The Lean Startup author Eric Ries on what makes a brand valuable for the long term

Summary

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The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX

Episode: The Lean Startup author Eric Ries on what makes a brand valuable for the long term
Date: May 27, 2026
Guest: Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and Incorruptible
Host: Greg Kihlström

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles the enduring conflict between chasing short-term business metrics and fostering long-term brand value. Greg Kihlström sits down with Eric Ries, influential author of The Lean Startup and the new book Incorruptible, to discuss why mission-driven leadership is more than a marketing buzzword—it is a substantial strategic advantage. Through stories, data, and actionable advice, they explore how brands can resist the temptation to trade away their trust and purpose for short-term results, especially in an AI-driven, hyper-measured corporate landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mission as Strategic Advantage

[05:03]

• Mission is Core, Not Cosmetic:
  Eric argues that a clear, enduring mission forms a lasting competitive edge, especially as the average lifespan and institutional trust in large companies continues to fall.
• Erosion of Long-term Value:
  Data supports the idea that “best practices” like shareholder primacy are destructive to value over time, while mission-driven companies consistently outperform.
  • Quote: "What's strange is we also have extremely good data that alternative practices for mission-driven companies... have tremendous outperformance." – Eric Ries [07:34]

2. Invisible Forces That Corrupt Brands

[08:34]

• The Decay of Trust:
  As companies scale, they often begin sacrificing trust—an invisible but vital asset—in pursuit of quantifiable short-term metrics like OKRs.
  • Seth Godin’s ‘Trading Trust’: Metrics can tempt leaders to exploit short-term gains at the expense of customer and institutional trust.
  • Illustration: Over-emailing customers may deliver short-term ROI but quickly erodes loyalty and long-term value.
    • "Companies that send email notifications... the more emails you send, the more money you make... next thing you know, the company's completely collapsed... you're violating trust." – Eric Ries [10:14]

3. Applying Lean Startup & MVP in Big Brands

[12:49]

• Minimum Viable Product for Enterprises:
  Large companies fear MVPs will harm their brand, but Eric stresses they should first consider if the brand is actually “worth protecting” as-is. Most experiments can be conducted with small test groups or under separate brands.
  • Transparency Builds Trust:
    Be upfront with customers about new initiatives; honesty and inclusion foster goodwill rather than risk.
• Determine What’s Worth Protecting:
  Many brands overestimate customer loyalty or positive sentiment.
  • "What are we protecting?" – Eric Ries [13:55]

4. Redefining Profit and Business Purpose

[21:22]

• Beyond Shareholder Primacy:
  Eric proposes a definition of profit as the “maximization of human flourishing,” arguing truly profitable companies create net new value in the world, not just monetary gain.
  • Quote: "The true definition of profit... is the maximization of human flourishing. When two people engage in a fully informed, consensual transaction... that creates net new value." – Eric Ries [22:17]
• Challenging the Status Quo:
  Prevailing business terms like “profit,” “governance,” and “shareholder value” are recent constructs, not immutable laws.

5. Advocacy, Courage -- and When to Say 'No'

[25:52]; [29:26]

• Speaking Up for the Long Term:
  Eric shares a personal story about facing the fear of being fired for advocating long-term thinking, explaining that reputational capital often grows when you act with integrity, even at perceived personal risk.
  • Quote: "If I get fired for doing the right thing, that'll be part of my professional reputation... and someday, someone will think, 'we need someone who's really obsessed with this principle'..." – Eric Ries [29:26]
• Empowering Torchbearers:
  Many organizations exhaust ethical employees who champion the mission over spreadsheet-driven decisions. Eric advocates building language and structure to protect these “torchbearers.”

6. AI, Trust, and Human Creativity

[32:57]; [33:53]

• Augment, Don’t Replace:
  Eric draws a distinction between AI as a replacement for creativity (which he calls “evil”) and AI as a human-empowering tool.
  • Risks of 'Vibe Coding':
    Blindly trusting AI-generated assets can result in leaders losing sight of their own brand or values.
    • "Do you even know what your own brand is anymore? If nobody knows, you're taking on enormous liability..." – Eric Ries [36:27]
• Human-in-the-Loop Is Critical:
  For trust and learning, keep people involved in AI processes, especially where brand or customer voice is concerned.

7. Future Outlooks and Staying Agile

[37:10]; [38:22]

• Principles Over Predictions:
  Amid AI’s rapid evolution, Eric believes foundational principles of value, alignment, and mission will always outlast technical fads.
• Personal Agility:
  Eric’s “kata” is helping diverse organizations solve unique problems daily; constant variety and commitment to foundational principles keep him agile.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Mission and Data: “We have really strong data for each of these best practices, that they destroy value... there are these alternative practices for mission driven companies... that have this tremendous outperformance.”
  — Eric Ries [07:34]

• Trust Is Invisible: "Trustworthiness is an asset. The problem is... I could always boost my own okrs... by just trading against this invisible asset."
  — Eric Ries [09:18]

