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Ries joined the Leeds community virtually to discuss entrepreneurship, values, and his forthcoming book on building enduring companies that help human society flourish.��

The Deming Center for Entrepreneurship concluded its Startups & Sandwiches series for the spring 2026 semester on a high note with a virtual visit from , author of The Lean Startup,��The Startup Way, and The Leader’s Guide. Students filled Koelbel 218 to hear Ries’ insights on business and to learn about his forthcoming book, : Why Good Companies Go Bad ... and How Great Companies Stay Great.

Ries shared his journey from earning a degree in computer science to being “swept up in the dot-com bubble,” which he amusingly described as fun at first, but then humiliating. Over the course of his career, he has studied management and worked on innovation across big companies, governments and NGOs—learning along the way how to master key business skills like accounting and governance.

A thought-provoking conversation covered a range of topics. Here are some of Ries’ insights.

On the reason for his new book.
“Most of the ways that I was taught about how companies should be run and structured ultimately leads to them being corrupted.” The reality, he said, is that there are many ways to make money without creating any value at all. “It turns out that there’s actually good evidence that we know how to build organizations that stay true to human flourishing over the long-term.” It’s time to define new best practices—replacing the old ones that don’t work—“that will leave the world better than we found it.”

On the realities of entrepreneurship.
Ries drew laughs when he noted that entrepreneurship in the movies is often about a “plucky protagonist with a great idea.” As an example, he cited Ghost Busters, one of his favorite films. In real life, it’s very different. The hardest work is the foundational decisions, like what features to include in a product and defining customers. But in the movies, “that stuff is so boring it’s limited to a two-minute montage.”

Seeing thousands of startup stories throughout his career, Ries understands the dark side of entrepreneurship. “It’s not all puppies and rainbows. There’s also a lot of misery in the startup world,” much of it driven by the misguided best practices we’ve been indoctrinated into that cause us to deviate from what we know to be right, he believes.

That tension often leads to decisions that are misaligned with personal values. “It’s time for this to end—we have to reconcile the formal definitions of what business is with our intuitive understanding of what business is for.”

On founding the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE).��
“The nice thing about doing something so impossibly difficult is that nobody expects you to succeed.”��

On the soul of a company.��
“It takes me in the book 11 chapters to give the concept of a corporate soul.” Organizations, he explained, function like super organisms. He pointed to a study in which the researchers measured the ethical character of different organizations and used the assessments to accurately predict the organizations’ behavior in future situations. “If you are a cog in that machine, what you do is not entirely in your own control, and often you end up creating effects that are contrary to your own values. And if that sounds scary to you because you’re thinking of starting an organization, then good, it should scare you.”

On mission-driven organizations.
While avoiding traditional buzzwords, Ries emphasized that true mission-driven organizations stand apart. “It turns out we have great evidence that people love working at companies like that, buying from companies like that and love investing in companies like that.” Their advantage, he said, comes from the most underrated aspect in business—trustworthiness.

”We have to reconcile the formal definitions of what business is with our intuitive understanding of what business is for.”

Eric Ries, author and entrepreneur

On optimism and what’s next for business.
Though clear-eyed about current challenges, Ries manages to stay hopeful. “I think the era of shareholder primacy is actually already over … it’s an idea that has basically caused its own intellectual collapse.” Change, he believes, will come through generational turnover and a compelling alternative vision. “If you've ever been navigating somewhere and you make a wrong turn, it’s not like you say, ‘Blow up the car, we’ll never get there; we’re all doomed.’ As long as people wake up out of … unconscious behavior, then I think we’ll be able to get people to recognize the need for this change and turn the car around.”

On aligning your decisions with your values.��
“If you want to make change, the first step is to make sure that the actual decisions you make—no matter how immaterial they may seem—are in fact aligned with your values. That’s your surprising power in your life and career.”