The Lean Entrepreneur. Vlaskovits Patrick

for example, forklifting parts from one side of a warehouse to another.

      Critically, optimization that adversely affects the value being provided is not lean. We’re not being efficient for efficiency’s sake. Some have criticized American automobile manufacturers for believing that lean was primarily about replacing employees with robots. That may have increased labor productivity, but it also, some would argue, destroyed a portion of the value being created for car buyers. That was perhaps a conscious trade-off, but would not be considered lean.

      Some private equity firms have been criticized for taking over struggling companies, dramatically cutting costs by eliminating plant locations and cutting thousands of jobs, only to turn around and sell the companies when the books looked better. That may be wealth creation, but it’s not value creation, and hence it isn’t lean.

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      To view this list of names online, please visit http://leanentrepreneur.co/earlyadopters.

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      We’ve licensed the illustrations with http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. We’d love for you to use and share them, just remember to attribute “The Lean Entrepreneur by Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits with illustrations by Fake Grimlock” with a link to http://LeanEntrepreneur.co. Thanks!

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      Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

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To view this list of names online, please visit http://leanentrepreneur.co/earlyadopters.

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We’ve licensed the illustrations with http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. We’d love for you to use and share them, just remember to attribute “The Lean Entrepreneur by Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits with illustrations by Fake Grimlock” with a link to http://LeanEntrepreneur.co. Thanks!

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Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Kindle ed. (New York: Penguin Group, 2010), 8.

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Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1st ed., unrevised (1798).

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.html.

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Brad Feld notes come from a personal interview.

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David ten Have greatly helped our understanding of emerging digital-fabrication trends.

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Mike Maples’s thoughts come from a personal interview.

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Dr. Stephanie Cooper is author Brant Cooper’s sister.

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Jeffrey K. Liker, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003).