• On MVP and Honesty: "Don't lie. ...if the customer asks, tell them. But... in most cases, the customer doesn't care... People get so precious about these things; I think it's often silly."
  — Eric Ries [15:36]

• Redefining Profit: “The true definition of profit, the one that powers for-profit companies, is the maximization of human flourishing.”
  — Eric Ries [22:17]

• On Speaking Up: “Even if I get fired for doing the right thing, that would be part of my professional reputation... if I compromise, now what? It’s not going to work.”
  — Eric Ries [29:26]

• On AI: “LLMs can be used for tremendous good as a form of creativity augmentation... the purpose of a tool is to help the user increase their skills and knowledge, not to produce the artifact.”
  — Eric Ries [34:08]

• Losing the Brand in AI: "Things can get out of control very quickly... do you yourself actually understand what you've made? Do you even know what your own brand is anymore?"
  — Eric Ries [36:27]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:30] Introduction of Eric Ries and context on Lean Startup / new book Incorruptible
• [05:03] Mission-driven advantage in branding and business longevity
• [08:34] How trust is traded away for short-term metrics (including email marketing example)
• [12:49] How big brands can safely apply MVP thinking
• [21:22] Redefining profit and business’s higher purpose
• [29:26] Advocating for long-term thinking in the face of pressure
• [32:57] AI’s role—promises, pitfalls, and the need for human-in-the-loop
• [37:10] Outlook for the future: AI, AGI, and enduring principles
• [38:22] Eric Ries on how he keeps agile in his own career

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Conclusion

Eric Ries and Greg Kihlström conclude that in a world obsessed with short-term returns and automated experimentation, real long-term value—and brand resilience—comes from aligning every decision with a deeper mission, protecting trust as an invisible asset, advocating for integrity even when it’s hard, and using technology, especially AI, as a creative augmentation (not a replacement). Foundational business principles will remain central as new tech, metrics, and market pressures continue to evolve.

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Transcript

[A]

In an era of relentless pressure for

[B]

quarterly growth, is it even possible for a large brand to stay true to its core mission? Or is compromising a brand's values just an inevitable part of achieving scale? Agility requires more than just reacting quickly to market changes. It requires a resilient long term mission that acts as a North Star, ensuring that every pivot and experiment builds enduring value, not just short term gains. Today we're going to talk about the tension that every marketing leader feels. The conflict between the relentless demand for measurable short term results and the need to build a brand with a durable long term mission. We're going to explore how the very systems designed to measure success can sometimes corrupt a company's purpose, and how a new definition of value can create a strategic advantage that outlasts fleeting market trends.

[A]

Welcome to season eight of the Agile Brand Podcast. This season we're going all in on Expert Mode, MarTech, AI and Customer Experience, talking with the people and platforms behind the brands you know and love. Again, I'm your host Greg Kilstrom and I help Fortune 1000 companies make sense of martech, AI and marketing ops. Hit, subscribe or follow to make sure you always get the latest episodes and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. And make sure you check out our sponsor, TechSystems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world adoption. For more information, go to techsystems.com now let's dive in.

[B]

To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Eric Reiss, author of the Lean Startup and the new book Incorruptible. Eric, welcome to the show.

[C]

Hey, thanks for having me on.

[B]

Yeah, really looking forward to. Definitely a huge fan of your other book that people might have heard of Lean Startup. Definitely looking forward to diving into this book as well. Before we do though, why don't you give a little background on yourself and your role at the Lean Startup company?

[C]

Oh sure, gosh, yeah, Lean Startup, you know, I've been working on this now for Lean Startup came out in 15 years ago. So it's been been quite a while trying to change how, how startups are built. And I was a tech entrepreneur, Silicon Valley pedigree, you know, like, like you'd imagine. And you know, the Lean Startup came out of my own personal frustrations being taught like an older management system about how to build companies that assume that startups are just like a miniature version of a, of a business company. And I wrote the book and it kind of took over my life. So, you know, since the Book came out. Yeah, I've started, turned a bunch of companies, got to build the long term stock exchange, got to become a consultant to companies all over the world, you know, governments and big, big mega companies. And basically like one of the takeaways from all those experiences is that we live in this world that is like disintegrating around us because so many people are feeling this relentless gravitational pull to short term thinking, to making the metrics work, to, you know, making money by whatever means necessary. And that that pull is eroding the very foundations of their own success. It's actually quite sad.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Were you just out of curio, Were you planning on that book taking off like it did?

