth is one of the founders of Honest Tea, a longtime chair at Beyond Meat, and the cofounder of Just Ice Tea. His career has been defined by a belief that business can be a force for human and environmental good. From a thermos of tea brewed in his kitchen to national distribution and acquisition by Coca-Cola, he has spent decades exploring how values can live inside systems built for profit.</p><p>In this episode of<em> The Eric Ries Show</em>, I sit down with Seth to talk about the full story of Hon

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How the Former U.S. CTO Built a $3B Healthcare Company Powered by Love | Todd Park

<p>Most companies optimize for profit. Devoted Health was built to serve people.</p><p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I sit down with Todd Park, co-founder of Devoted Health and former U.S. Chief Technology Officer, to explore what it looks like to design a company for human flourishing at scale.</p><p>Todd shares how Devoted earned one of the highest trust scores in the industry and how he and his brother, Ed, built a business that treats every member like family. We talk about what it takes to operationalize love inside a system as complex as healthcare and how Devoted never

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The G.O.A.T.s of Kindness on Bootstrapping a Purpose-Driven Company | Dr. Brent Ridge & Josh Kilmer-Purcell

<p>Most companies talk about purpose. Beekman 1802 made it their operating system.</p><p>In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Dr. Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, co-founders of Beekman 1802, to explore how a small act of compassion grew into a multimillion-dollar skincare brand rooted in community and purpose.</p><p>After losing their Manhattan jobs during the 2008 recession, Brent and Josh moved to a farm in upstate New York and agreed to take in 80 homeless goats from a neighbor. That decision led to their first product, a bar of goat milk soap, and to a philosophy of

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From Fired CEO to Billion-Dollar Exit: How Lukas Biewald Turned Failure into the Future of AI

<p>Lukas Biewald has been shaping the future of AI for nearly two decades. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, we explore how his early passion for the board game Go, his hard-won lessons as a founder, and his focus on alignment and culture helped him build Weights &amp; Biases into a trusted toolmaker in machine learning.</p><p>In our conversation, we discuss: </p><p>• Lessons Lukas drew from Go about pattern recognition, persistence, and the power of computation</p><p>• The hard-won lessons Lukas took from CrowdFlower about timing, focus, and staying in the wrong role too long</p><p>• How

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How to move beyond bureaucracy, not waste talent, and innovate faster | Michele Zanini & Gary Hamel

<p>Bureaucracy was once a breakthrough. Today, it’s become a costly drag on innovation, human potential, and business impact. In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I sit down with Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, authors of <em>Humanocracy</em>, to explore how organizations can move beyond outdated management models and unlock true human thriving.</p><p>Hamel and Zanini have spent years researching and advising some of the world’s most forward-thinking companies. Together, we make the case for replacing top-down control with systems that maximize contribution, creativity, and ownership

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From Blacksmith to Billionaire: The Making of Patagonia’s Ethos

<p>Patagonia has always been different. While so many companies lose their way when profits come before people, the planet, or even their own products, Patagonia continues to stay true to its values.</p><p>In today’s episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I speak with journalist David Gelles, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dirtbag-Billionaire-Chouinard-Patagonia-Fortune/dp/1668032260" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"><em>Dirtbag Billionaire</em></a>, his new book about founder Yvon Chouinard. We explore how Chouinard built Patagonia with an ethos of quality and conserv

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“AI Will Break the Internet” — Cloudflare CEO’s Big Prediction

<p>What if your company’s mission turned out to be bigger than you imagined?</p><p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I speak with Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, now a $70 billion company defending 20% of all internet traffic. We trace how Cloudflare’s mission wasn’t declared at the start, but discovered through a series of principled decisions, from protecting journalists and activists to making encryption free for everyone.</p><p>We also explore today’s urgent challenges: how AI’s shift from search engines to answer engines threatens the web’s business model,

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Inside Vercel: The $3B giant that’s changed coding forever

