Shareholder Primacy Is Breaking Healthcare | Eric Ries

Healthcare companies are built to improve patients' lives. So why do so many prioritize shareholders over the people they're meant to serve?

This week, Halle sits down with Eric Ries, author of Incorruptible, to unpack the rise of shareholder primacy, what it is, and why he believes it's at the root of many of society’s biggest challenges. They discuss the surprising history of corporate governance, the lessons behind Novo Nordisk's century-long success, and what founders can do today to keep their companies aligned with their mission as they grow.

We cover:

• Why shareholder primacy reshaped corporate America (and where we go from here)
• How Novo Nordisk's unusual ownership structure may have saved GLP-1 research
• The simple governance change that could preserve your company's mission for decades
• How boards, investors, and acquisitions can slowly pull companies away from their original purpose
• The founder mistakes that make mission drift almost inevitable

About our guest:

Over the last two decades, Eric Ries’s ideas about continuous innovation, long-term thinking, governance, and market reform have reshaped company building and management practices. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method, and the author of two New York Times bestsellers The Lean Startup and Incorruptible; The Leader’s Guide; and The Startup Way.

As a founder, he has put his own ideas into practice with The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE); Answer.AI, an AI R&D lab; Virgil, a legal services startup; and IMVU. On The Eric Ries Show, he talks with world-class technologists, thought leaders, and executives building for the long-term.

Check out his book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad…and How Great Companies Stay Great

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