Eric Ries created the Lean Startup methodology, formalized in "The Lean Startup" (2011), which extended lean thinking from software development into business model validation. His Build-Measure-Learn loop is the startup equivalent of the iterative learning cycle that amplify-learning and learning-not-results describe for software teams. The lineage runs from w-edwards-deming (PDCA) through the Poppendiecks (learning as primary value stream) and Steve Blank (Customer Development, validated learning) to Ries (Build-Measure-Learn). Ries explicitly studied under Blank and credited the lean manufacturing tradition as foundational. The Poppendiecks' insight that software development is fundamentally a learning activity — not a production activity — is the conceptual bridge that made Lean Startup possible: if building software is learning, then building a startup is also learning, and the same lean principles apply.