The Eric Ries Show
Episodes
A Founder’s Guide to Pivoting Without Killing the Company | Misha Esipov
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Escaping the Zero-Sum Economy: A New Model for Local Prosperity | Zita Cobb
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Ultimate Guide for Creating Products People Trust | Seth Goldman (Honest Tea)
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most companies scale by cutting corners. Seth Goldman built a brand by refusing to.Seth is one of the founders of Honest Tea, a longtime chair at Beyo...
How the Former U.S. CTO Built a $3B Healthcare Company Powered by Love | Todd Park
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most companies optimize for profit. Devoted Health was built to serve people.In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Todd Park, co-foun...
The G.O.A.T.s of Kindness on Bootstrapping a Purpose-Driven Company | Dr. Brent Ridge & Josh Kilmer-Purcell
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most companies talk about purpose. Beekman 1802 made it their operating system.In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Dr. Brent Ridge ...
From Fired CEO to Billion-Dollar Exit: How Lukas Biewald Turned Failure into the Future of AI
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lukas Biewald has been shaping the future of AI for nearly two decades. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, we explore how his early passion for th...
How to move beyond bureaucracy, not waste talent, and innovate faster | Michele Zanini & Gary Hamel
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bureaucracy was once a breakthrough. Today, it’s become a costly drag on innovation, human potential, and business impact. In this episode of The Er...
From Blacksmith to Billionaire: The Making of Patagonia’s Ethos
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Patagonia has always been different. While so many companies lose their way when profits come before people, the planet, or even their own products, P...
“AI Will Break the Internet” — Cloudflare CEO’s Big Prediction
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if your company’s mission turned out to be bigger than you imagined?In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I speak with Matthew Prince, co-foun...
Inside Vercel: The $3B giant that’s changed coding forever
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Guillermo Rauch, CEO and founder of Vercel—a company powering the front end of the internet f...
How GitLab scaled to 30M users with transparency, remote work, and the ultimate employee handbook | Sid Sijbrandij
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and Executive Chair of GitLab—one of the world’s most radically ...
Turning down $200 million and the big bets that led to powering 40% of the internet
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and co-founder of WordPress, the open-source platform that no...
The playbook for fixing toxic culture, pointless friction, and broken systems | Bob Sutton (Stanford, NYT bestselling author)
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Bob Sutton, organizational psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of several influe...
The pitch that changed air travel forever: $3B in preorders, Richard Branson’s backing, and the return of supersonic flight | Blake Scholl (Boom Supersonic)
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does it take to challenge a century-old status quo in aviation? In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Blake Scholl, Founder and ...
The Hidden Costs of Pay Inequality, And How Leading Companies are Solving It | Maria Colacurcio (Syndio)
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Maria Colacurcio, Co-Founder and CEO of Syndio, a workplace equity analytics platform. Syndio h...
Lessons on co-founding Twitter, Medium and Blogger with Ev Williams
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Ev Williams—someone whose work has profoundly shaped the modern internet. Ev co-founded Twitt...
The playbook for building a business to $1M/month with 3 employees, hiring great leaders, and rejecting Silicon Valley’s rules | Jess Mah (Rahway)
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I'm joined by Jess Mah, an extraordinary entrepreneur who launched her first six-figure business in middle ...
The Hired CEO with Founder Mode | Marten Mickos (MySQL, HackerOne)
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Marten Mickos, a serial tech CEO who has been at the forefront of some of the most transformati...
How To Raise $125M Pre-Revenue and Why Harder Can Be Easier | Celine Halioua (Loyal)
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I'm joined by Celine Halioua, founder and CEO of Loyal, a groundbreaking biotech startup developing drugs to ex...
Inside UiPath’s $1.5B ARR Journey – Bootstrapping the company, hiring challenges, and the billion-dollar pivot (Daniel Dines)
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Daniel Dines, the Founder and CEO of UiPath, a company that started in robotic process automati...
From Bootstrapping to $400 Million – The Hustle Behind Hipcamp with Alyssa Ravasio
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Alyssa Ravasio, CEO and Founder of Hipcamp. Hipcamp is the platform that has revolutionized cam...
MBA thinking killed my startup, lessons on losing 98% of users, and being fired as a co-founder | Gagan Biyani (Udemy and Maven)
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Gagan Biyani, Co-Founder and CEO of Maven, a platform that’s redefining online education...
Lessons on creating a $17 billion learning company, going viral with an owl, and ditching short-term thinking with Luis von Ahn (Duolingo)
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode ofThe Eric Ries Show, I am joined by Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo. With Duolingo, his mission was simple: make l...
