# Eric Ries: How to Build Something Success Can't Corrupt

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-chase-jarvis-live-show-743154/eric-ries-how-to-build-something-success-can-t-corrupt
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-chase-jarvis-live-show-743154/eric-ries-how-to-build-something-success-can-t-corrupt.md
Podcast: [The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-chase-jarvis-live-show-743154)
Published: 2026-05-27T13:00:00+00:00
Episode link: http://chasejarvis.com/blog/eric-ries-how-to-build-something-success-cant-corrupt
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/chasejarvislive/20260512_CJLIVE_EricRies.mp3?dest-id=395733
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-chase-jarvis-live-show-743154/episodes/eric-ries-how-to-build-something-success-can-t-corrupt
Duration seconds: 3203

## Resource

Hey friends, Chase here Eric Ries is back on the show, and this conversation goes far beyond startups, venture capital, or the mechanics of building a company. You probably know Eric as the author of The Lean Startup , the book that changed how founders, creators, entrepreneurs, and teams think about building something new. His work helped popularize ideas like continuous innovation, validated learning, experimentation, and staying close to the customer instead of getting lost in theory, ego, or endless planning. But this episode is not just about how to start something. It's about how to protect the thing you've built once it starts working. Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad…and How Great Companies Stay Great , asks a question that feels especially urgent for creators, entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders right now: How do you build something that can grow without being captured, corrupted, or hollowed out? That question matters whether you're running a company, building a personal brand, growing a creative practice, launching a product, choosing clients, working with sponsors, or trying to do work that actually reflects your values. Because success is not neutral. Success brings attention, opportunity, money, investors, partners, platforms, algorithms, expectations, incentives, shortcuts, and people who may not share the reason you started in the first place. One of Eric's most powerful lines in this conversation is this: "Success is not a source of strength. It is a liability, because success attracts predators." That idea is the center of this episode. If you've ever built something that started to work, you know exactly what he means. The thing that made your work powerful can become the thing other people want to capture. The trust you bui…

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