Sublime

Skill in investigating failure not only separates good scientists from great scientists but also good businessmen from great businessmen.

THE THREE DEATHS

With S-type loonshots, people say, “There’s no way that could ever make money.” And then it does.

Drugs that save lives, like technologies that transform industries, often begin with lone inventors championing crazy ideas. But large groups of people are needed to translate those ideas into products that work.

answered: “I wanted you to see what hubris

In other words, Bush understood intuitively that being good at franchises and being good at loonshots are phases of organization.

As we will see, failing to understand the surprising fragility of the loonshot—assuming that the best ideas will blast through barriers, fueled by the power of their brilliance—can be a very expensive mistake. It can mean missing one of the most important discoveries in medicine of the century.

Let’s call a surprising breakthrough in product—a technology that was widely dismissed before ultimately triumphing—a P-type loonshot.