He turned down $11 billion, here’s why | Craig Newmark (Craigslist Founder)
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist—one of the internet’s most influential platforms. ...
Redefining Education in the Age of AI with Amir Nathoo (Outschool)
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Amir Nathoo, Co-Founder and CEO of Outschool, an education platform offering live online classe...
Lessons on building a unicorn used by 84% of the Fortune 100 | Emil Eifrem (Neo4j)
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Emil Eifrem, Co-Founder and CEO of Neo4j, an open-source graph database. Neo4j enables organiza...
How She Built a Marketplace for a Million Nurses | Iman Abuzeid (Incredible Health)
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Iman Abuzeid, the co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health, a platform transforming how healthca...
Hard-Won Secrets for Scaling Innovations in Finance, Gaming, and AI with Siqi Chen (Runway, Zynga)
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Siqi Chen, a four-time founder and the CEO and CFO of his latest venture, Runway. Runway offers...
Inside iRobot: How the Roomba Sparked a Revolution in AI Robotics with Rodney Brooks
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rodney Brooks has spent his entire life at the intersection of robotics, computers, and AI. When the Roomba vacuum cleaner launched in 2002, his compa...
Longevity Over Hypergrowth: A New Vision for Startups with Sahil Lavingia (Gumroad)
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the digital content-sharing platform Gumroad challenges every aspect of the received wisdom about building successful companies. After it...
Risks, Rewards, and Building the Unicorn Chip Company Taking on Nvidia | Inside Groq with Jonathan Ross
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Groq, a semiconductor startup that makes chips for AI inference and was recently valued at $2.8 billion, is a classic “overnight succes...
AI’s Human Backbone: The Hidden Hands That Shape The Technology | Wendy Gonzalez (Sama)
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wendy Gonzalez is the CEO of Sama, an ethical AI company that provides training and jobs with equitable pay and benefits to those who face the greates...
Mission Over Money: How Sal Khan changed EdTech forever
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sal Khan arrived at the idea for Khan Academy truly organically. While working at a hedge fund, he took time in the evenings to tutor a younger cousin...
Contrarian by Design: Wade Foster’s Vision Behind Zapier’s $5B Business
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Founded in 2011 in the distinctly non-Silicon Valley location of Columbia, Missouri, software integration company Zapier hit profitability in 2014. To...
The Oracle Of Silicon Valley Shares How to Create More Value Than You Capture | Tim O’Reilly
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is the relationship between technology and society? What happens to idealism over time? I’m fortunate to have discussed these questions and man...
The Art of Pivoting: How TaskRabbit Reimagined the Gig Economy | Stacy Brown-Philpot (Google, TaskRabbit, HP, Nordstroms)
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Stacy Brown-Philpot is a unique voice in Silicon Valley. She began her career as a public accountant and worked at Goldman Sachs before landing at Goo...
Reid Hoffman challenges your thinking on AI, governance, and politics
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The latest episode of The Eric Ries Show features my conversation with Reid Hoffman. Executive Vice President of PayPal, co-founder of LinkedIn, and l...
How to build trust and win your customer’s attention with Seth Godin
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of The Eric Ries Show is all about the relationship between trust and success. I can’t think of anyone better to talk about it with tha...
Inside Kickstarter: Co-Founder Yancey Strickler on Building the Crowdfunding Giant
18 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Yancey Strickler is the co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter, and the founder of Metalabel, a platform for releasing collective work. He’s also ...
How to Scale Trust Into a Billion Dollar Business | Ritu Narayan (Zum)
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sat down with Ritu Narayan, founder and CEO of Zum, which has had incredible success in the field of student...
Lessons From Co-Founding Facebook, And Now Asana | Dustin Moskovitz
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to The Eric Ries Show. I sat down with Dustin Moskovitz, founder of not one but two iconic companies: Facebook and the collaborative work plat...
How to Disrupt an Industry: Lessons from James Reinhart (ThredUp)
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I talk with James Reinhart, founder of the second-hand resale platform ThredUp. A history major in college, Jam...
His First Company Went Public For $3.5 Billion, Now He’s Reversing Type 2 Diabetes For 100 Million
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with serial entrepreneur and intrepid explorer, Sami Inkinen. Sami has co-founded two companie...
Welcome To The Eric Ries Show
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For too long, company builders have been told that purpose and profit are at odds -- that trading one for the other is inevitable. A burgeoning group ...