YouSaid · the spoken record

Eric Ries

lines on the record: 157
first: 2023-10-29
most recent: 2023-10-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It's crazy that we don't have to have the meeting, and I won't get yelled at. Like, that was really as far ahead as I was thinking at that time. And then, you know, it basically took over my life and I was being asked to speak of it. People really wanted to unmask the anonymity. Who is this person? And so I came clean. I identified myself and started writing and speaking and working with companies. And it became a whirlwind. The first principles part of it, I don't know, I've always been wired that way. I feel like maybe I'm a failed scientist. Like I wish I was actually good at chemistry or something. I could have actually been a real scientist, but I always really had a respect for the truth for scientific thinking that was big cultural value that I was raised with my parents or doctors. You know, it's just definitely part of my upbringing. And I was really into reading stuff that worked that way. So it was very natural for me. I felt like as I had success as an entrepreneur, I wanted to know why does this work and what people gave me advice. All the advice used to be of the form, you know, Steve Jobs once did this thing. So if you do it.”
2023-10-29 · Lenny's Podcast · Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People would yell at me in the meeting. I would get yelled. In fact, I would be like asked not very kindly to leave. And I would be like, I don't understand what do you yell like? Why are you mad at me? You ask me for this meeting. And they'd be like, I'm just telling you what I witnessed with my own eyes. We at IMV, we ship product 50 times a day on average at a time when people were like lucky to be doing it monthly if they were really advanced. Remember, like it wasn't that long ago that we put the year the product came out in the name of the product that tells you what cycle times used to be. That was considered normal. And people were like, that's impossible. That could never work. And at that time, I wasn't even propounding a theory or anything. I was just explaining what I had seen and people couldn't believe it. And so I had this great idea. If I write some of these stories down, then when someone asked me for these meetings, I was doing these meetings all the time. I didn't understand the Silicon Valley worked at that time. I didn't understand why this was happening to me, having these meetings. And I'll write the story down and then I'll send people the essay.”
2023-10-29 · Lenny's Podcast · Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, thank you for saying all that. That's giving me too much credit, but I like the idea that it's going to balance out the too little credit I ostensibly get somewhere else. That's great. You know, no, I mean, to answer your question, no, I didn't know this was going to happen. This is so embarrassing to admit now. But just to give you a sense of how different the world is now than at the time of the financial crisis, I was so embarrassed to be blogging that I didn't put my name on the blog. I published it anonymously because it's like it wasn't a thing that people didn't. People told me it would be career suicide. And there were so few startup bloggers at that time that the top three all reached out to me personally because they saw it in their referer logs on their website. That's how little traffic they got.”
2023-10-29 · Lenny's Podcast · Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I definitely, I'm building the long term stock exchange LTSE. I'm sure we'll talk about. And I spend a lot of time still with founders and with big companies execs trying to answer their questions about how to build companies in the right way. Obviously been sucked into a lot of AI stuff of late as everybody is. And one of the interesting things that actually surprised me is I spent a lot of time the last 10 years working on the issues of governance and corporate governance and how companies should be structured, not really with an eye towards technology in particular, but just with long-termism and humanism really at its core. And it turns out that those questions have just become like really acute for AI companies. So because of my work on governance, I wound up meeting with and getting to work with some of the top AI companies who have been, that's been really interesting. But yeah, I feel like I just go where the issues around people's minds go and it kind of pulls me into new and really interesting things all the time.”
2023-10-29 · Lenny's Podcast · Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you know, if you can believe it, the Lean Startup came out in 2011. So it's been a little while now and it's been such a crazy ride. And basically every year since it came out, I keep thinking, all right, that's the end. Surely that's enough. And just each year it gets crazier and crazier and new things come my way. So yeah, it's.”
2023-10-29 · Lenny's Podcast · Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe you get rich, but it's not good. And so building a company you hate that becomes a maligned force in the world that you have to go pretend you weren't involved with or like you feel complicit in what, like that's way, way worse. And I wish more founders would take that more seriously early on.”
2023-10-29 · Lenny's Podcast · Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People act like having a startup fail is the worst thing that can happen to you. And like, man, that's not even in the top 10. It's bad. I've done it. It's awful. It's really bad, but far worse is to be in a company that won't die, a zombie, undead company that you hate, but you can't leave. Have I met people like that? And like, we're having a mental health crisis among founders that's not talked about enough. People started talking about the downside mental health risk, obviously the stress of being a founder is hard. But like, look what's happening to the people that are so-called successes. When you build a company and you sell it out and it becomes something that you find abhorrent,”
2023-10-29 · Lenny's Podcast · Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source