Loonshots

* Instant Wall Street Journal bestseller * Translated into 18 languages * #1 Most Recommended Book of the year (Bloomberg annual survey of CEOs and entrepreneurs) * An Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, Inc., Newsweek, Strategy + Business, Tech Crunch, Washington Post Best Business Book of the year * Recommended by Bill Gates, Daniel Kahneman, Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Pink, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, Sid Mukherjee, Tim Ferriss Why do good teams kill great ideas? Loonshots reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs. Safi Bahcall, a physicist and entrepreneur, shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing new ideas to 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 shows how a new kind of science can help us become the initiators, rather than the victims, of innovative surprise. Over the past decade, researchers have been applying the tools and techniques of this new science-the science of phase transitions-to understand how birds flock, fish swim, brains work, people vote, diseases erupt, and ecosystems collapse. Loonshots is the first to apply this science to the spread of breakthrough ideas. Bahcall distills these insights into practical lessons creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries can use to change our world. Along the way, readers will learn how chickens saved millions of lives, what James Bond and Lipitor have in common, what the movie The Imitation Game got wrong about World War II, and what really killed Pan Am, Polaroid, and the Qing Dynasty. "If The Da Vinci Code and Freakonomics had a child together, it would be called Loonshots." -Senator Bob Kerrey

Safi Bahcall received his BA summa cum laude in physics from Harvard and his PhD from Stanford. After working for three years as a consultant for McKinsey, he co-founded Synta Pharmaceuticals-a biotechnology company developing new drugs for cancer-and served as its CEO for 13 years. In 2008, he was named E&Y New England Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he served on the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology working group on the future of national research. Safi is the author of Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries.

Prologue Introduction PART ONE: ENGINEERS OF SERENDIPITY 1. HOW LOONSHOTS WON A WAR 2. THE SURPRISING FRAGILITY OF THE LOONSHOT 3. THE TWO TYPES OF LOONSHOTS: TRIPPE VS. CRANDALL 4. EDWIN LAND AND THE MOSES TRAP 5. ESCAPING THE MOSES TRAP PART TWO: THE SCIENCE OF SUDDEN CHANGE *Interlude: The Importance of Being Emergent* 6. PHASE TRANSITIONS, I: MARRIAGE, FOREST FIRES, AND TERRORISTS 7. PHASE TRANSITIONS, II: THE MAGIC NUMBER 150 8. THE FOURTH RULE PART THREE: THE MOTHER OF ALL LOONSHOTS 9. WHY THE WORLD SPEAKS ENGLISH AFTERWORD: LOONSHOTS VS. DISRUPTION Acknowledgments Glossary Appendix A. Summary: The Bush-Vail Rules Appendix B. The Innovation Equation Illustration credits Source notes Endnotes