Welcome to tech Stuff. This is the story.

Welcome to tech Stuff. This is the story.

Each week on Wednesdays, we bring you an in depth interview with someone who has a front row seat to the most fascinating things happening in tech today. We're joined by Astroteller. Astroteller is the captain of Moonshots for X, an innovation lab within Alphabet, Google's parent company. To understand Astroteller, you have to understand moonshots. Years ago, a moonshot might have been slang for a long shot, but in the technological age, it's more akin to a lofty goal or a giant leap. So to be the captain of Moonshots, you sort of have to be.

Each week on Wednesdays, we bring you an in depth interview with someone who has a front row seat to the most fascinating things happening in tech today. We're joined by Astroteller. Astroteller is the captain of Moonshots for X, an innovation lab within Alphabet, Google's parent company. To understand Astroteller, you have to understand moonshots. Years ago, a moonshot might have been slang for a long shot, but in the technological age, it's more akin to a lofty goal or a giant leap. So to be the captain of Moonshots, you sort of have to be.

The ringleader for pioneers. Now.

The ringleader for pioneers. Now.

If you've never heard of X, you've probably heard of the products that came out of what's known as the Moonshot Factory. Google Glass a leap forward for smart glasses and computer vision, Weai mow actual self driving tech, and Google Brain, a groundbreaking AI research team. All of them got their start at X. But X is more than an incubator, it's a playground. And thanks to the Moonshop podcast, we finally get a bird's eye view of the factory floor. Host Astroteller leads us through what feels like an oral history about how these innovations came to be from the perspective of the people who built them, the problems that sparked the idea, the setbacks, the successes, and how each project evolved. I had the opportunity to interview Astroteller about the Moonshop podcast at south By Southwest. We met at the Google office in Austin, Texas, and the first thing I wanted to know was what motivated Alphabet to produce this podcast.

If you've never heard of X, you've probably heard of the products that came out of what's known as the Moonshot Factory. Google Glass a leap forward for smart glasses and computer vision, Weai mow actual self driving tech, and Google Brain, a groundbreaking AI research team. All of them got their start at X. But X is more than an incubator, it's a playground. And thanks to the Moonshop podcast, we finally get a bird's eye view of the factory floor. Host Astroteller leads us through what feels like an oral history about how these innovations came to be from the perspective of the people who built them, the problems that sparked the idea, the setbacks, the successes, and how each project evolved. I had the opportunity to interview Astroteller about the Moonshop podcast at south By Southwest. We met at the Google office in Austin, Texas, and the first thing I wanted to know was what motivated Alphabet to produce this podcast.

Our original excuse for making it was that we're turning fifteen years old and just seemed like a nice time to stop and look backwards and think about sort of where have we come? Just for reminiscence, but also as a way of educating ourselves and maybe sharing with other people, Like what is a moonshot factory? Does the world only need one? Does it need zero? Does it actually need a hundred of them? I hope it's the answer, is the last, And what can we learn from all of these people who've gone through this process. Let me give you a really concrete example, because if I stand on stage and I say one of the mantras at X is get into the real world as fast as possible, get in contact with it, and get this sort of painful, complex, dirty learning lessons from getting into the world and then realizing in all kinds of ways you're wrong. I can talk about why that's a good idea. It is sincerely one of the mantras and sort of the ways that we operated X that's very abstract, it's very philosophical. On the first podcast, there's a nice moment where the Wing team is talking about the fact that when they got out in the world first really doing deliveries, which was first in Australia, they were worried that people be annoyed by the sound of their drones, and so they had worked really hard for the propellers that are operating when it's in hover modes, so it's just hovering above a house and it's lowering a package on a string for a delivery. They were worried that that sound is the sound that would bother people. So they've done all this work ahead of time to make that as quiet as possible, and when I got out there, they found out no one cared about.

Our original excuse for making it was that we're turning fifteen years old and just seemed like a nice time to stop and look backwards and think about sort of where have we come? Just for reminiscence, but also as a way of educating ourselves and maybe sharing with other people, Like what is a moonshot factory? Does the world only need one? Does it need zero? Does it actually need a hundred of them? I hope it's the answer, is the last, And what can we learn from all of these people who've gone through this process. Let me give you a really concrete example, because if I stand on stage and I say one of the mantras at X is get into the real world as fast as possible, get in contact with it, and get this sort of painful, complex, dirty learning lessons from getting into the world and then realizing in all kinds of ways you're wrong. I can talk about why that's a good idea. It is sincerely one of the mantras and sort of the ways that we operated X that's very abstract, it's very philosophical. On the first podcast, there's a nice moment where the Wing team is talking about the fact that when they got out in the world first really doing deliveries, which was first in Australia, they were worried that people be annoyed by the sound of their drones, and so they had worked really hard for the propellers that are operating when it's in hover modes, so it's just hovering above a house and it's lowering a package on a string for a delivery. They were worried that that sound is the sound that would bother people. So they've done all this work ahead of time to make that as quiet as possible, and when I got out there, they found out no one cared about.

