Redefining profit, centering human flourishing, and building an incorruptible mission-driven roadmap w/ Eric Ries #260
From The Engineering Leadership Podcast by The Engineering Leadership Community (ELC)
May 26, 2026 · 42 min
About this episode
Eric Ries discusses insights from his book on redefining profit and the importance of a people-first business approach.
In this episode, we’re joined by Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup, to discuss insights from his latest book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad… and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric shares what inspired him to write the book and why we need to move beyond and redefine what true profit looks like. He shares the history behind businesses transitioning from serving public interests to shareholder primacy and why leaving behind a people-first business approach can actually reduce profitability. Additionally, Eric discusses financial gravity, the “harder is easier” principle, and how these practices connect to AI & current engineering leadership challenges.
People in this episode
Guest: Eric Ries
Topics covered
- profit
- human flourishing
- mission-driven
- business ethics
- engineering leadership
- AI
Keywords
- profit
- human flourishing
- business ethics
- engineering leadership
- AI
- shareholder primacy
- financial gravity
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Lean Startup, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad… and How Great Companies Stay Great
More episodes of The Engineering Leadership Podcast
- Building an empowered career w/ Jean Hsu & Cate Huston #261 · June 10, 2026 · 48 min
- Affirm’s AI-native transformation & how it’s driving operational excellence w/ Geddes Munson #259 · May 19, 2026 · 45 min
- Building reliable and proactive agentic systems at scale: how Shopify’s reflexive AI culture was instrumental in their development of Sidekick w/ Andrew McNamara #258 · May 12, 2026 · 37 min
- How the R&D Org at Twilio Drives Business Strategy and Transformation w/ Inbal Shani #257 · May 5, 2026 · 47 min
- Scaling TensorFlow, Navigating Startup Pivots, ML Edge Infrastructure and AI Inference Strategy w/ Rajat Monga #256 · April 28, 2026 · 41 min
- How Enterprises Actually Win with AI: Operationalizing Responsible AI, Engineering Guardrails, Trust Controls, and Systems Thinking at Scale w/ Murali Swaminathan #255 · April 21, 2026 · 45 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Engineering Leadership Podcast podcast page.