{"podcast":{"title":"Design Better","slug":"design-better-58582","podcast_index_feed_id":58582,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/designbetter","website_url":"http://designbetterpodcast.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/5c7f5f0a-37c0-11ee-b4ef-e736dc77755f/image/d9388f8e30c83625a7a26fcedbaa3b74.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"The Curiosity Department","episode_count":259,"summary":"Design Better co-hosts Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter explore the intersection of design, technology, and the creative process through conversations with guests across many creative fields, helping you hone your craft, unlock your creativity, and learn the art of collaboration. Whether you’re design curious or a design pro, Design Better is guaranteed to inspire and inform. Vanity Fair calls Design Better, “sharp, to the point, and full of incredibly valuable information for anyone looking to better understand how to build a more innovative world.”","last_synced_at":"2026-09-02T22:23:13.471687+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/design-better-58582"},"episode":{"title":"Eric Ries: Lean Startup author on why good companies go bad, and why good design is critical to success","slug":"eric-ries-lean-startup-author-on-why-good-companies-go-bad-and-why-good-design-is-critical-to-success","published_at":"2026-07-22T11:45:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/design-better-58582/eric-ries-lean-startup-author-on-why-good-companies-go-bad-and-why-good-design-is-critical-to-success","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/design-better-58582","url":"https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/eric-ries","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/p.podderapp.com/1794982497/chrt.fm/track/1C4248/prfx.byspotify.com/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/211/traffic.megaphone.fm/MLALE9757282959.mp3","summary":"Fifteen years ago, Eric Ries handed a generation of founders a playbook. When Eli was in a Palo Alto-based startup accelerator in 2011, The Lean Startup felt like the only book anyone in that ecosystem was talking about. It was in the middle of a wildly optimistic moment for tech. Marc Andreessen declared that “software is eating the world,” social media was blooming, and there was a widespread belief that technology was about to democratize everything and bring us closer together. Concepts like the MVP (“minimum viable product,”), the pivot, and build-measure-learn became the operating language of Silicon Valley. This is a preview of a premium episode. Listen to the full interview on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/eric-ries But a lot of the companies built on those ideas went on to get corrupted by forces Eric hadn’t yet named. His new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, is his reckoning with what happens after you build something great — and how to keep it from falling apart. Buy the book In this conversation, we get into why speed itself wasn’t the problem, but treating a rising stock price as proof of health is like assuming more exhaust means a faster car. Eric explains why doing the right thing 100% of the time is actually easier than doing it 98% of the time, and how companies behave like superorganisms with their own emergent character — a point he illustrates with a genuinely mind-bending study about ants solving a puzzle that no single ant ever could. We talk about the “harder is easier” principle through stories from Patagonia and the long-term stock exchange he built as a design challenge, and why the value a company makes comes from the design of its products. And because we couldn’t resist, w…","meta_description":"Fifteen years ago, Eric Ries handed a generation of founders a playbook. When Eli was in a Palo Alto-based startup accelerator in 2011, The Lean Startup f…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2063,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/design-better-58582/episodes/eric-ries-lean-startup-author-on-why-good-companies-go-bad-and-why-good-design-is-critical-to-success/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/design-better-58582/eric-ries-lean-startup-author-on-why-good-companies-go-bad-and-why-good-design-is-critical-to-success.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}