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I’m joined by Guillermo Rauch, CEO and founder of Vercel—a company powering the front end of the internet for brands like OpenAI, Nintendo, Chick-fil-A, and many more. Guillermo’s journey began far from Silicon Valley, in Argentina, where a Red Hat Linux CD changed the course of his life.</p><p>We talk about how open source gave him a way in—and why he still believes it’s the ultimate growth engine for companies and careers. Guillermo shares what he learned from building developer tools used by millions, and how Vercel became the go-to platfor

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How GitLab scaled to 30M users with transparency, remote work, and the ultimate employee handbook | Sid Sijbrandij

<p>In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and Executive Chair of GitLab—one of the world’s most radically transparent and values-driven software companies.</p><p>Sid shares how GitLab evolved from an open-source side project into a publicly traded DevOps platform, all while remaining deeply aligned with its values. From turning down a $10 million offer to maintaining control through dual-class shares, Sid walks us through the principles and systems that have shaped GitLab from the start.</p><p>We also delve into GitLab’s renowned, live, and public 2,000

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Turning down $200 million and the big bets that led to powering 40% of the internet

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show,</em> I’m joined by Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and co-founder of WordPress, the open-source platform that now powers 43% of the internet.</p><p>Recorded on the 20th anniversary of Automattic, our conversation is a deep dive into what it takes to build enduring companies on top of open infrastructure. We explore Matt’s open-source philosophy, why WordPress has stayed true to its roots, and how Automattic continues to innovate, from pioneering remote work to rethinking compensation models.</p><p>In our conversation today, we talk about the foll

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The playbook for fixing toxic culture, pointless friction, and broken systems | Bob Sutton (Stanford, NYT bestselling author)

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I’m joined by Bob Sutton, organizational psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of several influential books on leadership, behavior, and workplace culture, including his latest: <em>The Friction Project.</em></p><p>We explore insights from across his body of work, including real-world examples of large organizations that have figured out how to operate more effectively and ethically—despite the inherent messiness of human systems.</p><p>We discuss:</p><p>• Ideas from <em>The Knowing-Doing Gap</em>, including the importance of psyc

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The pitch that changed air travel forever: $3B in preorders, Richard Branson’s backing, and the return of supersonic flight | Blake Scholl (Boom Supersonic)

<p>What does it take to challenge a century-old status quo in aviation? In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show,</em> I sit down with Blake Scholl, Founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, a company on a mission to bring back supersonic air travel—sustainably and affordably.</p><p>Blake doesn’t come from aerospace. He’s a computer scientist and former Amazon engineer who sold his startup, Kima Labs, to Groupon. What he does have is a clear mission, first principles thinking, and relentless execution. His story is a case study in how deep curiosity and iterative learning can outperform traditional

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The Hidden Costs of Pay Inequality, And How Leading Companies are Solving It | Maria Colacurcio (Syndio)

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I’m joined by Maria Colacurcio, Co-Founder and CEO of Syndio, a workplace equity analytics platform. Syndio helps companies close pay gaps and build high-trust organizations. Maria has had a long career in leadership, previously co-founding Smartsheet and serving as a senior leader at Starbucks, where she focused on global communications and social impact.</p><p>In our conversation, we discuss how to scale with integrity, navigate the complexities of equity, and lead with both data and principle. </p><p>We cover: </p><p>• The surprising insigh

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Lessons on co-founding Twitter, Medium and Blogger with Ev Williams

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I sit down with Ev Williams—someone whose work has profoundly shaped the modern internet. Ev co-founded Twitter, created Medium, and before all that, built Blogger, the original blogging platform (and the one where my own blog, <em>Startup Lessons Learned</em>, still lives today).</p><p>We cover a wide range of topics, but at the heart of our conversation is this: what does it mean to resist short-term pressures and build with long-term integrity?</p><p>Ev reflects on the early days of the internet, the cultural shifts inside big tech, and wha

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The playbook for building a business to $1M/month with 3 employees, hiring great leaders, and rejecting Silicon Valley’s rules | Jess Mah (Rahway)

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I&#39;m joined by Jess Mah, an extraordinary entrepreneur who launched her first six-figure business in middle school and went on to co-found more than 10 companies collectively valued at over $1 billion.</p><p>Jess rose to public acclaim and earned a spot on Forbes&#39; 30 Under 30 while privately facing the reality that her startup, inDinero, was far from profitable. That moment of failure became her turning point. Without VC funding, Jess had to rethink everything: her approach to building companies, her work methods, and her true prioritie