[C]

Oh, I wish, I wish I had that kind of foresight. Yeah. You know, I. I'll tell you a funny story. I remember, you know, I was an engineer, so I was, I loved writing, but I was never. I was more writing code than prose. I certainly never imagined being a public speaker speak or anything like that. And I didn't really understand how influential those ideas were going to turn out to be because to me they were very obvious. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, to be honest. And I remember giving a talk very early on. I made this huge talk at a massive venue at the Moscone center here in San Francisco. There must have been 700 people in the room for my talk. Sold out, packed crowd. I didn't know that was unusual. I just thought, oh, that's nice. People came to my session, you know, how cool. I found out later that the other speakers in that time slot were like super pissed off at me. And I had agreed to do like an unconference Q and A afterwards for like anyone who wanted to come. So I just like, okay, whatever. So I like get off stage, I get a round of applause. I think that went pretty well. And I'm going to try to find the room where my Q A session is going to be. And I get there and the corridor is all blocked up with people because the room's full. And I'm like, oh man, the previous speaker is still going or something. Like they have it. And I'm sitting there like getting really annoyed, like, I need to start my session, I'm going to be late, whatever. And a friend of mine comes up to me, he sees me in the lights, like, what are you doing here? And like I'm waiting for the other speaker to enter the. He's like, you idiot, there's no other speaker. These people are here for you, you're holding up the whole thing. Get in there. What are you doing? And I, like, I kind of couldn't conceive of it. It was so unlikely to me. And it just, that was just my first indication that this was going to become something really big. Now it wound up going even so much further than I could have imagined. You know, it's all over the world and kind of travel to so many continents and do so many cool things from it. So I try to, I try to remind myself just, this is not some passing fad. Now, this has been going on for 15 straight years, but to me it always seemed a little bit strange. So, yeah, it definitely was not any kind of master plan.

[B]

Yeah, got it, got it. Well, hey, let's, let's talk about the new book. So the new book is called Incorruptible, came out yesterday as of this podcast airing. So we're going to talk about a few different aspects of it. But I want to start with the strategic part and what I touched on a little bit in the intro is this, this mission driven advantage. So in the book you argue that mission isn't nice to have, but it's a core strategic advantage. So in a world governed by, you know, what you were mentioning early the, the quarterly earnings calls, the short term roi, why is this argument more critical now than ever for leaders at established public companies?

[C]

Well, open a newspaper. You know, like, you know, when I started thinking and writing about these things, you know, more than 10 years ago when I was building a long term stock exchange, I feel like people were kind of like, is this really a problem or is it not? And now I don't hear that anymore. It's like, wow, you can just see how corporate courage has declined. How many companies have succumbed to this big co disease? I put all these stats in the book too. There's like, the average longevity of companies is collapsing. The average holding period of stocks is collapsing. Trust in institutions is collapsing. Employee tenure is collapsing. Executive pay disparities are now much worse than, I mean, I could just, you go on and on and on and on. And so when people ask me this kind of question, I kind of like, well, what's working? I hear you, I hear you. That they're like, you know, we're all used to the status quo being the way that it is, but like, is it really working? And here's the most incredible part to me, when I first started looking into this, I figured, my first thought was there's all these best practices that we've all been taught OKRs, corporate governance stuff, shareholder primacy, you know, one after the other. And I just assume that, like, somebody has the data that shows that these best practices are good and I'll learn what it is and then I'll understand why the world is the way that it is. And then I went through a phase of being mystified. Like, that's strange. It seems like nobody has any idea why these are good ideas. And intuitively they don't seem that great to me. But I'm like always still looking for the man behind the curtain to touch me. And when you dig deep enough, what you eventually find out is that we actually have really strong data for each of these best practices, that they destroy value. So it's not even that they're not that great or that it could be better, they're actually destructive of value. And what's strange is we also have extremely good data that there are these alternative practices for mission driven companies and leaders and individuals that have this tremendous outperformance associated with them. And it almost doesn't matter what you research. It's like return on invested capital, longevity, loyalty, customer loyalty, investor loyalty, dividend. I mean, that's just like. I was just looking at a study today that was a Tobin's Q is like very obscure financial metric. Well, if you have, if you're mission driven, you have a higher Tobin's Q even than conventional companies. Like, it's almost every place you look, the data is really overwhelming. And yet when I talk to leaders about it, they're like, oh, that can't apply to me. Or like, oh, no, that's only for special people. Oh, no. Yeah, you're that like, we've been indoctrinated this idea that this stuff doesn't work in spite of the fact that we have hundreds of companies worth trillions of dollars of evidence that it does work.

[A]

Yeah, well, and so why, why does this happen?

[B]

You know, you, you talk about the forces that corrupt a company's mission as it scales for a leader inside a large organization. You know, what, what does some of these forces look like in practice? And you know, is, is this part of what, what adds up to some of these declining numbers?

[C]

