The Impossible Factory

Simplify: Doing What Actually Matters with Axios co-founder Mike Allen

Going Big! with Kevin Gentry, 14 September 2026. The book comes up at 23 min 48 sec in.

Host Kevin Gentry mentions he is currently reading The Impossible Factory: The Story of the Skunk Works, though he cannot recall the author's name. He describes the book's argument that aviation and intelligence breakthroughs at Lockheed's Skunk Works from World War II through the 1960s depended on relentless streamlining and would have been killed by Defense Department bureaucracy. He uses it to invite Mike Allen to discuss whether simplification is more essential than ever.

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