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The Hired CEO with Founder Mode | Marten Mickos (MySQL, HackerOne)

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I sit down with Marten Mickos, a serial tech CEO who has been at the forefront of some of the most transformative moments in open-source technology. From leading MySQL through its groundbreaking journey to guiding HackerOne as a pioneering bug bounty platform, Marten&#39;s career is a masterclass in building innovative, trust-driven organizations.</p><p>Our wide-ranging conversation explores Marten&#39;s remarkable journey through tech leadership, touching on his experiences building game-changing companies and, more recently, his work coachin

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How To Raise $125M Pre-Revenue and Why Harder Can Be Easier | Celine Halioua (Loyal)

<p>In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I'm joined by Celine Halioua, founder and CEO of Loyal, a groundbreaking biotech startup developing drugs to extend dogs' healthspan and lifespan. Celine's journey combines her passion for animals with a bold scientific mission that looks beyond pets to potentially transform human longevity as well.</p><p>Our conversation explores:</p><p>• Why ambitious, moonshot visions can paradoxically make fundraising and team-building easier</p><p>• The critical early pivot that positioned Loyal for its first drug approval</p><p>• The undervalued power of listenin

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Inside UiPath’s $1.5B ARR Journey – Bootstrapping the company, hiring challenges, and the billion-dollar pivot (Daniel Dines)

<p>In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Daniel Dines, the Founder and CEO of UiPath, a company that started in robotic process automation (RPA) and is now making a bold shift into agentic AI. Dubbed “the boss of bots” by Forbes, Daniel has led UiPath from its humble beginnings to a $6.65 billion company that’s reshaping the future of automation.</p><p>Daniel’s journey is anything but conventional. After working as an engineer on SQL at Microsoft, he felt a pull toward something more creative—building his own product. That decision led him back to Romania, where he founded the

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From Bootstrapping to $400 Million – The Hustle Behind Hipcamp with Alyssa Ravasio

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I’m joined by Alyssa Ravasio, CEO and Founder of Hipcamp. Hipcamp is the platform that has revolutionized camping, with a mission to “get more people outside.” By making it easier for people to find camping on public lands—and then expanding to include private lands—Hipcamp significantly increased the supply of camping spots, making the outdoors more accessible to all.</p><p>In our conversation, Alyssa shares how her childhood fostered a deep love of nature, and how missed opportunities ultimately led her to become a founder. We dive into Hipc

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MBA thinking killed my startup, lessons on losing 98% of users, and being fired as a co-founder | Gagan Biyani (Udemy and Maven)

<p>In today’s episode of<em> The Eric Ries Show,</em> I’m joined by Gagan Biyani, Co-Founder and CEO of Maven, a platform that’s redefining online education with cohort-based courses. Before Maven, Gagan co-founded Udemy, now one of the largest online education marketplaces, and Sprig, a meal delivery startup.</p><p>Gagan started his entrepreneurial journey at just 21, and along the way, he’s experienced both big wins and tough lessons. We get into what worked, what didn’t, and how those experiences shaped his approach to building companies today.</p><p>In our conversation today, we talk about

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Lessons on creating a $17 billion learning company, going viral with an owl, and ditching short-term thinking with Luis von Ahn (Duolingo)

<p>In today’s episode of<em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I am joined by Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo. </p><p>With Duolingo, his mission was simple: make language learning accessible to everyone—not to build a for-profit company. Fast forward to today, and Duolingo has grown into a $17 billion business with a reported 90% of the online daily active users in the language learning market. </p><p>In our conversation today, we discuss the following topics: </p><p>• How hiring an intern led to Duolingo’s viral mascot </p><p>• Duolingo’s revenue strategy that helped their stock be up over

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He turned down $11 billion, here’s why | Craig Newmark (Craigslist Founder)

