Loonshots

How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries

By: Safi Bahcall

Narrated by: William Dufris, Safi Bahcall - prologue and introduction

This program includes a prologue and introduction read by the author.

Washington Post's "10 Leadership Books to Watch for in 2019", Adam Grant's "19 New Leadership Books to Read in 2019", Inc.com's "10 Business Books You Need to Read in 2019", Business Insider's "14 Books Everyone Will Be Reading in 2019"

“This book has everything: new ideas, bold insights, entertaining history, and convincing analysis. Not to be missed by anyone who wants to understand how ideas change the world.” (Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow)

What do James Bond and Lipitor have in common? What can we learn about human nature and world history from a glass of water?

In Loonshots, physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs.

Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall reveals why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them, just as flowing water will suddenly change into brittle ice. Mountains of print have been written about culture. Loonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.

Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, Bahcall reveals how this new kind of science helps us understand the behavior of companies and the fate of empires. Loonshots distills these insights into lessons for creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries everywhere.

Over the past decade, researchers have been applying the tools and techniques of phase transitions to understand how birds flock, fish swim, brains work, people vote, criminals behave, ideas spread, diseases erupt, and ecosystems collapse. If 20th-century science was shaped by the search for fundamental laws, like quantum mechanics and gravity, the 21st will be shaped by this new kind of science. Loonshots is the first to apply these tools to help all of us unlock our potential to create and nurture the crazy ideas that change the world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Safi Bahcall (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

Amazon.com Best Books of the Year

Great Book with radical new insights

New radical ideas explained well through story telling.
Enjoyed listening and definitely will recommend to an friends

Must reading on innovation

A scientist, a journalist and a historian walk into a bar... They don’t really decide to write a book on innovation but after half a lifetime find themselves perfectly prepared for writing just that book. Only the “authors” are not three people from various disciplines; they are one Safi Bahcall.

Perhaps there was a fourth person in that bar; because Bahcall has written a must-read book on nurturing innovation at any scale with the talent of a novelist, as well. This is an extremely readable book. (There is no bar other than the high one set for books in this discipline.)

I value Loonshots at least as highly as anything written by Clayton Christianson, Rowan Gibson and Larry Keely, among other authors on the topic of innovation. I recommend you read them all, if no other reason, to juxtapose and synthesize their ideas, techniques and applications. But do not skip Loonshots; perhaps begin AND end with it.

I’ll leave it to other reviewers and the publishers to summarize key ideas, but I do want to suggest that Loonshots is one of those books for which reading the introductory chapters and, in this case, the Afterward and Summary chapters are a good place to start without skipping all the valuable detail that comes between.

For everyone having a great idea to someone who wants to facilitate new ideas

This book gave a really good intro into how trivial ideas or concepts changed the world.
The main take away for me was a system to help to nourish such ideas.
Really liked it. A must read to any leader, founder or mad scientist.

Great overview on innovation.

The book is stellar on narration, content, pace, and depth.

These stories are not a distraction to the arguments the author is making and are not gratuitously vain, they are entertaining and have a purpose in the narrative.

You’re going to leave with new language and concepts that are applicable on your journey to innovation.

Great book on how to setup for maximum innovation.

The stories we're okay, i didn't specifically like them but they were fun to listen it. I got annoyed on the analogies about scientific occurences, mainly because I think it was intentional fillers to make the book longer.

Although the second half was worth the effort i had to endure listening to the first half. The actual things i was looking for, descriptive guides on how to setup an organization to allow crazy ideas to "get a chance" to see the field.

Loonshot review

If you need to understand why your not progressing perhaps it's your stuck making in your way of thinking and can't see the open minded. Loonshots are those people who can see the whole picture and strive to make changes throughout or fix a systemic problem. Give this a read to understand how loonshots can give your organization the breath of fresh air your organization needs.

the connection

great book to assess outcomes and structures/processes. did into the details regarding what you're culture is harvesting.

Superb

The anecdotes were interesting, the writing well executed. I would recommend it to a friend and it was even worth 'listening' to again

Great opening. Then it's all down hill

The book gets progressively worse as it goes on. The content becomes pretty dull and boring, making it a struggle to finish. I did enjoy learning about Loonshots and their importance in the stories the author tells. But as soon as the book goes into in depth explanations that try to quantify Loonshots, it becomes quite difficult to maintain interest. I'd imagine those portions of the book are directed to executives at huge corporations.

A book that will stick with you for ages

This book tied together so many things in life and work that my head is spinning. Going to re-read/re-listen right away. It's a slam-dunk if your office has a book club, if not it's an amazing book to launch one.