Oh, oh, for sure. I think the public is starting to really understand that the promises that leaders make are not worth anything because those leaders are expendable and the organizations they lead are disposable. So why should you trust them? And so, yeah, like, just to be, to be concrete about it, there's a phenomenon Seth Godin calls it trading Trust. It's like the, the monumental flaw in our modern system of OKRs. The most valuable asset a company has that appears on no balance sheet and is completely invisible in the way that most companies are built is their trustworthiness. If I say that I'm going to do something as a customer, as an employee, as an investor, can you believe that I in fact will do that? Think about, you know, how many companies have incredible values like carved on marble on the walls? The book I have a special fetish for companies that carve their values on marble on the walls. And then what happened? Enron had the most incredible set of values carved on the walls of his lobby. Enron's board was named one of the top boards in America right before the crash. Like so many things like that where, where like those statements are useless if people don't believe that they're true. And similarly, if a customer is considering working with you and you tell them we're, we're on your side, you're, we're going to treat you well. Like if they believe you, it's very different than if they don't believe you, both morally and ethically and you know, in terms of the quality of the relationship, but also in terms of how much friction that relationship will be. We have tremendous evidence that customers that trust their vendors are worth more over the long term. The cost of contract negotiations are lower. There's like all these studies, it's unbelievable how valuable trust is. So if we grant that trustworthiness is an asset, the problem is in any given company I can, as an individual person, I could always boost my own okrs, my own metrics, my own performance bonus easily by just trading against this invisible asset. So you know, just give you a concrete marketing example that came up a lot in my research. Companies that send email notifications, how many email notifications did you send per customer per day? For most people they're like gosh, per day, could I have like one a month? You know, like most customers. Yeah, but inside of companies it's considered obvious I gotta spam people as much as possible. And in fact in metrics driven companies they will discover that the more emails you send, the more money you make. So like this is a, like famously happened to Andrew Mason at Groupon where they were sending you that daily deal email and he had this relentless pressure from his investors and his team. Look, let's just experiment with sending two emails. Well guess what? Two emails performs better than one email. And he was like, I don't know, what can I say? I guess they're right. But as soon as you do two emails, you know where this is going, right? Why not three? And next thing you know, the company's completely collapsed because they're sending 12 emails and everyone's and the customers are churning out. And what's happening is you're violating the trust with customers. And it's not like it's devastating the first time you do it. In the same way that debt is not devastating, it's just if you have too much debt compared to, you know, your actual load of your company. Right. So it's one of these things where because we don't measure trust, we don't see it as an asset, we liquidate it accidentally.

[D]

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[B]

So moving, moving tactically. One of the one of the core concepts of the lean startup was the minimum viable product or mvp. Certainly most people at this point familiar with that. How can a leader at a Fortune 500 company that manages a globally recognized brand apply this MVP mindset to campaigns or initiatives without being perceived as launching something that's unfinished or maybe off brand?

[C]

Yeah, this is a really tricky one because it presupposes that customers like your brand to begin with. Yeah, okay, I've worked with a lot of Fortune 500 companies and there are certain companies whose brand is exceptional and where like detail and polish really matters to the customer, but that is quite rare. We're being really honest. I've been in so many Companies where I'm like, look, can I. Can I talk to some of your customers before we make. Before I answer this question and get into, like, there is an answer. If you have a really strong brand, you stand for something very specific. There are solutions. You can do it under a different brand. There's all kinds of testing. But the first question is like, are we protecting something worth protecting?

[B]

Right.

[C]

What do you. And I'll never forget, I did this with a company that is very, very, very well known, and they were so offended that I asked this question that they wouldn't. They were like, no, you can't talk to our customers. I was like, that's cool. This is in the early days of, of social media. So I was like, no problem. I just put a survey on Twitter myself. Yeah, hey, everybody, what do you think of this brand? You know, reply here. I got like hundreds of comments. You know, people were so pissed off at this brand. It was very easy. And I just walked in and say, guys, before we protect your precious brand, let me read you some comments. Okay? 85% of people, like, you know, it just, it was like, what are we protecting? So first the question is, what are we protecting? Now when people hear mvp, they're always worried, well, but I got liability. Okay, even so, but what about inconsistency? What about this and that? So we have to separate out two different dimensions of the problem with an mvp. The first is how many people are going to see it? Okay. People are always like, oh, if I. If I do a test, everyone's going to find out. It's like, how are they going to find out? I remember watch working with a company that was a global multinational and they were doing a regional test. I was trying to get them a regional test in, like, can't remember where. It was like rural China. It was like American company, and a different was like, so far away. And they were like, nervous. And I was like, you really think the doctor in rural China on your mailing list here is the CEO of your competitor on speed dial and is going to call him up and tell him. And if he did, he would care or believe. Like, what are we talking about? So what are we defending? So the first line of defense is just to show it to a small number of people. Most products can easily be tested with, like a small number, a few dozen customers, a few hundred at the most. It's very common to just get a thousand people into a test group like that is very, very inexpensive and very low risk. Of course, you know, there are, are Situations where that's not appropriate. Sometimes you need an NDA, sometimes you pick customers who are especially likely not to cause whatever the thing you're worried about is. And of course, the ultimate defense, it's just don't tell people it's made by you. Put a different brand on that. Yeah, like, you know, multi brand companies have been doing that since time immemorial and there's nothing wrong about it. The one tip I will give though to this point about being trustworthy is don't lie. Like, I think that's really important to just to be honest with customers, that you're building something that's new and you're wanting in this experiment and you want to try it, you want to get their feedback. Like, there's nothing wrong with being honest about that. And just because you don't put your brand on it, that's not a lie. Like, if the customer asks, tell them. But the customer, in most cases, the customer doesn't care. When was the last time you called the customer to be like, what's the name of the parent company making this product? I need to know what. Click on the landing page before. It's just people get so precious about these things. I think it's often, often silly.

