Every great founder has a second purpose — something outside their main business they're trying to get done in the world. And every successful company is like a Trojan Horse, carrying this second purpose forward. No one knows this better than Robert F. Smith. You may know him for his legendary Morehouse commencement speech (in which he promised to pay off the student loan debt of the entire graduating class), but Robert's scaling success and philanthropic work go far beyond that. As founder, chair, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, Robert finds profound ways to serve both his business and his second purpose — liberating people to reach their true potential — at scale. Recorded live at Summit LA 2019. Read a transcript of this episode at https://mastersofscale.com Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Forget writing that business plan. Design an experiment instead. So many products and companies fail because the assumptions in their beautiful business plans were just wrong. So stop writing and start testing. No one knows this better than Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. After his first product failed, he developed a new method of product design based on running small, fast experiments, measuring the results, and learning from them. It’s a system built on data, not assumptions, and it works with almost everything, from app development to airplane design. It starts with establishing your own measure of success — then experimenting, improving, and trying over and over again. The feedback loop never stops. Learn more about the Long Term Stock Exchange: ltse.com Learn more about The Lean Startup: leanstartup.co Read Eric’s blog, Startup Lessons Learned: startuplessonslearned.com Listen to Eric’s new podcast, Out of the Crisis, on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/out-of-the-crisis/id1505392824 Read a transcript of this episode at https://mastersofscale.com Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.