Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation
    Unavailable
    The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation
    Unavailable
    The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation

    Written by Adam Steltzner and William Patrick

    Narrated by Christopher Grove

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From Adam Steltzner, who led the Entry, Descent, and Landing team in landing the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars, comes a profound book about breakthrough innovation in the face of the impossible

    The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is home to some of history's most jaw-dropping feats of engineering. When NASA needed to land Curiosity-a 2,000-pound, $2.5 billion rover-on the surface of Mars, 140 million miles away, they turned to JPL. Steltzner's team couldn't test their kooky solution, the Sky Crane. They were on an unmissable deadline, and the world would be watching when they succeeded-or failed.

    At the helm of this effort was an unlikely rocket scientist and accidental leader, Adam Steltzner. After barely graduating from high school, he followed his curiosity to the local community college to find out why the stars moved. Soon he discovered an astonishing gift for math and physics. After getting his Ph.D. he ensconced himself within JPL, NASA's decidedly unbureaucratic cousin, where success in a mission is the only metric that matters.

    The Right Kind of Crazy is a first-person account of innovation that is relevant to any­one working in science, art, or technology. For instance, Steltzner describes:

    ·How his team learned to switch from fear-based to curiosity-based decision making
    ·How to escape "The Dark Room"-the creative block caused by fear, uncertainty, and the lack of a clear path forward
    ·How to tell when we're too in love with our own ideas to be objective about them-and, conversely, when to fight for them
    ·How to foster mutual respect within teams while still bashing bad ideas

    The Right Kind of Crazy is a book for anyone who wants to channel their craziness into creativity, balance discord and harmony, and find a signal in a flood of noise.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 12, 2016
    ISBN9780698411753
    Unavailable
    The Right Kind of Crazy: A True Story of Teamwork, Leadership, and High-Stakes Innovation

    Related to The Right Kind of Crazy

    Related audiobooks

    Leadership For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Interview With The Author

      Sep 14, 2023

      Ariel Waldman What was your favourite sci-fi growing up? I grew up in a household that continuously watched Star Trek. It was a multi-generational thing, as even my grandfather who immigrated to the US from Iran was a Star Trek fan. I’ve had a very w

      1 min read

    • Article

      Inside The Sky At Night

      Mar 23, 2023

      Inside The Sky At Night
      2 min read

    • Article

      Mass Effects

      Sep 6, 2021

      Mass Effects
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mass Effects

      Aug 10, 2021

      Mass Effects
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mass Effects

      Jul 22, 2021

      Mass Effects
      4 min read

    • Article

      Life On ‘Mars’

      Mar 18, 2022

      Life On ‘Mars’
      8 min read

    • Article

      Interactive

      Aug 11, 2022

      Interactive
      4 min read

    • Article

      Deadly Experts

      Nov 14, 2021

      My name is Krystal De Napoli, and I am a proud Kamilaroi astrophysicist! In my research, I’m trying to figure out how many stars are being born into the Universe! The best advice I ever received is that life isn’t a race, and it’s OK to take time on

      1 min read

    • Article

      First contact

      Oct 12, 2022

      First contact
      7 min read

    • Article

      Where Do Black Holes Lead?

      Jul 18, 2019

      Where Do Black Holes Lead?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 10, 2023

      New astronomy and space titles reviewed Avi Loeb John Murray £20 • HB The central argument of Interstellar is that humanity is unprepared for the realisation that advanced extraterrestrial civilisations are common, and that we have not even begun to

      5 min read

    • Article

      Feedback

      Jul 27, 2023

      reply@sciencefocus.com BBC Science Focus, Eagle House, Bristol, BS14ST @sciencefocus www.facebook.com/sciencefocus @bbcsciencefocus With regard to your cover feature, The Mysteries of Earth's Core (June, p66), I once came across a rather unnerving ar

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Alien-Haunted World

      Feb 15, 2021

      The Alien-Haunted World
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Search For Wormholes

      Aug 11, 2022

      The Search For Wormholes
      11 min read

    • Article

      Finding the ‘weird’

      Feb 15, 2024

      Finding the ‘weird’
      1 min read

    • Article

      From The Editor

      Dec 7, 2022

      Usually, I like to end the year by focusing on the positives, and this year I've really got my work cut out for me. That said, there has been a lot to feel hopeful about — and you'll find most of it inside this issue. First and foremost, the James We

      1 min read

    • Article

      Is Planet Nine Even Real?

      Dec 8, 2017

      Is Planet Nine Even Real?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Rethinking Black Holes

      Aug 12, 2021

      Rethinking Black Holes
      6 min read

    Reviews for The Right Kind of Crazy

    3.5/5

    13 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I'm an admirer of Adam Steltzner. He's the "7-Minutes of Terror" guy from the Mars Curiosity landing that used the Sky Crane. The book is fairly short, containing a biography, and his engineering and management precepts such as "holding on to the doubt", which is to say, never assume you have it right always keep looking for errors and improvement. The biography was kind of streamlined and not very definitive, it neglected to say who his father was (son of an heir of the Schilling spice fortune) or that he spent time Berklee College of Music, or his escapades with sex and drugs during high school. It repeated the "holding on to the doubt" mantra too many times without concrete examples. Nevertheless it was interesting to go into his head for a while, for better and worse. Interesting if you already have an interest in Steltzner or JPL.
    • 2/5
      In the months leading up to the landing of the Curiosity Rover at Gale Crater, NASA-JPL released an excellent little video called "Seven Minutes of Terror". In this detailed, but stone cold sober, video NASA JPL engineers talked about the hows and the whys of designing and building the rover. They also spoke of what could happen if just one or two items did not go as planned. Adam Stelzner was one of the engineers interviewed in the video. "The Right Kind of Crazy" could have been "Seven Minutes" in book form. I'm serious. The story of the process of designing, testing and having to go back to the drawing board , along with a collection of selected photos, would have made for a very interesting story. Instead, some editor, and mind you I'm just guessing, decided to push for a another business-slash-memoir book. BAD IDEA. This book was won in a Goodreads contest in exchange for a fair and honest review.