The Lean Startup

“one of my favorite books is 'The Lean Startup,' which takes a narrower view but it gives one specific tactic for innovating quickly”

Ng called this one of his favorite books for B2C and innovation in the Farnam Street interview.

“I don't know that I read the entire thing, but the principles from Lean Startup, I still apply today.”

Bookmarked.club cites the Tim Ferriss Show transcript where Systrom discusses the book.

“The Lean Startup tackles the question, 'Why do most start-ups fail?'”

Bookmarked.club cites a CNBC article quoting Cuban on this book.

“One of five business books Chris Dixon recommended on Twitter.”

Listed in a tweet by Chris Dixon recommending five business books.

“Eric has created a science where previously there was only art. A must-read for every serious entrepreneur.”

Penguin Random House page carries Andreessen's blurb 'Eric has created a science where previously there was only art.'

Listed on Hustler's Library's Mark Pincus recommended-books page.

Horowitz argues against the lean-startup approach in his a16z essay 'The Case for the Fat Startup.'

“I do think we tend to be dominated by a somewhat nihilistic bias where we claim not to know anything. And when you don't know anything, you end up defaulting too much to the experimental search, A/B testing approach.”

Thiel argues the Lean Startup's experiment-and-iterate, A/B-testing method pushes founders into a 'nihilistic' stance of claiming to know nothing and defaulting to incremental search instead of a definite, planned vision; he makes the same case in Zero to One, where 'lean' is 'code for unplanned.'

Tan argues the lean-startup approach mostly produces failure because most founders cannot build well, favoring YC-style direct selection of strong builders, or the well-funded 'fat startup,' over Ries's build-measure-learn iteration.