Safi Bahcall

Safi is a physicist, former public-company CEO, and author of the bestseller Loonshots. Safi completed his PhD in many-body physics at Stanford with the Nobel laureate Bob Laughlin, then founded a biotechnology company developing new cancer drugs. He led its IPO, served as the company's CEO for 13 years, and was named a New England Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2024, the company received the first FDA approval for a drug to treat MASH (fatty liver disease). It is now valued at over $10 billion. Safi’s book Loonshots shows how phase changes in group behavior can help explain the rise and fall of companies and nations over centuries, from the fall of the Chinese empire to the rise of Apple. It has been translated into 21 languages and was the #1 most recommended book by CEOs and entrepreneurs in Bloomberg’s annual survey, as well as a Financial Times, Forbes, and Washington Post best business book of the year.

The future of nuclear fusion, transcranial magnetic stimulation, what Nabokov and Feynman had in common, puzzles, mathematics, history, writing. Also Trader Joe's frozen Indian curries.

The day I sat at Beth Israel hospital with a 22yo college grad diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma. He took the first dose of the first cancer drug our company developed.