[vslira]

>(E.g. I put down Lean Startup when I realized I was just reading a description of gradient descent in the business domain. Gradient descent only works over very regular fitness landscapes with clear peaks and well-connected paths to those peaks. In a rocky fitness landscape you will get stuck at a local maximum almost instantly and never go any further.)

Funny, that's exactly how I interpreted the book, but I didn't see that as a bad thing. Of course, a naive gradient descent won't solve everything, but will help on a lot of things satisfactorily. Maybe LS won't help you build the next Airbnb, but not all business must reach Unicorn Status. Pretty clever on Ries' part