Lincoln Murphy

Lincoln Murphy is the strategic mind behind Customer Success as a recognized business discipline - a consultant, author, and speaker who coined the most-cited definition in the field: 'Customer Success is when your customer achieves their Desired Outcome through their interactions with your company.' Founder of Sixteen Ventures since 2006, co-author of the first book on Customer Success (Wiley, 2016), and former Customer Success Evangelist at Gainsight, Murphy has worked with 300-400+ SaaS and subscription companies worldwide. His 'Desired Outcome' framework - breaking success into Required Outcome plus Appropriate Experience - reshaped how software companies think about retention, expansion, and lifetime value. In 2024-2026, he pivoted toward AI-powered agentic workflows for CS teams under his new venture Extensible Agents, while serving as VP of Customer Experience at ListKit.