Eric Ries
Eric Ries writes books, hosts The Eric Ries Show, and helps founders build companies that keep their purpose as they grow.
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Latest
Eric’s happenings, collected from public sources, plus their backstory and Starbook, where fans write.
Known for
Book
Book
BookOverview
- Work
- Author, entrepreneur, and podcast host
- Started sharing
- Published the first Lean Startup blog post in September 2008
- Breakout book
- The Lean Startup, published in 2011
- Latest book
- Incorruptible, published in May 2026
- Based in
- San Francisco Bay Area
Mini bio
How it started.
Eric’s route into entrepreneurship began with programming. As a Yale undergraduate, they co-founded Catalyst Recruiting, which folded during the dot-com crash. Work at There.com followed, then a role as co-founder and chief technology officer of IMVU.
From building to writing.
IMVU became a testing ground for the ideas behind Lean Startup. In September 2008, Eric published their first post using the term. The Lean Startup followed in 2011, became a New York Times bestseller, and brought those ideas to a much wider audience.
What came next.
The Leader’s Guide turned the method into a practical handbook in 2015, followed by The Startup Way in 2017. Eric also founded the Long-Term Stock Exchange and became the founding director of AI research lab Answer.AI.
The work today.
Incorruptible, published in May 2026, asks how growing companies can protect the purpose that made them worth building. Eric keeps exploring that question in the For The Better newsletter and conversations on The Eric Ries Show.
Creditschronological, newest first
Books
- 2026IncorruptibleAuthor
- 2017The Startup WayAuthor
- 2015The Leader’s GuideAuthor
- 2011The Lean StartupAuthor
Podcast
- 2024The Eric Ries ShowHost
Awards
Quotes
Human talent, passion, and wisdom is too precious a commodity to allow it to be wasted.Eric Ries, Startup Lessons Learned
From the autobiographical post “About the author”: https://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/10/about-author.html
Trivia
- Eric first discovered the internet through MUDs, text-based games that users could help program.
- They co-authored The Black Art of Java Game Programming, published in 1996.
- The Leader’s Guide began as a Kickstarter-funded book; an updated Audible edition followed in 2019.
Find Eric
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