When Eric Ries started the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), or at least an idea of it, he was brimming with unbridled optimism and hope. A bulwark against pernicious short-term thinking, LTSE would not only be a beacon of sustainable and inclusive business practices, but it would also be a perfect alignment between interests of long-term investors and public company experience. But bucking conventions turned out to be an exercise in utter futility. Hostile overtures and subtle threats later, not only did LTSE vanish as a dream, but the entire experience also left its potential founder literally curled up on his bathroom floor in a fit of unconstrained anguish.

But the indefatigable bestselling author of “Lean Start Ups” did finally end up founding LTSE with its original mission intact. In his latest work he endeavours to provide what he terms to be an ‘incorruptible blueprint’ for aspiring founders. At its core this blueprint embeds two quintessential and uncompromising principles: first, create something worth protecting, and second, build with structural integrity. Backing his reasoning with a plethora of real-life cases, Ries contends that enduring and indelible organisations are those that are neither investor-controlled nor founder-controlled. Instead, such persevering entities are always mission controlled.

Ries begins the book on a solemn note by providing an exhaustive list of once stories companies, that fell by the wayside, consequent to sacrificing business and customer ethos at the altar of greed. Polaroid, the evanescent dream of Edwin Land, and an once powerhouse of R&D (“intersection of art and science and business” according to Steve Jobs), vanished into oblivion after an egregious board sacked Land in 1982 and literally annihilated its R&D processes. The fall of Cadbury from grace where after 170 momentous years, the company lost its Royal Warrant, the elimination of 33,000 jobs by Toys “R” Us in 2018, after close to eight decades of bringing joy to innumerable families, all demonstrate, in the words of Ries, a dangerous erosion of values and culture.

Six primary reasons for the decimation of a prospering organisation lies in existing investors killing the golden goose, external raiders putting paid to the hopes of enduring legacies, boardroom betrayals, succession vacuum, extraction of returns and mission drifts. A mission controlled organisation creates adequate guard rails against such dangerous possibilities. There are companies that have rebelled against potential destruction of values and principles. A classic case in point, 3M. When a decline was noticed in the “New Product Vitality Index”, an innovative metric that tracked the percentage of revenues stemming from products introduced in the previous five years, it was immediately attributed to the detrimental practices of the CEO. The board undertook extraordinary ameliorative measures and the CEO parted ways with 3M. This was in the year 2005.

Ries terms psychological pressures that shapes behaviour in organisations, ‘Financial Gravity’. Such pressures are a consequence of resource imbalances, and its laws even override direct authority Working more via perception than reality, financial gravity leads to systemic collapses. The need of the hour, according to Ries is a paradigm shifting and shaping form of governance that entails building an exoskeleton with four ‘load bearing’ responsibilities: compliance, purpose, coherence, and integrity.

Every founder also happens to be a builder with great many choices. Such choices either encourage human flourishing or completely obliterate it. The value of trust by which Costco swears by, following decades of consistent practice, is a classic example. When then COO Craig Jelinek in 2008 proposed increasing the price of the famous Costco hotdog, CEO Jim Sinegal barked back, “if you raise the f&^ing hot dog price, I will kill you. Figure it out.” Even after Jelenik took over as the CEO, the price of the hot dog remained untouched. During the financial recession that racked the world in 2008-09, Costco instead of following the practices of layoffs, raised hourly worker wages by $1.50, to be split over the succeeding three years.

The most novel concept in the book, personally speaking is that of Spiritual Holding Companies. In the words of Ries, a Spiritual Holding Company is a separate entity with governance authority over one or more organisations, designed specifically to protect and advance their core mission over the long term. The spiritual here animates more an essence than a religious attribute. These companies preserve and protect in the fiercest of fashion, the spirit of the organisation by coalescing it with various operational aspects.

Finally in conclusion, Ries lends a clarion call for companies to birth an innovative and ingenious “Civic Infrastructure.” Organisations with Civic Infrastructure, ensure that their decisions manifest as other’s constraints. For example, the moment the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) promulgates an accounting rule, there is no choice but adherence on the part of every public company that is regulated by the FASB. The only real currency possessed by companies boasting a Civic Infrastructure is the currency of trust.

Incorruptible is a hard hitting, genuine and iconoclastic handbook hoping to usher in a tectonic shift in organisational culture, management, and operations. While not a singularly new concept, it is a curated distillation of unconventional yet productive practices that have been the hallmark of a handful of organisations marking themselves for preservation in perpetuity!

Incorruptible – Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, is published by Authors Equity, and will be available on sale beginning 26 May 2026.

Thank You, Net Galley for the Advance Reviewer Copy.