[B]

Well, yeah. And I mean it's. It also seems like consumers are willing to, they're willing to try things. They're willing to participate in tests, betas, you know the, the term, you know, Google started using beta and their, you know, their tools like way, way long ago. I think people are open to that. But to your point, it's when it's transparent and there's, you know, there, I guess what, what helps with maintaining trust when a company is clearly asking you to participate in something that may not be 100% there?

[C]

Well, again, it presupposes that if it was 100% there, they'd be impressed. I always start with, okay, first talk to the customer. How do you feel about our releases today? Like most companies, you ask most companies, customers, enterprise or consumer, by the way, how do you feel about the latest release of this product? They usually will be super mad. Like, these guys are out to lunch. They don't get it. So you're like, well, would you like to be part of a different process where they don't go through their usual brain damage and make it. They're like, oh, sign me up. That sounds. How much worse could they make it? Like the customer's perspective now again, there are times when people will be worried about it not being 100% and obviously it's different if the hunting is highly regulated. Everything is different if there are lives at risk, if the thing can explode. I mean, the rules are different depending on what industry and sector you're in. But in general, if you're just transparent with people that you're trying to do something new and you tell them why this is. This goes back. This question of trust.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I was once doing this with a company, big multinational, and we were doing a workshop, and there were different teams, you know, each learning about how to do an mvp. And we start, always start. We always think of, you know, start with tactics or landing pages or emails or like, no, we always start with why? What is the mission of this enterprise? Yeah, okay. What is the mission of this project? What are our goals? What are we trying to do? And therefore. Because if you don't know what you're trying to do, how can I say what we're trying to learn?

[B]

Right.

[C]

And if I can't say what we're trying to learn, how can I tell what experiment to run? This is like, imagine I tried to do science and I'm like, well, what's your theory of the universe? You're like, I don't know. Well, how am I going to my device and experiment if you don't even have a theory? Like, what are we trying to do? I'm going around. Everyone's talking about, okay, this is our customer segment. This is this. And this one team starts talking. And I said, oh, you skipped over. What problem are you trying to solve? They're like, oh, it's very simple. Our market share in this category is zero. So we'd like to solve that problem. I was like, you're. If I call your customers, are they gonna be upset that your market. Your market share is too low? Like, that's not a. You can't. Like. So if. If you're being selfish about it, of course it's not going to work. But if you're honest and say, listen, we really want to create a new thing because reason for person, generally a person in that category will give you a very honest and direct feedback about what it is. Now, again, not everyone's open to change. They're not an early adopter, they might tell you, I think this sucks. I think it's bad. So you can't freak out when you get that feedback. But in general, the reason we do an MVP and not a focus group is to avoid the opinions we want to see. Just will people, in fact, resp to the thing. And I could Just, you know, I could tell you story after story after story after story of customers who, when finally given the chance to weigh in, were so delighted.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it looks like, yeah, there's, there's a willingness to share when there's, when there's that, that trust as well. So. Yeah, yeah, well.

[C]

And that's it, that's all these techniques. This is, this is one of my biggest findings right. In this book, talked about financial gravity as this, like, fundamental force that pulls against companies, kind of drags them down into mediocrity. And yet I use this metaphor in the book that gravity to human beings seems like the most powerful force in the universe. But when you stand up, your body generates a counter force that is more powerful than the entire gravitational force of the planet Earth, which is like, I don't know, 10 to the 24th times bigger than you are. Right. Like you actually are opposing this massive behemoth thing. So what is the force that makes that possible? It's like there are these other fundamental forces, in particular the force of electromagnetism. And so I kind of use that as a metaphor in the book to say that these techniques, including these sort of techniques, minimum viable product, you know, the thing we're Talking about with OKRs, mission driven satellites, all these techniques that are powered by the, the force of magnetic alignment that happens when people truly in their heart align with the mission and the ethos of what you're trying to do.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. One of the other things that you talk about in the book is, well, you propose a new and more complete definition of profit in the book as well. Can you share that, that definition and how this might get introduced to a, to a leadership team or a board that is, you know, traditionally focused? Let's just say.

[C]

