Bill Murphy's RedZone 10X Podcast - S8 E5: How Do We Nurture Loonshots? with Safi Bahcall

S8 E5: How Do We Nurture Loonshots? with Safi Bahcall

06/28/19 • 52 min

I am super excited to bring to you my conversation with Safi Bahcall. I haven't been this excited in a long time because Safi has just written this book called Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries. His use of language and his use of innovation principals is second to none in this book especially because I think he comes at this from being an innovator for years and being an entrepreneur, and he comes at this from a very powerful perspective. It really impacted me and the people I've been sharing this book with. He received his BA summa cum laude from Harvard and his PhD from Stanford. After working for three years as a consultant for McKinsey, he co-founded a biotechnology company developing new drugs for cancer (which led him to be profiled by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker). He led its IPO 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 worked with the president's council of science advisors (PCAST) on the future of national research. So, in this book, Safi explains how the past and what we learn from the past, has equal implications in the future. So we get into, what are the most common conversations he gets into with CEOs these days. CEOs and senior leaders that have read his book, they are calling him daily and they are asking: "How do we nurture loonshots?"

What You Will Learn From This Interview

Why we won, and how we won WWII?”
The role Vannevar Bush played as he was the first CIO in the United States.
How China, India and Islam lost their world domination and supremacy – which had lasted 1,000 years. – How did they lose it?
Why good ideas die in organizations.
The difference between artists, soldiers and champions within organizations.
Inside a business – why you must separate artists and soldiers
Why do franchise business models (protecting your core business) often fail, and what you can do about it.
Why culture fixing is hard, but fixing structure is easier.
Why the word ‘Culture’ is such a limp amorphous word these days.
Why structure eats culture for lunch.
Understand what phase transitions and dynamic equilibrium are.
What is a Loonshot vs. a Moonshot?
How do you nurture Loonshots?
How do you lead an organization through Loonshot development as a manager and a gardener using balance and touch between groups.

As I mentioned, I’m very excited about this interview and I hope you’ll enjoy my conversation with Safi Bahcall.

Read the Full Transcript Here

About Safi Bahcall

Safi Bahcall is a second-generation physicist (the son of two astrophysicists), a biotech entrepreneur, and the author of recently published, Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries.

He received his BA summa cum laude from Harvard and his PhD from Stanford. After working for three years as a consultant for McKinsey, he co-founded a biotechnology company developing new drugs for cancer (which led him to be profiled by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker). He led its IPO 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 worked with the president's council of science advisors (PCAST) on the future of national research.

He lives with his wife and two children in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Loonshots is his first book.

Ways to connect with Safi Bahcall

Key Resources + Links

Books:

Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, by Safi Bahcall, 3/19/2019

Articles on Blog:

Fish, Brains...

What You Will Learn From This Interview

Why we won, and how we won WWII?”
The role Vannevar Bush played as he was the first CIO in the United States.
How China, India and Islam lost their world domination and supremacy – which had lasted 1,000 years. – How did they lose it?
Why good ideas die in organizations.
The difference between artists, soldiers and champions within organizations.
Inside a business – why you must separate artists and soldiers
Why do franchise business models (protecting your core business) often fail, and what you can do about it.
Why culture fixing is hard, but fixing structure is easier.
Why the word ‘Culture’ is such a limp amorphous word these days.
Why structure eats culture for lunch.
Understand what phase transitions and dynamic equilibrium are.
What is a Loonshot vs. a Moonshot?
How do you nurture Loonshots?
How do you lead an organization through Loonshot development as a manager and a gardener using balance and touch between groups.

As I mentioned, I’m very excited about this interview and I hope you’ll enjoy my conversation with Safi Bahcall.

Read the Full Transcript Here

About Safi Bahcall

In 2008, he was named E&Y New England Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with the president's council of science advisors (PCAST) on the future of national research.

He lives with his wife and two children in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Loonshots is his first book.

Ways to connect with Safi Bahcall

Key Resources + Links

Books:

Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, by Safi Bahcall, 3/19/2019

Articles on Blog:

Fish, Brains...

Previous Episode

S8 E4: Eliminate Death On the Job by 2050

If you enjoy listening to my podcast, please take a minute to leave a review here!

Today you will hear a power-packed Episode with a world-class CIO. My guest today is David DiLeo, the Chief Information Officer at Industrial Scientific.

If you aspire and dream of a big job as a CIO and then land there, what would you do next? Well, 5-1/2 years ago, David landed at Industrial Scientific. What he and his team have achieved during that time has been remarkable.

As CIO, David is responsible for the information technology needs of Industrial Scientific which includes leading a large and diverse technical team comprised of ERP, business applications, application development, business intelligence, IT security, global infrastructure, and support functions. This team represents a world-class IT organization with capabilities that deliver high quality and data-driven solutions to both internal and external customers.

If you want to hear about good old-fashioned project management delivered at a world-class level, this Podcast is for you.

Here are some areas we cover:

Changing the Brand of IT.
How to create a scalable IT organization to support a business.
Changing IT from “Reactive” to “Proactive” – This is impressive since it was delivered in the midst of tremendous complexity and scale – not just lip service or words that everyone in business wants to hear from top CIO’s.
Project management can give you the broadest understanding of business. See why the path to David’s CIO role – a progression of technical, project management, middle management, and then senior management roles – was significant.
The powerful impact of IoT in his world.
How he integrated top-notch security into his environment following risk-based and security-by-design principles.
How people (good people) joined him on the journey to transform the business.
How he remains grounded and balanced.
His vision for himself and the business over the next few years.