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I sit down with Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist—one of the internet’s most influential platforms. Despite its massive impact, Craigslist has remained intentionally minimalist, resisting the hyper-monetization strategies common in tech.</p> <p>Craig attributes his success to being in the right place at the right time, but his story reveals a deeper truth: a steadfast commitment to his values. We discuss how his moral compass shaped Craigslist, his approach to business sustainability, and his perspective on ethical entrepreneurship.</p>

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Redefining Education in the Age of AI with Amir Nathoo (Outschool)

<p>In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Amir Nathoo, Co-Founder and CEO of Outschool, an education platform offering live online classes for K-12 learners. Amir’s own childhood inspired Outschool—while he went to traditional schools, his parents always encouraged his self-driven coding projects at home.</p> <p>Outschool is about empowering kids to take control of their learning and building a lifelong love for education. It’s a mission-driven company that’s impacting how we think about education and social change.</p> <p>In today’s conversation, we explore the intersection of b

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Lessons on building a unicorn used by 84% of the Fortune 100 | Emil Eifrem (Neo4j)

<p>In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Emil Eifrem, Co-Founder and CEO of Neo4j, an open-source graph database. Neo4j enables organizations to unlock the business value of connections, influences, and relationships in data. </p> <p>In our conversation today, we talk about the following topics: </p> <p>• The origin story of Neo4j and why they chose open source</p> <p>• Open source as a means of production vs. distribution</p> <p>• How open source fosters trust and transparency</p> <p>• The pros and cons of doing business in the US </p> <p>• Why Neo4j updated their values and ch

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How She Built a Marketplace for a Million Nurses | Iman Abuzeid (Incredible Health)

<p>In this episode of <em>The Eric Ries Show</em>, I’m joined by Iman Abuzeid, the co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health, a platform transforming how healthcare systems hire nurses.</p> <p>After earning an MD, Iman pivoted to business and technology. She spent some time working in New York before enrolling at The Wharton School, where she earned her MBA. After graduating, she moved to Silicon Valley and worked as a product manager at AliveCor, where she met her future co-founder. Together, they launched Incredible Health, a company now valued at $1.65 billion.</p> <p>In our conversation toda

◌ 1h 27m

Hard-Won Secrets for Scaling Innovations in Finance, Gaming, and AI with Siqi Chen (Runway, Zynga)

<p>In this episode of<em> The Eric Ries Show</em>, I’m joined by Siqi Chen, a four-time founder and the CEO and CFO of his latest venture, Runway. Runway offers a modern, user-friendly platform for financial modeling, headcount planning, and departmental budgeting—proudly branding itself as “the finance platform your team doesn’t hate.” With its distinctive marketing and brand-building approach, Runway has garnered significant attention. (Full disclosure: I’m an investor in the company.)</p> <p>Siqi and I discuss his journey from building some of the most viral social games in Silicon Valley t

◌ 1h 35m

Inside iRobot: How the Roomba Sparked a Revolution in AI Robotics with Rodney Brooks

<p>Rodney Brooks has spent his entire life at the intersection of robotics, computers, and AI. When the Roomba vacuum cleaner launched in 2002, his company, iRobot, brought all three into millions of people’s homes. </p> <p>iRobot had already succeeded with robots for space exploration, mine detection, search missions, and military applications. However, after the Roomba came out, it went public with a valuation of $600 million. By then, Rodney had been working on AI and robots for decades alongside the original creators of AI at Stanford and MIT. On today’s episode, we discuss: </p> <ul> <li

◌ 1h 25m

Longevity Over Hypergrowth: A New Vision for Startups with Sahil Lavingia (Gumroad)

<p>The story of the digital content-sharing platform Gumroad challenges every aspect of the received wisdom about building successful companies. After it almost went under, founder and CEO Sahil Lavingia decided to pare down to the essentials rather than walk away. Then he took his characteristic counter-intuitiveness further and left Silicon Valley for Provo, Utah. Through it all, he never lost sight of what he was trying to do and his joy in building products. Gumroad is now thriving, with $175 million in volume last year, all thanks to Lavingia’s willingness to take a different path to succ

◌ 1h 39m

Risks, Rewards, and Building the Unicorn Chip Company Taking on Nvidia | Inside Groq with Jonathan Ross

