Eric Ries Governance & company building

Eric Ries (@ericries) is the author of The Lean Startup, the NYT bestseller that became a playbook for a generation of founders. He's also the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange and has a new book out called Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great. In this episode of Main Function, Eric sat down with YC's @garrytan to talk about why so many founders lose control of the companies they build, and what they can do to stop it. 00:47 — The Professor's Wake-Up Call 03:43 — A Wake, Not a Party 05:12 — Shareholder Primacy Explained 08:20 — The Jeff Lawson / Twilio Story 10:27 — When You Fire the Founder 12:01 — The Legend of Sol Price 15:38 — Costco's Secret Origin 18:33 — Mission-Controlled Companies 19:40 — Finding the Right Board 22:26 — Just Become a PBC 23:40 — Who Invented Shareholder Primacy? 27:08 — It's Not Even a Law 30:28 — The Builder's Intuition 34:47 — Novo Nordisk & the $600B Bet 39:47 — Industrial Foundations Outperform 42:08 — The Problem With VC Fund Structure 43:05 — Dual Class Isn't Enough 44:54 — Building Something That Outlives You 45:03 — Anthropic's Governance Story