That sound because they were excited to be receiving the packages.

That sound because they were excited to be receiving the packages.

Right exactly, and it was the forward flight this zsh right as something was going over houses, you know, sixty seventy miles an hour, two hundred feet in the air, which we had never considered would be the problem. That was actually the sound that people were bothered by. And then we went and we did the hard work of getting that to be much quieter. And now that doesn't bother people either. But hearing the chief engineer for Wing unpack the discovery of that and then how they worked on it makes this this very abstract idea let's say, get in contact with the real world all of a sudden, really concrete for people.

Right exactly, and it was the forward flight this zsh right as something was going over houses, you know, sixty seventy miles an hour, two hundred feet in the air, which we had never considered would be the problem. That was actually the sound that people were bothered by. And then we went and we did the hard work of getting that to be much quieter. And now that doesn't bother people either. But hearing the chief engineer for Wing unpack the discovery of that and then how they worked on it makes this this very abstract idea let's say, get in contact with the real world all of a sudden, really concrete for people.

So they say that, you know, a great podcast always drops you into a scene, and your podcast drops you into quite a fascinating scene as a listener with you and Sebastian Thrun, who originally found at Google x and hired you in the back of a way, mo I mean a project that you know, you guys had worked on that really came to life. But I'm wondering if you can drop our listeners into a scene, describe what it's like to be in the Moonshot factory. I'm thinking about roller skates. I'm thinking about the line that you cross every morning.

So they say that, you know, a great podcast always drops you into a scene, and your podcast drops you into quite a fascinating scene as a listener with you and Sebastian Thrun, who originally found at Google x and hired you in the back of a way, mo I mean a project that you know, you guys had worked on that really came to life. But I'm wondering if you can drop our listeners into a scene, describe what it's like to be in the Moonshot factory. I'm thinking about roller skates. I'm thinking about the line that you cross every morning.

Sure. So the building itself originally was the first air conditioned mall in California. So it's a relatively old mall, very high ceilings. We've left it quite raw, polished cement floors, the concrete beams on the sides, like this one that's right here where we're recording. This has a lot of graffiti on it. Not this concrete one because people have cleaned this one up, but we've left the original construction markings you know, gas line that way, don't drill or whatever on the concrete. It's not a decoration for us. But it was like a why would we spend time cleaning it up? Is that really the money we want to spend? B We want the place, and I think it successfully feels like a work in progress. And if we're as humans as professionals and our projects are constantly a work in progress, how can we send a lot of unconscious signals to encourage that work in progress mentality? And so the walls are a lot of them made of plywood. Could we have used something other than plywood? Yes, but plywood works fine, and it sends that same signal when you come into the main lobby. We have a lot of things hanging there on the walls or large robots. I guess they're sitting on the floor in some cases, but pretty universally, they're not the finished product that we made. There's something that we made along the way, and that's another opportunity for us to signal to each other and to everyone who visits us. We're more proud of the process than we are of the outcome, including is you're referencing. There's this huge line across the floor and it says, in all caps, right by the line, you may never cross this line. Exclamation point ever exclamation point, And it's a stupid rule. You can't get into the building unless you cross the line, and it's a way to help people practice breaking stupid rules. We don't want people to like cause fraud or embezzle money or hurt somebody, but so many rules are actually in our heads. There are assumptions about how the world works that we haven't realized or just assumptions, and they can and need to be questioned. If you're going to do something unusual.

Sure. So the building itself originally was the first air conditioned mall in California. So it's a relatively old mall, very high ceilings. We've left it quite raw, polished cement floors, the concrete beams on the sides, like this one that's right here where we're recording. This has a lot of graffiti on it. Not this concrete one because people have cleaned this one up, but we've left the original construction markings you know, gas line that way, don't drill or whatever on the concrete. It's not a decoration for us. But it was like a why would we spend time cleaning it up? Is that really the money we want to spend? B We want the place, and I think it successfully feels like a work in progress. And if we're as humans as professionals and our projects are constantly a work in progress, how can we send a lot of unconscious signals to encourage that work in progress mentality? And so the walls are a lot of them made of plywood. Could we have used something other than plywood? Yes, but plywood works fine, and it sends that same signal when you come into the main lobby. We have a lot of things hanging there on the walls or large robots. I guess they're sitting on the floor in some cases, but pretty universally, they're not the finished product that we made. There's something that we made along the way, and that's another opportunity for us to signal to each other and to everyone who visits us. We're more proud of the process than we are of the outcome, including is you're referencing. There's this huge line across the floor and it says, in all caps, right by the line, you may never cross this line. Exclamation point ever exclamation point, And it's a stupid rule. You can't get into the building unless you cross the line, and it's a way to help people practice breaking stupid rules. We don't want people to like cause fraud or embezzle money or hurt somebody, but so many rules are actually in our heads. There are assumptions about how the world works that we haven't realized or just assumptions, and they can and need to be questioned. If you're going to do something unusual.

