In a fascinating conversation about ingenuity & innovation, Biotech entrepreneur Safi Bahcall joins Moe Abdou to discuss a thinking process that breakthrough entrepreneurs share but hardly reveal.
Why Real Breakthroughs Start With Loonshots, not Moonshots
Late last year, I received an advanced copy of Safi Bachcall’s book Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries – and like many, the title not only caught my attention, but it added an entirely new dimension to my thinking – one that will forever be linked to the word ‘Loonshots’. Needless to say – I dove in and when I emerged seventy-two hours later, I had discovered a hidden component to real breakthroughs – both in business and in science, that few ever reveal.
This is a book that is as convincing as it is original, and as you’ll discover in my conversation with Safi – it offers a thinking process that will ignite the outer limits of your ingenuity as much as it will distinguish the manner in which you evaluate ideas. Here’s a sampling of the questions we discuss:
- What is a “Loonshot” and how can you recognize it?
- How the research & interviews for “Loonshots” influenced Safi’s thinking?
- How does a ‘beginner’s mind’ ignite innovation and creativity?
- What does a ‘phase transition’ really mean and how does it relate to ‘Loonshots’?
- How does an early stage company apply the rules of ‘Loonshots’?
- What does a ‘Loonshot’ team look like?
- The correlation between the makeup of a team and its ability to execute?
- The lesson behind Nobel Laureate Sir James Black’s comment ‘it’s not a good drug unless it’s been killed 3 times’?
- Why distinguished leaders “listen to the suck with curiosity”?
- What to do when you stumble on a big & unconventional idea?
- Why do good people – with the best intentions – kill great ideas?
- The two competing forces that every growing business deals with?
- Why luck is the residue of design?
- Why it’s essential to separate the artists from the soldiers?
- how do you know when to give up?
- Resources: