2. Z 2000
Eric Ries Z 2000, our speaker for Fall ZS on February 8th, is an entrepreneur and author
of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use
Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Business, published by Crown
Business. While working on a B.S. in Computer Science, Eric co-founded Catalyst
Recruiting. After graduation he served as Senior Software Engineer at a second
start-up, www.There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-
generated content. He later co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of
IMVU. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of
Tech. In 2008 he served as a venture advisor at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
before moving on to advise startups independently. Today he serves on the board of
directors for Code for America and on the advisory board of a number of technology
startups and venture capital firms. In 2009, Ries was honored with a TechFellow
award in the category of Engineering Leadership. Eric was an entrepreneur-in-
residence at Harvard Business School and is currently an IDEO Fellow. The New York
Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review and Inc. have all printed
articles about The Lean Startup and, as you can see in this scan of the back cover,
the praise of business leaders like founders of Netscape, Lotus Development and
Facebook has been glowing.
