Henry,

I’m sure that you have valuable insights to offer in regards to product development and startups, but it seems that you have a poor experience of, and/or inadequate knowledge of, Agile. I’ve been around it a while, used it in my own ventures, and have had the privilege of working with a great number of high performing Agile teams, including start-ups. My critique of your critique follows:

1. The Good Samaritan Experiment correctly highlights problems associated with delivering knowledge via ‘sermon’. Beliefs are mostly socially learned (see Science of Belief Change). Good Agile teams build tacit knowledge through continual practice and social learning, not from ‘sermons’.
2. Where you say, “but the (usually) chaotic, inherently uncertain world of building a new product … will mean you throw that Agile theory out the window on day one”, well, that is exactly the right course of action. Agile is for solving problems in the complex domain, not the chaotic. For chaos, you need another approach. See Cynefin.
3. Q: “Yet how many Agile teams actually apply these principles effectively when it comes to the high-stakes, uncertainty of running your own startup?”
   A: A great number of successful ones, Atlassian is but one example.
4. Your ‘new way’ which, “requires you to focus on the quality of your decisions, instead of simply busying yourself with “more” and “validating that that strategy is working (or not) through experimentation”, etcetera, is precisely what is advocated by Agile Principles.
5. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, does Agile suggest, imply, advocate, promote, encourage or uphold the practice of “simply efficiency and the endless pursuits of bluntly getting more done” Agile is the antithesis of that.

I hope that you revisit what Agile really is, and have the fortune to encounter a truly Agile team one day.

Good luck with your book, and your ventures.