Can you describe what it feels like to work at the Moonshot Factory?

Can you describe what it feels like to work at the Moonshot Factory?

There is a happy, mild mannickness to being around us every day. The Moonshot Factory is a very matrix place where, in some great ways and maybe in some not ideal ways, we're sort of all in each other's business all the time. There's a lot of hey, can I help with that. In fact, just as someone was dropping me off in this room, we were ending a conversation about ways we could be even better at not worrying about whose job was what, but we could just like jump in and help not only things that are still at X, but we were actually talking about something that has left X, and people at X were saying, oh, do we still need to be helping them? He was like, who cares? Like they're part of us? They were a graduate of ours, just like, jump in and help. That's a lot of what it feels like in the conversations in the hallways every day. There's an ethos of helpfulness, of excitement, a sense of purpose. The philosophy of experimentation plays out all the time. Every day. There's very much a why don't we just try it, like instead of talking about it when we don't really know what the right answer is. And this might be about some hr issue or about some public relations issue. It might be a very technical issue. It's actually the same thing. It's do we really know what the right answer is. Let's make a hypothesis and then find the fastest, simplest, cheapest way to test that hypothesis. That's kind of how it feels in all the conversations all the time.

There is a happy, mild mannickness to being around us every day. The Moonshot Factory is a very matrix place where, in some great ways and maybe in some not ideal ways, we're sort of all in each other's business all the time. There's a lot of hey, can I help with that. In fact, just as someone was dropping me off in this room, we were ending a conversation about ways we could be even better at not worrying about whose job was what, but we could just like jump in and help not only things that are still at X, but we were actually talking about something that has left X, and people at X were saying, oh, do we still need to be helping them? He was like, who cares? Like they're part of us? They were a graduate of ours, just like, jump in and help. That's a lot of what it feels like in the conversations in the hallways every day. There's an ethos of helpfulness, of excitement, a sense of purpose. The philosophy of experimentation plays out all the time. Every day. There's very much a why don't we just try it, like instead of talking about it when we don't really know what the right answer is. And this might be about some hr issue or about some public relations issue. It might be a very technical issue. It's actually the same thing. It's do we really know what the right answer is. Let's make a hypothesis and then find the fastest, simplest, cheapest way to test that hypothesis. That's kind of how it feels in all the conversations all the time.

So I think the process is fascinating, but the output is also fascinating, right, Like I've also been in a Way Mow, and you know you have that experience like this is totally uncanny, and then it becomes normal very quickly. Google Brain obviously also spun out of X and also gave birth, in partnership with deep Mind, to last year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. What marked out, let's say, Way Mow and Brain as huge successes versus the projects that didn't graduate.

So I think the process is fascinating, but the output is also fascinating, right, Like I've also been in a Way Mow, and you know you have that experience like this is totally uncanny, and then it becomes normal very quickly. Google Brain obviously also spun out of X and also gave birth, in partnership with deep Mind, to last year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. What marked out, let's say, Way Mow and Brain as huge successes versus the projects that didn't graduate.

What characterizes a success in a failure?

What characterizes a success in a failure?

At least the way it feels at X is we start on a whole bunch of unlikely journeys. But I don't know that we're much better than random at predicting ahead of time, what's going to be a great idea? If we were great at predicting what's going to be a great idea. We would only work on the great ideas. I don't think anybody gets that privilege. There are people who pick one thing. They announced that they have the right idea, and then they work really hard on it and it turns out they did have a great idea. That's just survivor bias thought. Those are just the ones you hear. There are a thousand people who said they had a great idea and worked really hard on it, and just they didn't have a great idea it turns out, and so they went away. The one person who made it is not necessarily smarter. Mostly I believe we believe at X they just got lucky. So we start about a thousand things per decade, and then we're always looking for evidence. Is this really a once in a generation opportunity for the world to make the world better and to create an enduring business. And when the evidence starts to pile up, no, or at least we can't get good evidence that the answer is yes, we throw it away. So brain and way Mow survived those pressure tests, that's really what happened. It wasn't this was the good stuff ahead of time. It's more like the evidence piled up that it turns out these were particularly good ideas, And you know, maybe there were things that we've tried that were really good ideas, but we just didn't find the right wedge in on the problem. So maybe somebody else will. And in a number of cases we've actually when we wound something down, we've published to the rest of the world everything that we learned so that they could build on top of that.

