What is the relationship between technology and society? What happens to idealism over time? I’m fortunate to have discussed these questions and many more with Tim O’Reilly for this episode of The Eric Ries Show.

Tim is the founder of O’Reilly Media, which has provided countless programmers and technologists with foundational information for doing their work well. He’s also been a long-time witness to the changes and growth of tech, and has consistently looked far ahead of other people, perhaps most famously in his book What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us. 

Many call Tim the Oracle of Silicon Valley. He thinks of himself more as “a voice in the wilderness” and someone who brings together people with great ideas to build new things. In our conversation, we covered how to build a business with a real ethos, how to gain competitive advantage by doing the right thing, and why thinking beyond the quarter, or even the year, is crucial for survival.

As he said, “Companies need to think about the long term, which is: who is going to provide what you are the gatekeeper for if you basically have a relentless acquisition of all the value for yourself?” Ultimately, he believes – and I couldn’t agree more – that “we need to build an economy in which the important things are paid for in self-sustaining ways rather than as charities to be funded out of the goodness of our hearts.”

Other topics we touched on include:

• AI from multiple angles

• Tech companies as the fulcrum between suppliers and customers

• The extractive power of ads

• What it means to see a business as an ecosystem

• Values as a map of the world

• And much, much more

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Where to find Tim O'Reilly:

• O’Reilly Media: https://www.oreilly.com/ 

• X: https://x.com/timoreilly 

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/timoreilly

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timo3/

Where to find Eric:

• Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ericries.carrd.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• Podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ericriesshow.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ericries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

• YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

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In This Episode We Cover:

(00:43) Meet Tim O’Reilly

(06:25) How Eric and Tim met

(08:38) On not getting caught up in trends of the moment

(10:44) Tim’s early career and how his thinking evolved

(13:10) From open source to Web 2.0

(14:06) Working to make the world a better place

(16:11) How idealism is subsumed by the system we work in

(18:25) Resisting the lure of profit

(19:53) Thinking about companies as members of an ecosystem

(21:20) Creating versus capturing value

(23:38) Internet aggregators

(26:45) Choosing value creation over-extraction as a means of sustainability

(30:00) Ads and the lesson of screen placement

(32:49) AI and Google

(37:13) Values are a map of the world

(39:56) How to build a company ethos

(42:24) How adpoting values publicly makes them more powerful

(47:46) Dune

(49:31) Literature’s evolution

(50:21) Anthony Trollope’s proto-feminist novel, Can You Forgive Her? 

(49:30) George Elliot’s The Mill on the Floss

(51:22) The Dune movies

(52:39) Turning books into movies

(54:23) Tim’s favorite childhood books

(58:29) Why doing good is the best path to success

(1:02:22) Generative AI, value, and trust

(1:12:25) How idealists talk themselves out of it

(1:15:53) Lightning Round

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Eric may be an investor in the companies discussed.