Eric Ries - How Great Companies Stay Great S8 | E12

Radical Candor: Communication at Work

Radical Candor

Careers, Relationships, Society & Culture, Business

4.7 • 740 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While the podcast team is taking a Radical Sabbatical, Kim is interviewing authors of the books that have had a big impact on her in the past two years. In this episode she’s speaking with Eric Ries about his new book, Incorruptible, Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great. All too often, founders start a company and hire an incredible team dedicated to building a company that will solve an important problem and leave the world better off. Then they get a taste of success and life is good. But all too often, the bankers and lawyers swoop in and the demands to “maximize shareholder value” set in. More often than not, the company succumbs to the gravitational pull of mediocrity–or worse. Compromises are made, rationalizations abound, and after a while people start to wonder “how did this happen?!” Eric has thought deeply about how to structure companies so that they can remain true to their purpose and achieve great financial results. In his interview with Kim, he shares his extensive research on companies, both contemporary and some many decades old, who have been able to make this work. Background on Eric Ries: Over the last two decades, Eric Ries’s ideas about continuous innovation, long-term thinking, governance, and market reform have reshaped company building and management practices. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, The Leader’s Guide, and The Startup Way. As a founder, Eric has put his own ideas into practice with the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE); Answer.AI, an AI R&D lab; Virgil, a legal services startup; and IMVU. On The Eric Ries Show, he talks with world-class technologists, thought leaders, and executives building for the long-term. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children. His new book, Incorruptible, will be released in May of 2026. CHAPTERS (00:00) Introduction to Eric Ries and His Work (01:31) The Motivation Behind 'Incorruptible' (04:28) The Dark Side of Business Practices (05:08) The Haunting Story of Vectura and Philip Morris (12:58) The Consequences of Corporate Governance (15:20) The Historical Context of Corporate Purpose (18:37) The Evolution of Corporate Purpose (22:07) The Impact of Purpose-Driven Companies (25:33) Understanding Financial Gravity (30:55) The Unconscious Forces in Corporations (34:43) Resisting the Pull of Mediocrity (39:14) Navigating Power Dynamics in Organizations (40:04) The Naivety of Value Creation (41:05) The Dilemma of Founder Control (42:34) Building Institutional Protections (43:36) Costco's Governance Fortress (45:57) The Cost of Governance Ratings (47:58) The Challenge of Public Companies (51:08) Taking Action for Ethical Leadership Connect with the Radical Candor team: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everybody. I'm Kim Scott. Welcome to the Radical Sabatical Podcast, where we are talking to some of the authors of the books that have made a huge impact on me rather than our usually scheduled programming. Today, I am thrilled to have Eric Reese.
0:25.2	Am I pronouncing your name, Eric? Yes, yes, Reese like a candy. I always thought people.
0:29.7	Eric Reese with us. Eric is the author of the New York Times bestseller, the Lean Startup, the Leaders Guide.
0:36.9	And he has a book coming out that I think is one of
0:39.6	the most important books I've read in the last decade. It's called Incorruptible, Why Good
0:45.3	Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great. And I'm sure everyone listening
0:50.7	wants to build a great company or a great team that stays great.
0:55.3	And I think, Eric, what you write about in this book is very relevant right now because so
1:00.6	many of our listeners have asked us to take a step back and think about what it means to lead,
1:06.0	to manage in this moment and time.
1:08.7	The world right now feels broken. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
1:15.2	And the market seems to reward companies that are doing things that seem to do more harm than good,
1:22.5	to put it gently, I guess. And it begs a question, what does it mean to be a leader in this kind of
1:27.8	environment? People are asking, am I contributing to this more harm than good problem by being
1:33.7	successful? And obviously, I don't want to go into my career trying not to be successful. So I think
1:40.0	your book really addresses this anxiety and so much more. So thank you for writing it.
1:45.8	Oh, gosh, thanks for the kind words. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, it's really important.
1:51.3	So what prompted you to write it? When was the moment that you said, I've got to sit down and spend
1:56.1	some time on this topic? Gosh, well, I've been working on it for years. It feels like forever.
2:00.6	You know how the
2:01.1	writing process can be sometimes. It does not come easy. And for this one, I really, I had a hard
2:06.7	time figuring out both like, what is the thesis exactly? And how do I narrow its focus enough to
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