Hi everyone. Welcome to the A6 and Z podcast. I'm Sonal. Today we have one of our book launch episodes

with Safi Bacall, author of Loon Shots. The subtitle is How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that

win wars, cure diseases, and transform industries. So joining me to co-host this episode is A6 and Z general

partner for bio, VJ Ponday, who also happened to be a Miller fellow with

the author back in their grad school days. Speaking of, Safi has an academic background in theoretical

physics, co-founded a biotech startup developing new drugs for cancer, and then led its IPO and

served as its CEO for over a decade. So he has a really interesting vantage point that unites

perspectives from

academia, startups, and big company innovation. By the way, you can find other episodes touching

on some of these themes from different angles, including with former Stanford President John Hennessy

on the transition of ideas from academia to startups, and with CEO of Novartis Vashrini Vasson

on R&D and innovation inside Big Pharma, as well as an

episode on what disruption theory is and isn't by searching for those on our website.

But in this interview, we cover what is a loon shot versus a moonshot and how do or don't

those connect to the concept of disruption?

And given that those are some buzzy buzzwords, after briefly defining them and considering how companies can

innovate regardless of what we call it, we then go into some deep scientific concepts and

analogies to share a very different framework than in typical management literature with

practical advice for teams and companies of all sizes to nurture new ideas and

initiatives. And we even dismantle some common dogma around culture, product, and market along the way.

But first, Safi begins briefly with an analogy to historical empires and why new ideas didn't take

off there. For thousands and thousands of years, truth was established by the divine ruler, the tribal

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