Moonshot

Inside Pfizer's Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible

By: Dr. Albert Bourla

Narrated by: Stephen Graybill

Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

2022 Genesis Prize Laureate

The exclusive, first-hand, behind-the-scenes story of how Pfizer raced to create the first COVID-19 vaccine, told by Pfizer’s Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla.

A riveting, fast-paced, inside look at one of the most incredible private sector achievements in history, Moonshot recounts the intensive nine months in 2020 when the scientists at Pfizer, under the visionary leadership of Dr. Albert Bourla, made “the impossible possible”—creating, testing, and manufacturing a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine that previously would have taken years to develop.

Dr. Bourla chronicles how the brilliant, dedicated minds at Pfizer, under the enormous strains of the global pandemic, overcame a series of crises that were compounded by social and political unrest, and reveals the doubts, decisions, obstacles, and failures they encountered. As Dr. Bourla makes clear, Pfizer’s success wasn’t due to luck; it was because of preparation driven by four simple values—Courage, Excellence, Equity, and Joy.

Moonshot is a story of leadership under the most unprecedented circumstances—how Dr. Bourla, a Greek immigrant, a child of Holocaust survivors, and a veterinarian, became the head of one of the world’s largest corporations and initiated a dramatic transformation of the organization just before a global health crisis would serve to test the organization, its scientists, and its leader, like never before. Moonshot describes best practices that can be used to address the multiple, unprecedented challenges our world faces, reveals Pfizer’s implementation of scientific breakthroughs at a record-breaking pace, and offers leadership lessons that can help anyone successfully manage their own seemingly unsolvable problems. As Dr. Bourla explains, “I am sharing the story of our moonshot—the challenges we faced, the lessons we learned, and the core values that allowed us to make it happen—in hopes that it might inspire and inform your own moonshot, whatever that may be.”

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Dr. Albert Bourla (P)2022 HarperAudio

Incredible, consuming, history.

Worthy and historical. A valuable read and C a historic record for everyone to learn from.

A bit self-absorbed and far away from the science

Look, I'm sure this CEO is a great manager of large organizations else he wouldn't be where he is, but from the book it is abundantly clear that he thinks about people and organizations a lot more than about the science and tech built by those people.

My point is, for such a person if he had managed the apollo program or Google or basically anything similar the resulting book would read the same and it isn't particularly interesting to people like me.

If you want to know more about the development process of the vaccine and what is cool about this particular vaccine the I highly recommend listening to "The Vaccine" about the Biontech founders instead. "The Vaccine" is the book about the people who made and understand the vaccine. "Moonshot" is only the book about those who scaled it's testing and production.

A history of making we habe been all experienced

Inspiring, compassionate, thoughtful, scientific, innovative, direction, future, and leadership! Love the book! Thank you Albert from my heat.

Interesting story, mediocre performance

This was a story I wanted to hear, and it was interesting although the Stephen Graybill performance was less than convincing.
If the author had narrated ,I believe it would've been more effective. One of the surprise insights in the story was the peek inside complicated large pharmaceutical company decisions, actions and multi national regulations. I came away very impressed with the Pfizer team and their dedication to the "cure".

A riveting front row seat on a remarkable breakthrough for mankind.

Albert Bourla’s story of the MRNA COVID vaccine provides an in-depth and remarkable personal account of this breakthrough vaccine.

Personal and insightful with a clarity that has been hard to find a n all that has been written snit COVID.

Additionally we learn how this endeavor changed a company and it’s culture with far reaching impact on how we manage and cure diseases in the future.

A great read!

insightful perspective on Pfizer's moonshot

definitely great perspective on all that went into Pfizer's historic breakthrough for COVID vaccine. Felt sometimes like the author used "I" a little too much, rather than sharing the credit, but overall a well balanced narrative.

Fascinating behind the scenes look!

Fascinating book! Quick and easy listen that I plowed through on Audible one afternoon on a road trip. Really interesting to see how the private sector really came through in a global pandemic. Loved the fact that the book wasn’t overly technical but instead focused on doing things differently when the stakes could not have been higher. As a management professional though, I was a little put off by the many accolades and kudos that Dr. Bourla gave himself throughout the book. Would be interesting to see a word count of the # of times he said “I” vs. “We” in the book. Also, there was a bit of politics peppered in and at times what felt like a Pfizer PR cleanup attempt. Overall though, really enjoyed hearing about this incredible COVID-19 scientific breakthrough!