Loonshots
How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
by Safi Bahcall
10 more
More Recommenders
Organizational psychologist; Wharton professor
“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →
Technology executive and investor
“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
Source →Recommended by 12 notable people, including Bill Gates and Tim Ferriss
Check price on AmazonProof-backed recommendation
Amazon availability
Reading Profile
Should I read this?
Safi Bahcall mixes historical vignettes with a central metaphor from physics—phase transitions—to explain why companies often kill their own breakthroughs. The idea distinguishes 'loonshots' (radical ideas) from 'franchise' (core business) and shows how structure inhibits innovation. The most useful part is recognizing organizational 'immune responses' that attack early-stage thinking. But the physics-heavy lens can feel strained, and the book leans more toward diagnosis than concrete, get-started-today tactics. If you come for a crisp how-to manual, you'll likely leave frustrated.
Read this if...
- •A middle manager inside a large, process-heavy corporation who keeps watching promising proposals get bogged down by committees and wants language to pinpoint what's broken.
- •A startup founder trying to shield a moonshot product idea from premature demands for scalability and predictable revenue, needing a mental model to argue for protection.
- •A product lead in a fast-growing tech company who senses the innovation pipeline is drying up as teams optimize for short-term metrics, and wants a way to redesign team interactions.
Skip this if...
- •If you're craving step-by-step instructions, you'll feel lost: the book diagnoses problems but rarely offers concrete how-to steps, so you'll likely put it down when you realize there's no ready-to-use toolkit.
- •If jargon and extended scientific metaphors annoy you, the constant references to phase transitions, energy landscapes, and electron states will grate by chapter three.
- •If you're well-read in innovation literature, you'll likely bounce off once the physics metaphor feels like a repackaging of familiar disruptor dilemmas, and you'll put the book down when no new empirical rigor emerges.
* Instant WSJ bestseller * Translated into 18 languages * #1 Most Recommended Book of the year (Bloomberg annual survey of CEOs and entrepreneurs) * An Amazon, 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. Bahcall, a physicist and entrepreneur, shows why teams, companies, or…
Before You Buy
Reading Specifications
Difficulty:medium
Length:366 pages (Medium)
Audience Fit
- A middle manager inside a large, process-heavy corporation who keeps watching promising proposals get bogged down by committees and wants language to pinpoint what's broken.
- A startup founder trying to shield a moonshot product idea from premature demands for scalability and predictable revenue, needing a mental model to argue for protection.
- A product lead in a fast-growing tech company who senses the innovation pipeline is drying up as teams optimize for short-term metrics, and wants a way to redesign team interactions.
- If you're craving step-by-step instructions, you'll feel lost: the book diagnoses problems but rarely offers concrete how-to steps, so you'll likely put it down when you realize there's no ready-to-use toolkit.
- If jargon and extended scientific metaphors annoy you, the constant references to phase transitions, energy landscapes, and electron states will grate by chapter three.
- If you're well-read in innovation literature, you'll likely bounce off once the physics metaphor feels like a repackaging of familiar disruptor dilemmas, and you'll put the book down when no new empirical rigor emerges.
Check formats, pricing, and availability options for Kindle, physical print, or audiobooks directly.
View available editions on AmazonKey themes
Why recommended
Recommended by 20 sources and appears in Best Leadership Books, Books Recommended by Bill Gates, and Books Recommended by Tim Ferriss.
Recommended by notable people
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation Signals
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
Daniel Pink
“@SafiBahcall Such a great book. I never read anything quite like it. And it is true to who you are. I disagree with some of it. Who cares I even love the parts I want to argue with. | @YuriyYarovoy of course. @SafiBahcall 's book is a classic | A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world.”
View sources (3) ▾80%
Appears In
Best Leadership Books
Topic98 books
Most Recommended Books
Curated5676 books
Books Recommended by Bill Gates
Category75 books
Books Recommended by Tim Ferriss
Category75 books
Books Recommended by Investors
Category75 books
Books Recommended by Billionaires
Category75 books
Books Recommended by Founders
Category75 books
Leadership
Category244 books
Not sure if this is the right fit?
Consider Principles by Ray Dalio. Recommended by 61 sources.
“This is Dalio’s operating manual for life and work—part memoir, part handbook. He distills his hedge fund’s culture into repeatable 'principles' for radical transparency and systematic thinking. The useful part is the concrete algorithms for error-logging and group decision-making; the annoying part is the cultish fervor around his own brilliance and the implication that his way scales universally. It reads like a boss’s extended memo, sometimes riveting, sometimes eye-rolling.”
Similar books
Principles
Ray DalioThe Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben HorowitzThe Ride of a Lifetime
Robert Iger
Creativity, Inc.
Ed CatmullExtreme Ownership
Jocko WillinkA Guide to the Good Life
William B. IrvineThe Effective Executive
Peter F. Drucker
Delivering Happiness
Tony HsiehHow recommendation signals are reviewed
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.