Show Notes
Pete Townsend is joined by Eric Ries, author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, for a conversation about the invisible structural forces that corrupt even the most mission-driven companies, and what founders can do about it before it's too late. Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, is out now. Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Incorruptible-Good-Companies-Great-Stay/dp/B0FWZZBPZB Eric spent 15 years teaching a generation how to build fast and learn faster. Incorruptible asks the harder question: how do you protect what you built from the forces that will eventually try to take it from you? In this special double-length episode, he walks through the concept of financial gravity, the structural tools that the world's most durable companies have used for over a century, and why good intentions are never enough. Topics covered:– Why corporate corruption is a structural failure, not an ethical one – What financial gravity is and why it's invisible until it's too late – The Anthropic Long-Term Benefit Trust and what it was designed to protect against – How Novo Nordisk built a structure 100 years ago that protected $500 billion in shareholder value – Why Silicon Valley Bank's mission statement was worthless – The one two-page filing most founders never make CHAPTERS 00:00 The More Golden the Goose 00:23 Welcome Eric Ries 01:06 The Founder's Wake 05:08 What Did The Lean Startup Miss? 08:09 What is Financial Gravity? 12:50 The Right Architecture 13:11 Anthropic and the Long-Term Benefit Trust 14:59 The Novo Nordisk Story 18:18 Are You Smarter Than a Nobel Laureate? 19:28 The Vatican Panel 20:46 The Public Benefit Corporation 22:41 Is LTSE Incorruptible? 23:39 The Guardian of the Company's Soul Connect with Eric:X: https://x.com/ericries LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries/ Incorruptible (book): https://incorruptible.co Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericriesactual/ Newsletter: https://news.theleanstartup.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow Podcast: https://www.ericriesshow.co Buy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Incorruptible-Good-Companies-Great-Stay/dp/B0FWZZBPZB Connect with Pete:X: @PeteTownsendNV LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ Norio Ventures: https://norioventures.com MoneyNeverSleeps: https://moneyneversleeps.ie#incorruptible #leanstartup #founders #startups
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Alejandro Gutierrez of Superteam Ireland is back to take on Matt Walsh's challenge: are tokenized funds a new kind of asset, or the same fund on new rails? Off the back of BlackRock and Ondo putting model portfolios onchain, we get into the six ways people are tokenizing a share, whether a Terra moment or a regulator forces them to consolidate, and what happens to a fund's operating model when you redraw the org chart as AI agents and ask which processes become code and which stay human anchored. Plus why more than 60% of tokenized stock trading on Solana happens outside US market hours, and Alejandro's read from Solana Suits in London.Connect with Alejandro:https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-gutierrez-98979b43/https://x.com/A_gutierroFollow MoneyNeverSleeps on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTndChapters0:00 Cold open0:25 Intro1:03 Two parallel universes1:27 New asset or same fund on new rails?2:46 Making assets machine-readable3:26 BlackRock, Ondo and onchain model portfolios4:14 Tokenized equities' stablecoin moment5:06 Six ways to tokenize a share6:49 What becomes code, what stays human8:02 Collateral and the agentic fund9:43 Composability and distribution10:45 After hours belongs to agents12:05 Solana Suits: institutions are in13:40 Breakpoint 2026 in London14:24 Wrap upSharp riffs, big ideas and real insights from smart people, all in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend with the people rebuilding money, markets, and the internet from the ground up.moneyneversleeps.iehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/https://x.com/PeteTownsendNVhttps://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/[email protected]
Pete Townsend is joined by Eoghan Powell, who runs WorkIQ, a new innovation centre for founders and early-stage companies in Tallaght, on the edge of Dublin. This is Part 2 of a pair on the Irish startup scene, after Derek O'Doherty of West x West on the capital side. Where Derek covered how founders find the money, Eoghan goes underneath that, to where founders come from in the first place. They start with Ireland's reliance on a handful of multinationals for its tax base, and the thin middle in the economy between company formation and homegrown giants like Ryanair and Kerry Group.
Pete Townsend is joined by Derek O'Doherty, founder of West x West, the two-day tech, venture and culture festival in Castlebar, Mayo that brings Irish founders together with global investors. Derek spent thirty years in capital markets across London, Sydney and New York, and until last week a year inside Enterprise Ireland building international VC relationships for scaling companies. They get into why the Irish economy isn't big enough to carry a founder from pre-seed to Series B on home capital alone, the VC pecking order that sends founders abroad to raise, why Irish founders outside the US are second only to Israel in the share who raise capital, and why Derek left a state agency to build a festival that brings the funders to the founders instead. Plus the Nik Milanović super-connector path, why he's rooting it all in the West rather than Dublin, and what's on at WXW this October. Connect with Derek: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-o-doherty-91669530/ More on West x West: https://westxwest.ie/ https://www.instagram.com/westxwest.ie/ Listen and subscribe: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:11 Intro and welcome 0:47 Why Irish founders hit a wall on home capital 1:22 The VC pecking order 3:11 The pre-seed funding reality 5:06 Bringing the capital to the market 6:13 Why leave Enterprise Ireland now 7:57 Why a festival, not a fund 9:16 Community and the super connector 10:18 Event details and lineup 11:42 Close Sharp riffs, big ideas and real insights from smart people, all in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend with the people rebuilding money, markets, and the internet from the ground up. Web: https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ Email: [email protected]
Steve Whyman spent 20 years trading fixed income at Bear Stearns, ABN AMRO, and BlackRock, then ran digital assets and tokenization inside Fidelity International, before leaving in 2025 to build onchain-native. In this episode he makes the case for tokenization from the one seat almost nobody tells it from: the trading desk.
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