<p>The story of Groq, a semiconductor startup that makes chips for AI inference and was recently valued at $2.8 billion, is a classic “overnight success that was years in the making” tale. On this episode, I talk with founder and CEO Jonathan Ross. </p> <p>He began the work that eventually led to Groq as an engineer at Google, where he was a member of the rapid eval team – “the team that comes up with all the crazy ideas at Google X.” For him, the risk involved in leaving to launch Groq in 2016 was far less than the risk of staying in-house and watching the project die.</p> <p>Groq has had man

◌ 1h 15m

AI’s Human Backbone: The Hidden Hands That Shape The Technology | Wendy Gonzalez (Sama)

<p>Wendy Gonzalez is the CEO of Sama, an ethical AI company that provides training and jobs with equitable pay and benefits to those who face the greatest barriers to stable employment. Among the companies it provides AI development data to are Microsoft, Ford, Walmart, Google, and many others. But before its current incarnation, Sama was a very different organization. It began as a non-profit, the brainchild and lifelong passion of its founder, Leila Janah, who sadly passed away in 2020. Her vision was to provide under-served communities in sub-Saharan Africa with opportunities for what she

◌ 1h 27m

Mission Over Money: How Sal Khan changed EdTech forever

<p>Sal Khan arrived at the idea for Khan Academy truly organically. While working at a hedge fund, he took time in the evenings to tutor a younger cousin in math over the phone. Soon, a family tutoring network was in place, and from there, it was only a few years before Sal realized that the kind of help he was giving his family could – and should – be made available to everyone for free, across disciplines and geographic locations. Today, Khan Academy has over 170 million users and is available in 50 languages in 190 countries.</p> <p>To fully commit to his vision, he founded Khan Academy as

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Contrarian by Design: Wade Foster’s Vision Behind Zapier’s $5B Business

<p>Founded in 2011 in the distinctly non-Silicon Valley location of Columbia, Missouri, software integration company Zapier hit profitability in 2014. Today, the company is valued in the billions, and is poised to keep thriving as AI becomes a normal part of everything we do online. My guest on this episode of The Eric Ries Show is co-founder and CEO Wade Foster, whose ethos from the earliest days on has been: “If you&#39;re going to try and build a company, don’t do anything that doesn’t matter.” For Zapier, that has meant staying as close as possible to customers from the start in order to b

◌ 1h 23m

The Oracle Of Silicon Valley Shares How to Create More Value Than You Capture | Tim O’Reilly

<p>What is the relationship between technology and society? What happens to idealism over time? I’m fortunate to have discussed these questions and many more with Tim O’Reilly for this episode of The Eric Ries Show. </p> <p>Tim is the founder of O’Reilly Media, which has provided countless programmers and technologists with foundational information for doing their work well. He’s also been a long-time witness to the changes and growth of tech, and has consistently looked far ahead of other people, perhaps most famously in his book <em>What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us</em>. </p> <p>Many

◌ 1h 40m

The Art of Pivoting: How TaskRabbit Reimagined the Gig Economy | Stacy Brown-Philpot (Google, TaskRabbit, HP, Nordstroms)

<p>Stacy Brown-Philpot is a unique voice in Silicon Valley. She began her career as a public accountant and worked at Goldman Sachs before landing at Google. </p> <p>She was the COO and then the CEO of TaskRabbit, which she saw through its sale to Ikea. Today, she’s on a number of corporate boards including HP, Nordstrom, StockX, Noom, and Black Girls CODE. She’s also a founding member of the SoftBank Opportunity Fund, which invests in Black, Latinx, and Native American founders. </p> <p>Throughout, she’s been a consistent advocate for building cultures where people can bring all aspects of th

◌ 1h 20m

Reid Hoffman challenges your thinking on AI, governance, and politics

<p>The latest episode of The Eric Ries Show features my conversation with Reid Hoffman. Executive Vice President of PayPal, co-founder of LinkedIn, and legendary investor at Greylock Partners are just a few of his official roles that have changed our world. He’s also been a mentor to countless founders of iconic companies like Airbnb, Facebook, and OpenAI. He’s an author, a podcast host – both <a href="https://mastersofscale.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Masters of Scale</a> and his new show, <a href="https://www.possible.fm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Possible<

