Entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup, which popularized iterative product development and validated learning. He previously co-founded IMVU.
Philip Morris generates $8B net income but imposes $600B/year in US healthcare costs and lost productivity; the shareholder primacy model treats these externalities as irrelevant, creating a business model where 'the tobacco industry makes $6,000 from every customer when it dies.'
Novo Nordisk's non-profit foundation trustees blocked a value-destroying merger that would have canceled the GLP-1 research program; the structure has delivered 6x higher 50-year survival rates (60% vs 10%) and created a company worth more than Denmark's GDP.
Academic research from natural experiments shows quarterly reporting destroys ~5% of equity value because managers optimize for the quarterly report rather than long-term value creation; LTSE's SEC petition proposes semi-annual reporting paired with a more fulsome disclosure framework to realign companies with long-term investors.