Yeah, this is, this is something, you know, these are ideas to use with great care because people in a conventional business setting have been indoctrinated into something different. But in the book, I'm very careful to lay out this history, our modern contemporary ideas about profit governance, shareholder primacy and whatever. Like, if you can look out your window right now and see a tree, probably that tree is older than these ideas.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Actually, so we, we who grew up in this century have been indoctrinated into a very new set of ideas that are kind of a recent civilization scale experiment that has not gone very well. So when I talk about redefining business terms, people often get very uncomfortable and they're like, well, I don't know, will my boss like that with my Board like that. I hear you, but you gotta realize that the people who defined the terms the way we have them now, this is what they did. They didn't create like a new alternative category of terms. They just went in and redefined the purpose of a business, the purpose of management, the definition of profit. So I think we who are the inheritors of those bad ideas have to have the courage to do our own version of that. And so I have this idea, this idea in the book I call the builder's intuition that not all ways of making money are the same. And most of us who make things for a living, like, know this in our hearts to be true. They're like, the way to profit, the way to prosper, is to create net new value in the world and then to capture a little bit of it for yourself, to create more value than you capture is what the great Tim O'Reilly said about it. So in the book I claim that actually the true definition of profit, the one that powers for profit companies, is the maximization of human flourishing. When we say, like create new value, that's what we mean. We mean that human beings are better off than they were before. And if you actually go into the history of capitalism and the way people have talked about this, even the most fervent defenders of capitalism always, like when they go digging for like, what is the moral foundation of this? Why is it okay to do all this stuff? They always hit the same bedrock, which is that when two people engage in a fully informed, consensual transaction, uncoerced transaction, that that creates net new value because both they wouldn't transact unless they were both better off. So that's the magic trick of capitalism that creates all this new value. And they'll always include, from Bastiat to Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, every writer on this theme always this with this caveat. Well, so long as there's no fraud involved, so long as there's no cohort, like, as long as there's no X, Y, Z, A, B, C, addiction, slavery, coercion, fraud, misinformation, like there's like a list. As long as none of those things are happening, then we can be sure that this is a value creating transaction. And my claim is actually that this may sound like a radical redefinition, but all we're doing is taking that seriously. In today's economy, there are so many fraudulent and borderline fraudulent forms of things that are closer to theft than they are to creating value by which people can make money. And I'm just Saying let's stop calling those things profitable because they're not.

[B]

To your other point about, I think we do look at some of the established, you know, quote unquote norms as you know, I mean even the idea of how many, the amount of knowledge workers, if you look back, you know, 120 years or something like that, I mean there was how many, what was the percentage of knowledge workers versus people that worked in agriculture? You know, we, we take it for granted that you sit in a cubicle behind a computer when you know, how many years has that actually been, been happening? And you know, so all those kind of tropes along with, to me, they kind of go along with that, that short term view and, and everything like that as well. And you know, so you mentioned your, your involvement with long term Stock exchange and, and the, I would, I'd love your thoughts on, you know, how does a company start towards this long term view if they're, you know, when so many are thinking short term and beholden to shareholders and boards and, and all, you know, we're not, we're not going to get rid of those constructs. But how does a, how does a company's, you know, governance or long term view allow them to do some of these things that really promote long term brand equity which is beneficial for the company?

[C]

Yeah. Now I don't want to paint a rosy picture here because obviously, you know, many companies are in deep trouble, you know, as we speak on this issue. They've, they've succumbed to short term thinking. They're, they're letting the ghost of the market, you know, make their decisions instead of using their own independent and principled judgment. And if you're in a situation like that, the situation is quite difficult. But I promised to the readers at the beginning of this book that every chapter, every technique is something that you can use today. Like there's nothing in the book that says a lot of, a lot of reform and idealistic books are like once first we change the rules, then this thing, first we get the laws changed, first we get the countries of the world to come together in a global trouble. I was reading a book the other day or yeah, like all the countries in the world agree to this global treaty on AI safety, then no. And I, and I listen, I admire people who write about stuff like that. It's actually very important to imagine these more utopian scenarios. But I, I, my intendency is to be like, I want to know what I can do today.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Every technique in the book is something that can be done today. But there's no. This isn't a fairy tale. It's not like if you magically use the technique, the good guys win. In fact, I tell a lot of stories in the book of times when the good guys lose. Happens all the time. But if you're in an organization, because this way of thinking and working is more profitable even in conventional terms, if you are a consistent advocate for doing what's right, your career will prosper. So when I talk to people, I said, well, I'm afraid to tell my boss that I think what we're doing is wrong, or I'm afraid to stand up. Listen, there are people in this world who. Who. And I actually talk about this at the end of the book. There are people in this world who have. Who live in an income threshold such that their life is very precarious.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And if they were to get fired from their job, they might not be able to feed their family or provide health insurance for a sick relative. Something. Okay? So I. I know this is not for them. Okay? Such people to do what they have to do. And the rest of us just spend a lot less. A lot more time making their life easier, a lot less time harping on their choices. Okay. But for people who. Who make money above that threshold. And the crazy thing is, we have good academic research on what this threshold looks like. Like, in developed economies, like, people who make more than, you know, 70 to $100,000 a year are already beyond the hedonic treadmill threshold, where additional income gains actually have relatively modest improvements in happiness, if any. And in fact, worse, we make too much money. You become miserable, as you could learn by watching social media for.

[B]

Right, right.

