The Eric Ries Show
Founder, entrepreneur, and best-selling author of The Lean Startup Eric Ries discusses how to build profitable companies for the long-term benefit of society. Ries talks with world-class technologists, thought leaders, executives, and others working to create a new ecosystem of trustworthy organizations with limitless potential for growth and a deep commitment to purpose. Together, they uncover the tools and methods to ensure the next generation of companies are designed to maximize human flourishing for generations.
Episodes
A Founder’s Guide to Pivoting Without Killing the Company | Misha Esipov
Misha Esipov is the co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I talk with Misha about what it takes to build a company inside one of the hardest parts of finance to break into.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, a
Escaping the Zero-Sum Economy: A New Model for Local Prosperity | Zita Cobb
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
The Ultimate Guide for Creating Products People Trust | Seth Goldman (Honest Tea)
Most companies scale by cutting corners. Seth Goldman built a brand by refusing to.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 h
How the Former U.S. CTO Built a $3B Healthcare Company Powered by Love | Todd Park
Most companies optimize for profit. Devoted Health was built to serve people.In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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.Todd shares how Devoted earned one of the highest trust scores in the industry and how he and his brother
The G.O.A.T.s of Kindness on Bootstrapping a Purpose-Driven Company | Dr. Brent Ridge & Josh Kilmer-Purcell
Most companies talk about purpose. Beekman 1802 made it their operating system.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.After losing their Manhattan jobs during the 2008 recession, Brent and Josh
From Fired CEO to Billion-Dollar Exit: How Lukas Biewald Turned Failure into the Future of AI
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 & Biases into a trusted toolmaker in machine learning.In our conversation, we discuss: • Lessons Lukas drew from Go about pattern
How to move beyond bureaucracy, not waste talent, and innovate faster | Michele Zanini & Gary Hamel
Bureaucracy was once a breakthrough. Today, it’s become a costly drag on innovation, human potential, and business impact. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, authors of Humanocracy, to explore how organizations can move beyond outdated management models and unlock true human thriving.Hamel and Zanini have spent years researching and advising some
From Blacksmith to Billionaire: The Making of Patagonia’s Ethos
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.In today’s episode of The Eric Ries Show, I speak with journalist David Gelles, author of Dirtbag Billionaire, his new book about founder Yvon Chouinard. We explore how Chouinard built Patagonia with an e
“AI Will Break the Internet” — Cloudflare CEO’s Big Prediction
What if your company’s mission turned out to be bigger than you imagined?In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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 activis
Inside Vercel: The $3B giant that’s changed coding forever
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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.We talk about how open source gave him a way in—and why he still believe
How GitLab scaled to 30M users with transparency, remote work, and the ultimate employee handbook | Sid Sijbrandij
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.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
Turning down $200 million and the big bets that led to powering 40% of the internet
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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.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 staye
The playbook for fixing toxic culture, pointless friction, and broken systems | Bob Sutton (Stanford, NYT bestselling author)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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: The Friction Project.We explore insights from across his body of work, including real-world examples of large organizations that have figured out how to operate more effe
The pitch that changed air travel forever: $3B in preorders, Richard Branson’s backing, and the return of supersonic flight | Blake Scholl (Boom Supersonic)
What does it take to challenge a century-old status quo in aviation? In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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.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
The Hidden Costs of Pay Inequality, And How Leading Companies are Solving It | Maria Colacurcio (Syndio)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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.In
Lessons on co-founding Twitter, Medium and Blogger with Ev Williams
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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, Startup Lessons Learned, still lives today).We cover a wide range of topics, but at the heart of our conversation is this: what does
The playbook for building a business to $1M/month with 3 employees, hiring great leaders, and rejecting Silicon Valley’s rules | Jess Mah (Rahway)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I'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.Jess rose to public acclaim and earned a spot on Forbes' 30 Under 30 while privately facing the reality that her startup, inDinero, was far from profitab
