Eric Ries✓

Six months of salary. That's what Matt Mullenweg offered every Automattic employee to resign if they didn't believe in the company's direction. About 9% took the offer and left.

Never let ChatGPT do the thinking for you. AI can be an incredible tool, but there's a big difference between using it to learn and letting it do all the work. Research suggests that relying on AI to write for us can reduce mental engagement and make it harder to remember what we've created. I'm not against AI. I use it all the time. But I believe the real opportunity is using it to strengthen our thinking, creativity, and capabilities rather than replace them. Next time you have a task, try asking AI to teach you how to do it instead of doing it for you. #Incorruptible #leadership #business

Brian Behm, founder of Wild Construct: "we organized Wild Construct from the beginning to force the board to base their success metrics on more than just revenue."

RT @adam_bobowski: @ericries Principles tend to last exactly as long as they're cheaper than the alternative. Then someone calls it optimization.

Speaking today at 5pm PT in UC Berkeley's A. Richard Newton Lecture Series, over Zoom: NEWTON LIVE: The Lean Startup & Innovation.

What happens when the investors behind a company abandon the principles that made it successful? Sol Price built FedMart around a simple belief: put customers first. That meant low prices, high wages, and treating customers' interests as a responsibility, not an afterthought. But one day, he arrived at work to find the locks changed. The company he had built was no longer his to lead. Maria Rotilu and I discuss on The Startup Leap why founders need to protect their company's values and how the pressure to maximize profits can threaten the very principles that made a business great. #IncorruptibleBook #SolPrice #FedMart #CorporateGovernance #Leadership

Listen to the full conversation: Youtube: Spotify: Apple Podcasts:

RT @ItamarGilad: @ericries' writing is one of my biggest influences, so it was a great pleasure to get his take on AI, the Lean Startup 15 years later, and org culture. The answers I got are anything but conventional wisdom.

Ollie Forsyth on Incorruptible: "values in your head die with your role. Values in your structure outlive you."

Anthropic filed its S-1 today. Who controls it, per the filing: a trust with no financial stake elects 4 of 7 directors, founders hold a fixed 50.1% of the vote, employees earn votes through tenure and charity pledges, and Amazon and Google can't vote.

Since launch, I’ve met so many of you at signings, talks, and events, and many more of you have shared photos with the book. These are some of the faces of Incorruptible. Thank you.

We've accidentally designed companies to behave like sociopaths. A business can look profitable on paper while pushing its real costs onto customers, employees, communities, and society. But making money and creating value aren't the same thing. When companies profit by exploiting the people they're supposed to serve, they may succeed financially in the short term while destroying value in the long run. We need to rethink what profitability really means and build companies that create value rather than simply extract it. #Incorruptible #leadership #business

Barnes & Noble named Incorruptible one of The Best Books of 2026 in Business. Grateful to the booksellers.

Seth Godin on Incorruptible: "It’s based on the clear truth that our economic system is filled with incentives that cause well-meaning people (especially bosses) to make short-term, selfish and toxic decisions."

Recent stops: Stanford ETL, NACD, Inc. 5000 with Janet Napolitano, Masters of Scale with Krista Tippett. Next: UC Berkeley's Newton Lecture, Tue 10/27, 5pm PT on Zoom.

Sonali Kothari, an employee-ownership advocate, on Incorruptible: "Incorruptible takes on the next question: why good companies drift, and what structural choices around ownership, governance, and incentives matter."

In conversation with Krista Tippett of On Being at the Masters of Scale Summit yesterday. Photo: Madeline McIntosh.

Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor: "Incorruptible by Eric Ries is such an important book!"

What happens when a company's mission statement contradicts its legal structure? You can promise to put customers first, care for employees, and build something meaningful. But if your governance is designed to prioritize shareholder returns above everything else, those promises may not hold up. A company's true purpose isn't just what it says in its mission statement. It's what its legal structure and governance actually protect. Maria Rotilu and I discuss on The Startup Leap Podcast why founders need to think carefully about what they're committing to when they incorporate their companies. #IncorruptibleBook #CorporateGovernance #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #MissionDriven

Listen to the full conversation: Youtube: Spotify: Apple Podcasts:

Speaking at the Masters of Scale Summit at the Presidio Theatre today.