The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth

by Eric Ries

That’s why, in the tech industry especially, small teams put a huge premium on reusing existing technology and assembling products out of preexisting components. More than at any other time in history, these components can be combined without requiring explicit permission or a business-development relationship. As reddit and Hipmunk co-founder Alexis Ohanian wrote in Without Their Permission, “The Internet is an open system: It works because you don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to be creative and because every address is equally accessible.”5 Imagine how Facebook would look if Mark Zuckerberg had needed to sign twenty partnership agreements before he was able to start experimenting with his idea on the Harvard campus.