Wild ideas, radical innovation, and succeeding against all odds lie at the heart of this fascinating DLD25 conversation between Astro Teller, head of Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory X, and WIRED editor Greg Williams.
Founded in 2010 as Google X, the innovation lab was renamed when Google became part of Alphabet – but the mission has remained: tackling “some of humanity’s biggest problems, creating hopefully enduring businesses that address those problems in the long run”, Teller notes.
Any moonshot, he explains, needs to have three key components: identifying a significant global problem, proposing a science-fiction-like solution, and leveraging a breakthrough technology to make that solution feasible.
“Of course, it’s not going to work most of the time”, Teller admits. Success requires a systematic process “by which we winnow down from a huge number of prospective moonshots to a very small number that are really working as efficiently as possible.”
Is it working? Yes, Teller believes, pointing to Waymo (self-driving cars), Wing (autonomous drone delivery) and Verily (digital health) – former moonshots that have become stand-alone companies.
Make sure to watch our backstage interview with Astro Teller to learn more.