This is only a small subsection of what you will learn from listening, enjoy!

Major Take-Aways from This Episode:

How to focus on delivering value first by partnering as a consultant with the business.
Benefits of segmenting types of project management depending on risk, Agile/lean vs. Waterfall tactics and techniques.
How to strategically use 3rd-party vendors to outsource low-value commodity work and retain high-skill, high-value skills in-house.
How to use security to add offense capabilities and remove latency in the sales process.

Read the Full Transcript Here

About David DiLeo:

David DiLeo joined Industrial Scientific in 2013 as the Global Director of Information Technology and was promoted to Chief Information Officer in September 2015. Now as CIO, David is responsible for the information technology needs of this leading gas detection, safety analytics, and connected device (IoT) company.

Previously, David was the VP & Director of Quality Assurance, Strategic Information & Risk Technology, at PNC Financial Services Group. He also served as the IT Group Manager of Integrated Service Solutions at Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corp., where he was responsible for managing the development and operations of Pratt & Whitney’s real-time advanced diagnostic engine monitoring solution.

He earned his MBA from the University of Hartford and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Central Connecticut State University. He also holds Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute, and a certification in quality and process improvement (ACE Associate) from United Technologies Corp. He is a lifetime member of Beta Gamma Sigma, International Honor Society.

How to get in touch with David DiLeo:

Key Resources + Links:

CIO Review, Industrial Scientific Blazes a Trail in IoT – how Industrial Scientific uses IoT to innovate on the product level.
CIO Review, Refining Quality for a Safer Community – David DiLeo explains how Industrial Scientific is firmly planted in the IoT and big data space and his focus on maturing and establishing upstream QA processes ...

Next Episode

S8 E6: Man is Much More than a Tool Builder, He is An Inventor of Universes

Today my conversation is with David Smith. He’s the CEO and Founder of Croquet Studios

David Smith is a computer scientist and entrepreneur who has focused on interactive 3D and using 3D as a basis for new user environments and entertainment for over thirty years. His specialty is system design and advanced user interfaces. He is a pioneer in 3D graphics, robotics, telepresence, artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR). He creates world-class teams and ships impossible products.

In 1987, Smith created The Colony, the very first real-time 3D adventure game/shooter and the precursor to today's first-person shooters. The game was developed for the Apple Macintosh and won the "Best Adventure Game of the Year" award from MacWorld Magazine.

In 1990, Smith founded Virtus Corporation and developed Virtus Walkthrough, the first real-time 3D design application for personal computers. Virtus Walkthrough won the very first MacWorld/MacUser Breakthrough Product of the Year.

David was Chief Innovation Officer at Lockheed Martin and a Senior Fellow at Lockheed Martin MST, focused on next-generation, human centric computing and collaboration platforms. Here he developed a number of key technologies and won the Lockheed Martin TLS Inventor of the Year for the last four years (every year he has been eligible).

What’s really, really interesting is that he worked closely with authors Tom Clancy (Rainbow Six, Hunt for Red October) and Michael Crichton (Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park) to develop games.

But that’s only the beginning. . . .

David believes that the year 1968 was the most critical year in computer science. In this one year, three key individuals launched what he considers, and what he’s continuing to build upon, is this goal of enhancing humans’ ability to solve hard problems using computers to think in a different way. Again, enhancing humans’ ability to solve hard problems using computers to think in a different way.

He’s building upon the work of, really the pioneers in the internet: Doug Engelbart, Alan Kay, and Ivan Sutherland’s work - all focused on working with the Xerox Alto Project from a long time ago – close to 50-years ago. Some of these breakthroughs - that even amazed Steve Jobs, as you can see on some of his YouTube videos from years’ ago when he was stunned as he looked at the Xerox Alto project. At that time, what really stuck out for Steve Jobs was the gooey interface. This was really that first interface between a computer and a human.

David’s passion is to continue to use his skills and his competencies and capabilities in 3D and 3D engineering and design. His goal is to develop these applications and systems and platforms that are really going to transform how we use computers and solve big problems in the coming years. He’s exploring the use of 3D and graphical situations that we can’t even imagine right now, and problem solving and using computers to solve interesting challenges and complex problems moving forward.

So, with that, I wanted to introduce you to my conversation and wonderful interview with David Smith.

Read the full transcript here

Major Take-Aways from This Episode:

What is an Augmented Conversation?
The future of turning a computer into a vehicle to exchange ideas in real-time and sophisticated areas.
How a fusion of ideas reinvents and redefines the vision of what computing is.

How to get in touch with David A. Smith:

Resources Referenced

Platform for the Future of AR & VR |David Smith|TEDxBeacon Street
ARIA ARIA - AR in Action, David Smith
Croquet Demo, Part 1, David A. Smith
Croquet Demo, Part 2, David A. Smith

This episode is sponsored by the CIO Innovation Forum, dedicated to Business Digital Leaders who want to be a part of 20% of the planet and help their businesses win with innovation and transformation.

Credits

OUTRO music provided by Ben’s Sound: http://www.bensound.com/

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