The Hired CEO with Founder Mode | Marten Mickos (MySQL, HackerOne)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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's career is a masterclass in building innovative, trust-driven organizations.Our wide-ran
How To Raise $125M Pre-Revenue and Why Harder Can Be Easier | Celine Halioua (Loyal)
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.Our conversation explores:• Why ambitious, moonshot visions c
Inside UiPath’s $1.5B ARR Journey – Bootstrapping the company, hiring challenges, and the billion-dollar pivot (Daniel Dines)
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.Daniel’s journey is anything but conve
From Bootstrapping to $400 Million – The Hustle Behind Hipcamp with Alyssa Ravasio
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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 accessib
MBA thinking killed my startup, lessons on losing 98% of users, and being fired as a co-founder | Gagan Biyani (Udemy and Maven)
In today’s episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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.Gagan started his entrepreneurial journey at just 21, and along the way, he’s experienced both big wi
Lessons on creating a $17 billion learning company, going viral with an owl, and ditching short-term thinking with Luis von Ahn (Duolingo)
In today’s episode ofThe Eric Ries Show, I am joined by Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo. 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. In our conversatio
He turned down $11 billion, here’s why | Craig Newmark (Craigslist Founder)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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.
Craig attributes his success to being in the right place at the right time, but his story reveals a deeper truth: a
Redefining Education in the Age of AI with Amir Nathoo (Outschool)
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.
Outschool is about empowering kids to take control of their learning and building
Lessons on building a unicorn used by 84% of the Fortune 100 | Emil Eifrem (Neo4j)
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.
In our conversation today, we talk about the following topics:
• The origin story of Neo4j and why they chose open source
• Open source as a means of production
How She Built a Marketplace for a Million Nurses | Iman Abuzeid (Incredible Health)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Iman Abuzeid, the co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health, a platform transforming how healthcare systems hire nurses.
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
Hard-Won Secrets for Scaling Innovations in Finance, Gaming, and AI with Siqi Chen (Runway, Zynga)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, 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 ga
Inside iRobot: How the Roomba Sparked a Revolution in AI Robotics with Rodney Brooks
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.
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 valu
Longevity Over Hypergrowth: A New Vision for Startups with Sahil Lavingia (Gumroad)
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 sigh
Risks, Rewards, and Building the Unicorn Chip Company Taking on Nvidia | Inside Groq with Jonathan Ross
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.
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 t
AI’s Human Backbone: The Hidden Hands That Shape The Technology | Wendy Gonzalez (Sama)
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
Mission Over Money: How Sal Khan changed EdTech forever
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 disc
Contrarian by Design: Wade Foster’s Vision Behind Zapier’s $5B Business
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
The Oracle Of Silicon Valley Shares How to Create More Value Than You Capture | Tim O’Reilly
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.
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 witne
The Art of Pivoting: How TaskRabbit Reimagined the Gig Economy | Stacy Brown-Philpot (Google, TaskRabbit, HP, Nordstroms)
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.
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 Oppor
Reid Hoffman challenges your thinking on AI, governance, and politics
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 Master
How to build trust and win your customer’s attention with Seth Godin
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 Permission Marketing, the best-seller This Is Marketing, and many other books, as well as a fantastic daily blog that has been going strong since the early days.
He also co-founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyn
Inside Kickstarter: Co-Founder Yancey Strickler on Building the Crowdfunding Giant
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 This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World.
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 p
How to Scale Trust Into a Billion Dollar Business | Ritu Narayan (Zum)
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.
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 opp
Lessons From Co-Founding Facebook, And Now Asana | Dustin Moskovitz
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,
How to Disrupt an Industry: Lessons from James Reinhart (ThredUp)
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
His First Company Went Public For $3.5 Billion, Now He’s Reversing Type 2 Diabetes For 100 Million
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 l
Welcome To The Eric Ries Show
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.
Better companies mean a better world for
