First published 2024
Innovation has stalled since the 1970s. The Moon landing and atomic age happened at breakneck speed, but today's scientific research costs more while delivering smaller breakthroughs. Median wages grow slowly and inequality rises. Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber examine major advances from the past century to understand what changed. They study the Manhattan Project, Apollo program, fracking, and Bitcoin to find patterns. Their conclusion challenges conventional wisdom: financial bubbles drive transformative progress. These bubbles gather small groups with shared vision, massive funding, and weak oversight. The authors argue that bubbles concentrate resources on experimental processes and attract high-agency individuals to ambitious missions. Rather than viewing bubbles as destructive, Hobart and Huber present them as engines of breakthrough innovation. The book combines economics, philosophy, and history to diagnose stagnation and prescribe solutions. It offers readers a framework for understanding how radical technological progress happens and a blueprint for sparking future advances through strategic risk-taking and coordinated investment.
Genres: history, science, philosophy, economics, non-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: thought-provoking
Tropes: challenging-conventional-wisdom
Period: 1970s, Apollo Program, Manhattan Project
304 pages · Hardcover · Stripe Press