◌ 1h 57m

How to build trust and win your customer’s attention with Seth Godin

<p>This episode of The Eric Ries Show is all about the relationship between trust and success. I can’t think of anyone better to talk about it with than Seth Godin, author of the classic <em>Permission Marketing</em>, the best-seller <em>This Is Marketing</em>, and many other books, as well as a fantastic daily blog that has been going strong since the early days. </p> <p>He also co-founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne. While the world tends to view Seth as an expert on marketing, he sees what he does in slightly different terms. “What I write about is how do humans interact? What stori

◌ 1h 2m

Inside Kickstarter: Co-Founder Yancey Strickler on Building the Crowdfunding Giant

<p>Yancey Strickler is the co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter, and the founder of Metalabel, a platform for releasing collective work. He’s also the author of <em>This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World</em>.</p> <p>I’m thrilled to share our recent conversation in this episode. Yancey started out as a music journalist before applying his talents to helping the world share its creative pursuits. For him, creativity and humanity are implicitly connected, and so he’s been a forerunner in thinking about how to build companies that bring good things into the world and

◌ 1h 38m

How to Scale Trust Into a Billion Dollar Business | Ritu Narayan (Zum)

<p>For this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sat down with Ritu Narayan, founder and CEO of Zum, which has had incredible success in the field of student transportation. </p> <p>The company began as a private service to tackle a problem Ritu was facing herself: how to function as a working parent dealing with erratic pickup and drop-off schedules. Before long, it became clear that there was a far larger opportunity to change pretty much everything about how all kids get to and from school. </p> <p>Pivoting to working with school districts and a fleet of electric buses, the company set out to “

◌ 1h 17m

Lessons From Co-Founding Facebook, And Now Asana | Dustin Moskovitz

<p>Welcome to The Eric Ries Show. I sat down with Dustin Moskovitz, founder of not one but two iconic companies: Facebook and the collaborative work platform Asana. Needless to say, he’s engaged in the most intense form of entrepreneurship there is. A huge part of what he’s chosen to do with the hard-earned knowledge it gave him is dedicate himself and Asana to investing in employees’ mental health, communication skills, and more. All of this matters to Dustin on a human level, but he also explains why putting people first is the only way to get the kind of results most founders can only dream

◌ 1h 11m

How to Disrupt an Industry: Lessons from James Reinhart (ThredUp)

<p>In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I talk with James Reinhart, founder of the second-hand resale platform ThredUp. A history major in college, James started his career as a teacher. That might not seem like it has much to do with fashion, but, as he explains, his early education and experiences actually led him not only to be a dual degree student at Harvard’s Business and Kennedy schools, but to a long-term view of ThredUp’s power to effect real change. </p> <p>We get into the reasons why having a harder mission can be counterintuitively easier and why, as he says, “intrinsically good

◌ 1h 28m

His First Company Went Public For $3.5 Billion, Now He’s Reversing Type 2 Diabetes For 100 Million

<p>In this first episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with serial entrepreneur and intrepid explorer, Sami Inkinen. Sami has co-founded two companies: Trulia and Virta Health. After Trulia was acquired by Zillow for $3.5 billion, he rowed from California to Hawaii with his wife, unassisted. What can’t this guy do? Now, he’s on a mission to reverse type 2 diabetes in 100 million people with his latest venture, Virta Health. In this episode, we discuss:</p> <p>In the interview, we cover:</p> <p>• How Sami got started as an entrepreneur coming over to America with no experience</p> <p>• What

◌ 1h 35m

Welcome To The Eric Ries Show

<p>For too long, company builders have been told that purpose and profit are at odds -- that trading one for the other is inevitable. A burgeoning group of founders is proving that wrong, creating organizations whose commitment to their mission inspires the trust of customers, employees, investors, and other partners, leading to serious competitive advantage. </p> <p>Better companies mean a better world for everyone not just now, but far into the future. </p> <p>Join Eric Ries for conversations with a range of leaders from across industries as well as thinkers who are contributing to this new

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