Episodes
From Blacksmith to Billionaire: The Making of Patagonia’s Ethos
Patagonia has always been different. While so many companies lose their way when profits come before people, the planet, or even their own products, Patagonia continues to stay true to its values. In today’s episode of The Er...
“AI Will Break the Internet” — Cloudflare CEO’s Big Prediction
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-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, now a $70 billion company defending 20% of all i...
Inside Vercel: The $3B giant that’s changed coding forever
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 for brands like OpenAI, Nintendo, Chick-fil-A, and many more. Guillermo’s journ...
How GitLab scaled to 30M users with transparency, remote work, and the ultimate employee handbook | Sid Sijbrandij
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 transparent and values-driven software companies. Sid shares how GitLab evolved f...
Turning down $200 million and the big bets that led to powering 40% of the internet
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 now powers 43% of the internet. Recorded on the 20th anniversary of Automattic,...
The playbook for fixing toxic culture, pointless friction, and broken systems | Bob Sutton (Stanford, NYT bestselling author)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show , I’m joined by Bob Sutton, organizational psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of several influential books on leadership, behavior, and workplace culture, including his la...
The pitch that changed air travel forever: $3B in preorders, Richard Branson’s backing, and the return of supersonic flight | Blake Scholl (Boom Supersonic)
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 CEO of Boom Supersonic, a company on a mission to bring back supersonic air...
The Hidden Costs of Pay Inequality, And How Leading Companies are Solving It | Maria Colacurcio (Syndio)
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 helps companies close pay gaps and build high-trust organizations. Maria has ...
Lessons on co-founding Twitter, Medium and Blogger with Ev Williams
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 Twitter, created Medium, and before all that, built Blogger, the original bloggin...
The playbook for building a business to $1M/month with 3 employees, hiring great leaders, and rejecting Silicon Valley’s rules | Jess Mah (Rahway)
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 school and went on to co-found more than 10 companies collectively valued at o...
The Hired CEO with Founder Mode | Marten Mickos (MySQL, HackerOne)
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 transformative moments in open-source technology. From leading MySQL through its groun...
How To Raise $125M Pre-Revenue and Why Harder Can Be Easier | Celine Halioua (Loyal)
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 extend dogs' healthspan and lifespan. Celine's journey combines her passion f...
Inside UiPath’s $1.5B ARR Journey – Bootstrapping the company, hiring challenges, and the billion-dollar pivot (Daniel Dines)
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 automation (RPA) and is now making a bold shift into agentic AI. Dubbed “the boss o...
From Bootstrapping to $400 Million – The Hustle Behind Hipcamp with Alyssa Ravasio
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 camping, with a mission to “get more people outside.” By making it easier for p...
MBA thinking killed my startup, lessons on losing 98% of users, and being fired as a co-founder | Gagan Biyani (Udemy and Maven)
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 with cohort-based courses. Before Maven, Gagan co-founded Udemy, now one of the ...
Lessons on creating a $17 billion learning company, going viral with an owl, and ditching short-term thinking with Luis von Ahn (Duolingo)
In today’s episode of The Eric Ries Show , I am joined by Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo . With Duolingo, his mission was simple: make language learning accessible to everyone—not to build a for-profit company. ...
He turned down $11 billion, here’s why | Craig Newmark (Craigslist Founder)
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. Despite its massive impact, Craigslist has remained intentionally minimalist, ...
Redefining Education in the Age of AI with Amir Nathoo (Outschool)
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 classes for K-12 learners. Amir’s own childhood inspired Outschool—while he went to...
Lessons on building a unicorn used by 84% of the Fortune 100 | Emil Eifrem (Neo4j)
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 organizations to unlock the business value of connections, influences, and relations...
How She Built a Marketplace for a Million Nurses | Iman Abuzeid (Incredible Health)
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 healthcare systems hire nurses. After earning an MD, Iman pivoted to business and te...
Hard-Won Secrets for Scaling Innovations in Finance, Gaming, and AI with Siqi Chen (Runway, Zynga)
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 a modern, user-friendly platform for financial modeling, headcount planning...
Inside iRobot: How the Roomba Sparked a Revolution in AI Robotics with Rodney Brooks
Rodney Brooks has spent his entire life at the intersection of robotics, computers, and AI. When the Roomba vacuum cleaner launched in 2002, his company, iRobot, brought all three into millions of people’s homes. iRobot had a...
Longevity Over Hypergrowth: A New Vision for Startups with Sahil Lavingia (Gumroad)
The story of the digital content-sharing platform Gumroad challenges every aspect of the received wisdom about building successful companies. After it almost went under, founder and CEO Sahil Lavingia decided to pare down to ...
Risks, Rewards, and Building the Unicorn Chip Company Taking on Nvidia | Inside Groq with Jonathan Ross
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 success that was years in the making” tale. On this episode, I talk with founder an...