[C]

So what do you have to risk by just speaking the truth? And I'll just say from my own career, one of the most important days in my career, when I look back, is a day when I was sure I was going to be fired. I was going into a board meeting. Everyone was super pissed off at me. And there was just a thing that I really thought was right that everyone else thought was wrong, and they wanted me to compromise on it. And I remember having. I went to a Starbucks nearby, and I'm sitting there, I'm like, I got to go to this meeting. I get caffeinated and hyped up. I didn't know better. So I was having this ton of sugar, too. So I was, like, wired to go to this meeting, and I was like, I'm scared I'm going to be fired. And I was like, okay. Let's do a little pros and cons. If I speak the truth, first of all, I might get my way and actually be right, or I might get fired. Okay? But if I. If I compromise, are they really going to be happy? Like, maybe I'll keep my job, but now what? It's not going to work. So now I'm going to be complicit in this thing that didn't work. They're going to be mad at me anyway. On the other hand, if I. Even if I get fired for doing the right thing, that would be part of my professional reputation. And I was like, you know what? And someday in the future, one of these people who were in the room when I stood up and saw. They saw that I stood for this is going to be in a situation like, you know what we need? We need someone who's really obsessed with this principle. Remember that guy we fire?

[B]

Right?

[C]

That guy, you know, we need somebody who's. That's their thing. At least I'd be known for. That's my thing. So I. And I went into the room and I was like, listen, I know everybody disagrees with me about this, but I'm sorry, I think this is right. Let me make my case and, you know, do what you will. And I didn't get fired. They thought it was great. It worked out. You know, everything worked out. But, like, if I had been fired, it would have been okay. And I think people need to be a lot more courageous speaking up for it's right. So I'll just give you, you know, example after example or example in the book. I have tons of these where it's like, people like, yeah, let's spam the customer. You just. Sometimes you gotta stand up and say, that's not right. And. And I try to give the language and the vocabulary. I have a whole chapter about how to talk to finance people about this, a whole chapter about how to talk to legal. I really try to get into the details of, Okay, I tell these torchbearers in every organization that these people that, like, are obsessed with doing the right thing, you know, as it relates to the company's ethos and mission, even if they don't get rewarded for. And I'm just like, those people live a miserable existence today because every day there's some. I was about to use a profanity. There's some person with a spreadsheet walking into their office and be like, you

[B]

know what we should do?

[C]

Let's liquidate our most precious asset in exchange for an extra 5 cents a day because we have that. You could send an extra email, and it's exhausting. Be like, no, I know it has higher ROI according to your spreadsheet, but ROI is a stupid metric. We shouldn't use it. You know, like, we actually, you know, we have a mission here to make people's lives better. Why don't we just make money by making their lives better? Like, get out of my office. Right? It's. It's draining and exhausting. So I was like, no, we have to have language and vocabulary to say, look, this person is proposing that we liquidate our most valuable asset. They should be fired. Yeah, why am I the one who's being fired? For standing. They should be fired for standing up for the stupidest thing. And. And, you know, in our economy, we're seeing this in every sector. Like, in sports, people are like, my local sports team. Drives me crazy. Same reason we have this crazy level of hospital errors and readmissions. We have private equity firms who are, like, firing nurses and destroying patient outcomes. Cause they can make it extra. But we just. You see it everywhere. And part of breaking the spell of this hypnotic thing that we're in is for people to just have the courage to say, no, this isn't more profitable. It's less profitable. And I think we should do things that are more profitable. Now, if you get pushback. The other thing, I think the other reason people find this very uncomfortable is the most important thing is to deny your attention to the actors that are not aligned with your values. That starts with, like, don't consume their media, don't be addicted to their crap algorithms, but also don't work for them. So if you. The. The value of speaking up for the truth in an organization is you get a double benefit, first of all, you might actually shift the conversation. I. I talk in the book about how organ organizations are obsessed with people's willingness to pay, willingness to do things, obsessed with their employment. They are actually as addicted to this, These analytics as you as any. As any junkie. You know, like, they're actually quite sad. So if you refuse, the algorithm notices. Okay? You don't realize how much power you have. And so, yeah, by speaking up, you find out, first of all, you might actually shift the conversation a good way. You might have impact, or you might be like, do people always think being fired is the worst thing they have to do? Oh, no, Being complicit is so much worse than being fired. If you speak up and you discover, wait a minute, this whole thing is a Fraud, then you can get out. Yeah, you don't have to be fired. You go find something better to do and like, you go start a company yourself. Or you could join a company that's actually sincere about this. And since those companies have these tremendous advantages, you'll probably be better off in your career in the long run anyway.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I love it. So one thing we didn't talk about much today is AI. So as we're, as we're wrapping up here, just wanted to talk a little bit about how do you see AI playing in this idea where value and trust is so, the value of trust is so critical and you know, I'm, I'm a, an optimist when it comes to a lot of these things. I think AI is capable of doing a lot of things, but there, there is a sense where people can be, you know, for lack of a better term, outsourcing some of their thinking and their ideas to AI and not critically evaluating its responses. You know, how, how does, how does AI fit into building greater trust and value in an organization? And what, what are the pitfalls that we should be looking for?

