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- My biggest struggle with this question is that "going bad" sometimes coincides with not just financial incentives, but also more people getting value out of it. For example Spotify gradually shifting from "we make it easy to curate and share playlists" to "we make them for you to use as background music constantly." Sometimes what's bad for the early power user is great for the late adopter, and it's difficult to make any kind of broad judgment about whether the change is better or worse.
What do you say to this interpretation? In particular do you think most cases could be framed as "the key audience/customer/market has shifted"? Is it possible to find greater financial success while doing things the primary audience doesn't like?
by ngriffiths - I haven't read the new book yet, but I'd be interested in your take on Disney's trajectory over the last, say, 2 decades. It seems to have strayed pretty far from Walt's original vision, largely due to the actions of Bob Iger. He took what used to be a company that was fueled by creativity and turned it into a machine that strip mines IP and extracts value. Iger purchased IP (Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Fox) as a risk mitigation strategy since you get an established brand you can exploit on day 1. But in doing so he killed the soul of Disney, which was built on big creative bets (literally sell the car to make a movie, mortgage the house to build a park).by byoung2
- Eric, thank you for taking time to answer questions! I read The Lean Startup early in my career and it shaped a lot of it. I’m keen to read your new book
As I read through your comments, one question popped into my head: what’s your thoughts about the Friedman doctrine? Do you address it in your book?
Specifically, the Friedman doctrine makes the argument that the social responsibility of the firm is to increase its profits. That policy making should be left to governments.
Milton Friedman states in his essay:
Insofar as [a business executive's] actions in accord with his "social responsibility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.
His theory was introduced in 1970 and it seems has since become the standard for the corporate world
How does this square with what you present in your book? Do you disagree with his theory?
by jameslk - For those that want to go deeper with _Incorruptible_, I've spent the past few months doing hundreds of interviews and events discussing its various themes and topics. I'm having Claude Code summarize this progress along the way at https://howisincorruptiblegoing.com/
You can also see the various accolades, reviews, and awards that it's accumulated so far.
by eries - Just dropping in to thank you for writing this book and raising awareness around it. A lot of builders are really disillusioned by how "corruptible" the tech industry has been.
I wrote a blog post called "Revenue Model is More Important than Culture" (it made the #1 spot on HackerNews a few years ago) arguing that the way to avoid that corruption is by making sure the business model is immune to it, but having read your thoughts, I'd say your argument (structure being the dominant term) is even stronger.
by Ozzie_osman - Eric - I've worked for NASA, ATT, IBM, HP, Amazon, and Google, not to mention a couple of startups that I started in between. None of them (except the startups, but they were brief) stayed true to their original mission. I haven't read your new book, but IMO, it's because the founders leave and the next leadership don't share the vision or values of the founders in the same way. After all, a company is a collaboration among people who want to make a contribution. When the people change, the company changes. It's inevitable.
That said, you seem to have archetypes above Costco, Patagonia, and Novo Nordisk that avoided it.
Can you comment on not what it takes to build such a company, but rather how to transform companies like those that I worked for into ones that resist gravity? Or is it too late?
by mehulashah - > how a handful of companies (like Costco[..]) have successfully been structured to resist gravity
"I came to (Jim Sinegal) once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty," Jelineck recalled[..]. "We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you."
That's not structure, that's leadership. They were about to change the price, but one guy at the top with authority and an opinion said no. You could say "it's structure" that there was one guy at the top with authority, but it still depends on him having the right opinion. You need both a good structure and an unwaveringly idealistic (and correct) leader.
by 0xbadcafebee - I'll give you a read.
If you haven't read it already, I strongly recommend the Knapp Commission Report. Its about police corruption in New York City in 1972, but its lessons on systemic and institutionalized corruption are highly transferable to other contexts.
Probably the most common naive mistake I see is people thinking their subfield is special and they are the first to really notice / understand fraud within it. I've certainly seen people in the "sleuth community" (scientific fraud whistle blowers) reinvent the wheel a few times.
All fraud is basically the same. Financial, scientific, police corruption...it almost doesn't matter. I'm not even the first to say this. A really good summary can be found in Ashforth 2003 ("The Normalization of Corruption in Organizations").
So, with the caveat that I haven't read your work yet and maybe you already know, I'd say look at past corruption far outside your area of interest / expertise. There's a lot you can learn there. Police corruption reports are usually great because of how accessible they are in several senses (more numerous, usually simple to understand), but I have no police related agenda to push here and it really doesn't matter where you decide to look. Just pick any Commission and read their findings.
In the opening words of the Knapp Commission "We found corruption to be widespread".
by IIAOPSW