Founder, entrepreneur, and best-selling author of The Lean Startup Eric Ries discusses how to build profitable companies for the long-term benefit of society. Ries talks with world-class technologists, thought leaders, executives, and others working to create a new ecosystem of trustworthy organizations with limitless potential for growth and a deep commitment to purpose. Together, they uncover the tools and methods to ensure the next generation of companies are designed to maximize human flourishing for generations.

Recent Episodes

Oct. 15, 2026

Standing out, finding the right investors, and the future of work | Roy Bahat (Bloomberg Beta)

Roy Bahat leads Bloomberg Beta, a venture capital firm focused on the future of work and how AI is reshaping it. The firm’s investments include Slack, Replit, Flexport, and MasterClass. Before launching Bloomberg Beta, Roy founded a venture-backed startup, served as an executive at News Corp., and worked in New York City government. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Roy to explore the relationship between founders, investors, and employees, and how to build companies that
Sept. 24, 2026

How Veeva Became the First Public Company to Convert to a Public Benefit Corporation | Peter Gassner

What if maximizing shareholder value can actually make a company less valuable? Peter Gassner is the founder and CEO of Veeva Systems, a cloud software company serving the life sciences industry. Before founding Veeva, Peter built enterprise software at IBM, PeopleSoft, and Salesforce. Under his leadership, Veeva became the first publicly traded company to convert to a public benefit corporation. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, Peter joins me to explain why profit is necessary for a
Jan. 8, 2026

A Founder’s Guide to Pivoting Without Killing the Company | Misha Esipov

Misha Esipov is the co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I talk with Misha about what it takes to build a company inside one of the hardest parts of finance to break into. Misha immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union as a child and watched his parents rebuild their lives from scratch. Years later, after a conventional path through math, finance, and business school, that experience resurfaced as a question that wouldn’t let go. Why do capabl
Dec. 11, 2025

Escaping the Zero-Sum Economy: A New Model for Local Prosperity | Zita Cobb

Zita Cobb grew up on Fogo Island, a remote fishing community off the coast of Newfoundland that operated for centuries without cash. Her childhood was shaped by a deep sense of place, the collapse of the inshore fishery, and a belief that communities survive through mutual care. When she left to study business, and later helped build JDS Uniphase into one of the most successful high-tech companies of its era, she carried those ideas with her. The rise and fall of the telecom bubble gave her a fr