Safi Bahcall on Loonshots
b'Safi Bahcall is going to come across pretty quickly as someone who is bright. Sharp. Smart. Intelligent. He went to Harvard for undergrad and then went on to get a PhD in Physics from Stanford. He\\u2019s an academic, a researcher; someone who loves studying science. After he finished up his education, he went on to work for 3 years as a consultant for McKinsey. He then co-founded a bio-technology company where they develop new drugs for cancer treatment. He led their IPO and served as their CEO for many years. In 2008 he was named Ernst & Young New England Bio-Technology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with President Obama\\u2019s Council of Science Advisors on the Future of National Research. In other words, it\\u2019s not just you or me that\\u2019s going to notice Safi\\u2019s intelligence. His book, Loonshots, which is his first book, has been translated into 21 languages and was selected as a Best Business Book of the Year by Amazon, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, The Washington Post, and more. Today, Safi advises CEO\\u2019s and leadership teams on strategy and innovation, and has delivered keynote presentations at industry conferences, investor events, leadership retreats, medical meetings, and leading academic institutions around the world.\\nToday\\u2019s conversation we dive into his work, but we also get into his mindset and how he thinks about leadership and how he thinks about invention and innovation. And certainly, he admires people that have come before him, but Safi himself is often thinking about new ways of innovating, new ways of thinking. He loves to try to think about not just how he sees the world, but how people around him see the world and how we can make teams and organizations and groups better instead of just thinking about what\\u2019s convenient for ourselves. This is an idea that is at the core of his book Loonshots. The book is a lot about learning empathy, learning how to listen, learning how to read a room and read an organization, and then figure out how you can collaborate and work together to make really big things happen.\\n\\xa0\\nSafi had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:\\n\\u201cYou need to be trying a lot of things and failing\\u201d (8:30).\\n\\u201cArtists are the people who we want to take risks and explore the unknown\\u201d (10:55).\\n\\u201cThe confusion is when you assume artists and innovators are the same\\u201d (12:30).\\n\\u201cIf you\\u2019re in the managing or leadership position, the number one thing you have to remember is that you\\u2019re always signaling. Everybody is watching your face constantly\\u201d (21:05).\\n\\u201cIf you favor one side over the other, you\\u2019re going to sink the ship\\u201d (21:30).\\n\\u201cYou\\u2019ve got to respect both your creative artist scientist-types, your innovators, and your soldiers. And you\\u2019ve got to manage them differently\\u201d (26:50).\\n\\u201cWhen you\\u2019re in artist mode, if you\\u2019re not failing, if you\\u2019re not trying and things don\\u2019t work, you\\u2019re not pushing yourself enough\\u201d (28:10).\\n\\u201cArt and science are connected by purpose. The purpose of art is the pursuit of beauty, the purpose of science is the pursuit of truth, and they\\u2019re very close. There\\u2019s beauty in truth and there\\u2019s truth in beauty\\u201d (30:15).\\n\\u201c[To cultivate curiosity in people], just keep asking why\\u201d (32:30).\\n\\u201cI don\\u2019t focus on what did you learn. I focus on what did you ask\\u201d (33:20).\\n\\u201cWhat you want to cultivate in yourself and in your kids, if you\\u2019re raising kids, is asking good questions\\u201d (33:30).\\n\\u201cThe guy with the initial idea is the guy getting the ball from his own goal line to his own five-yard line\\u201d (43:00).\\n\\u201cWhat separates the real innovators is how they go about it. Do they keep asking why?\\u201d (45:30).\\n\\u201cThey have courage, curiosity, and commitment. Those are the 3 C\\u2019s that I\\u2019ve seen across people who are really good at innovating\\u201d (46:15).\\n\\u201cI had very little idea what I was going to be writing about when I started writing Loonshots\\u201d (52:30).\\n\\u201cCommit to running an experiment a day\\u201d (54:30).\\n\\u201cJust using the word \\u2018experiment\\u2019 gives you permission to fail\\u201d (54:4'