About this episode

Eric Ries discusses the challenges that successful companies face in maintaining their mission and value creation.

Episode Summary Recorded live at the San Diego Angel Conference finale at SDSU, Eric Ries — author of The Lean Startup — sits down with product leader and founder coach Vidya Dinamani to unpack his new book, Incorruptible. His argument: there’s a gravitational force that pulls even mission-driven companies toward decay — “the making of money without the creating of value” — and the more successful you get, the bigger a target you become. Eric walks through how it happens (stack-ranking by ROI, the “what would investors want” ghost in every meeting, Groupon’s two-emails-a-day spiral), why the fix has to come earlier than anyone wants (“it’s too early until it’s too late”), and the concrete governance moves that keep the great ones honest. Along the way: the San Diego origin story of Costco, Cloudflare giving away its best paid feature, Anthropic’s long-term benefit trust, a hard-nosed take on AI, and a health insurer whose customer-service reps act like guardian angels. Key Topics * Corruption as “making money without creating value” * The gravity that pulls companies from mission to mediocrity * Costco’s San Diego origin — and why FedMart died * Why stack-ranking by ROI buries…

People in this episode

Host: Neal Bloom

Guests: Eric Ries, Vidya Dinamani

Topics covered

• company decay
• value creation
• mission-driven companies
• governance
• AI implications
• customer service

Keywords

• company corruption
• value vs profit
• stack-ranking
• AI
• governance
• Costco
• Cloudflare
• customer service

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Costco, Cloudflare, Anthropic, Devoted Health

Books & works: Incorruptible

Places: San Diego, SDSU

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• Inside the San Diego Angel Conference · June 24, 2026 · 1h 30m
• Greener Only Scales When It's Less Expensive · June 17, 2026 · 43 min

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