[C]

Yeah, so I have this term that has been floating around a bit now. I like dark flow. Some people have been calling it agent psychosis or LLM psychosis. Like there, there is this really dangerous phenomenon where people, a lot of the AI companies at AI Tools really are designed to replace human creativity rather than to augment it, which I think is evil. So I'm not, I'm not a fan, but people then tell, oh, you're anti a. No, I'm super bullish on AI. I think LLMs are, are an incredible technology and can be used for tremendous good as a form of creativity augmentation. But we have to solve this problem that the way that most tools are architected, you know, it's not, it's not a coincidence that like the leaders of the social media revolution are the financers and in many cases the builders of these products, the two co founders of Instagram, lead product at OpenAI Anthropic, respectively. So like this is not like some weird conspiracy theory. Like these products are being built in a pro engagement way. I think, I think the companies mean well in doing so because they're using metrics, you know, to see how much people use the product. It's like very natural, you know, very simple. Okay. Our system. I talk all about this in the book, but the danger is people have forgotten that the, the purpose of a tool is to help the user of the tool increase Their skills and knowledge not to produce the. The artifact. The artifact is secondary. Now in lean startup, we've been talking about this for 15 years, that, that learning is the unit of progress for entrepreneurship, not the artifact itself. But now with AI, people are really getting addicted to this feeling of vibe coding, of just like I tell it what to do. And so what we need to do, people want to create value out of AI, especially out of LLMs. It's really important to manage the attention mechanism yourself with a human in the loop. So, like we have this. I'm part of an AI research lab called Answer AI where we build tools that have this human loop capability. And I am so much more productive using those tools than I could ever be vibe coding. And also my skills are increasing, not atrophy. So I think we always want to be looking for that combination. Now, to bring it back to your marketing question, especially, the reason why this is so relevant for trust is that at the end of the day, human beings do not understand the things that they vibe code. So when we start using AI generated outputs for marketing, which is inevitable, of course, I mean, the cost advantages are so immense and the like opportunities for experimentation are so like, it's irresistible, of course people are going to do it. The question is, do you yourself actually understand what you've made? Do you even know what your own brand is anymore? Do you, do you know what experiments you're running if. If nobody knows? I think people are taking on enormous liability for like waking up one morning and being like, wait, our brand stands for what?

[B]

Right, right.

[C]

Like, wait, when did that become our brand? What you, you experimented with what you did? What you put my ad where, like, right, so like, you really can. Things can get out of control very quickly. So, yeah, I really, I'm a big believer in, in AI and LLMs as a, as a creativity augmenter and human in a loop control. Always.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Eric, thanks so much for joining today. A couple questions as we wrap up here. First one, if we were having this interview one year from today, what is one thing that we would definitely be talking about?

[C]

I mean, will we be talking about the collapse of the AI bubble or will we talk about the advent of AGI?

[D]

Or both?

[C]

You know, why not both? It's so we're in a time of such tremendous peril and promise. It's extremely hard to make. To make. As the old saying goes, it's really hard to make predictions, especially about the future. So I think my focus has been through this whole very tumultuous period the last 10 years, especially to try to focus on principles that have enduring truth to them, such that hopefully they'll still be relevant. If someone listens to this interview a year from now, they'll actually be like that actually is still pretty relevant. And so I know there's some people who think the advent of AGI or ASI is going to render human creativity obsolete, it's going to render organizational building obsolete. But I just, I find that very hard to believe. I think certainly in my experience going back to like software engineering, even the people that are getting the most value out of LLM assisted programming are the ones who are using it to master the principles of software engineering, not to replace them. So I feel like a principle based approach is, is always a vendor guy.

[B]

Yeah. Love it. Well, one last question for you. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?

[C]

You know, it's been a long time since I had that problem because my, my daily life is so varied. I'm so grateful, actually. I, I used to have a very routine kind of job. Even, even, even my work in startups, you know, it was doing the same kind of thing most days and now it's like I get to meet startups and people from big companies and people bring me their business problems every day and I just the variety of that and I tried to give a flavor of that sensation in the book that like basically my daily practice, like my kata, you know, like a martial arts kata, is like people come to me like, I'm starting a company, working on this crazy thing, will you help me? Or like I've already started a company and now I, I did one this morning that was like the most incredible company. I won't say I want to spoil who they are, but like working on something super awesome. They've been having this really hard time. They just pivoted and now they're growing 4x a quarter. So like they've found it. I mean, just the very moments and it's like, oh no, now what? Like, we're about to lose control of our company. What about our board? What about investors? What about this one? That it's like, okay, we got it. You know, I was like, how much time do we have? Like, we have a board meeting tomorrow. I was like, let's go, saddle up. Okay. I like that me, that's, that's just such a privilege to get to do fun stuff like that every day.

[B]

Yeah, love it. Well, again, I'd like to thank Eric Reiss, author of the Lean Startup, for joining the show. You can learn more about Eric the Lean Startup as well as his new book Incorruptible by following the links in

[A]

the show notes this episode is brought to you by Tech Systems. They're leaders in full stack, tech services, talent solutions and helping companies put it all in action. You can learn [e-mail] that's Tek Systems. And thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand podcast. If you like the episode, hit subscribe and drop a rating so others can find the show too. And if you're interested in consulting, advisory work, or if you need a speaker for your next event, feel free to reach out. Just visit GregKillstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co. Op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.

[C]

The Agile Brand.