At least the way it feels at X is we start on a whole bunch of unlikely journeys. But I don't know that we're much better than random at predicting ahead of time, what's going to be a great idea? If we were great at predicting what's going to be a great idea. We would only work on the great ideas. I don't think anybody gets that privilege. There are people who pick one thing. They announced that they have the right idea, and then they work really hard on it and it turns out they did have a great idea. That's just survivor bias thought. Those are just the ones you hear. There are a thousand people who said they had a great idea and worked really hard on it, and just they didn't have a great idea it turns out, and so they went away. The one person who made it is not necessarily smarter. Mostly I believe we believe at X they just got lucky. So we start about a thousand things per decade, and then we're always looking for evidence. Is this really a once in a generation opportunity for the world to make the world better and to create an enduring business. And when the evidence starts to pile up, no, or at least we can't get good evidence that the answer is yes, we throw it away. So brain and way Mow survived those pressure tests, that's really what happened. It wasn't this was the good stuff ahead of time. It's more like the evidence piled up that it turns out these were particularly good ideas, And you know, maybe there were things that we've tried that were really good ideas, but we just didn't find the right wedge in on the problem. So maybe somebody else will. And in a number of cases we've actually when we wound something down, we've published to the rest of the world everything that we learned so that they could build on top of that.

When we come back.

When we come back.

How an innovation playground birthed in the era of endless optimism maintains its momentum. Stay with us, Welcome back to tech Stuff. I'm talking to Astroteller about the new podcast out of Alphabet's ex called the Moonshot Podcast. There's an interesting moment in the podcast where Sebastian Thrunn, the co founder of x, describes a conversation he had with former Google CEO Larry Page back in two thousand and five. Larry asked Thron to come to Google and make a self driving car essentially out of nowhere, and Thron, though skeptical of the outcome, took a leap of faith and started experimenting, creating what would ultimately become the Moonshop Factory.

How an innovation playground birthed in the era of endless optimism maintains its momentum. Stay with us, Welcome back to tech Stuff. I'm talking to Astroteller about the new podcast out of Alphabet's ex called the Moonshot Podcast. There's an interesting moment in the podcast where Sebastian Thrunn, the co founder of x, describes a conversation he had with former Google CEO Larry Page back in two thousand and five. Larry asked Thron to come to Google and make a self driving car essentially out of nowhere, and Thron, though skeptical of the outcome, took a leap of faith and started experimenting, creating what would ultimately become the Moonshop Factory.

This was during the era.

This was during the era.

Of endless optimism in Silicon Valley, but fifteen years later there seems to have been something of a vibe shift cuts at old big tech companies, including cuts that have affected Eggs, And I wanted to know if Astarteta thought this vibe shift affects X.

Of endless optimism in Silicon Valley, but fifteen years later there seems to have been something of a vibe shift cuts at old big tech companies, including cuts that have affected Eggs, And I wanted to know if Astarteta thought this vibe shift affects X.

Today, we're constantly learning and trying to improve, but I hope that that vibe shift hasn't per se changed us at all. Let me describe that in another way. From the very beginning, we've been trying to find ways to make a moonshot factory. That is, keep our audacity really high, but find ways to systematize the process. So we've been committed to that for fifteen years. And as soon as you commit to the factory part of it, not just the moonshot part of it, you are pre committing to a constant attempt to up the rigor without killing off the magic. And so we didn't need a vibe shift to get interested in efficiency. We've always been interested in how to keep ratcheting up that efficiency. That's not a new thing for us. And so that vibe shift of anything has aligned the world better with what we were already trying to do, which is, we want to be creating a great return on investment where the things that we produce are worth more than enough to justify the money we've spent and the time that it took to make ten or fifteen year period. Now it happens that Alphabet is very long term in its thinking, which it does to its great long term benefits. And you know, it has become a very large business by thinking long term and by having the bravery to place these much longer term bets, and so X has received the support from Alphabet, which I'm very grateful for. And in that context, we're continuing to do our job. How can we take these audacious attempts to find something really great for the world that is also you know, significant shareholder value production, and to do that as efficiently as possible. Understanding we're still going to be wrong ninety nine percent of the time. The question is not how do we get it so we're only wrong ninety percent of the time. The question at X is how do we discover the ninety nine percent where we're wrong as fast and as cheaply as possible. The better we get at that part of the riggor that one percent that comes through will come through more and more efficiently because we've spent less and less time and money on the stuff where it turned out not to be a great idea.

Today, we're constantly learning and trying to improve, but I hope that that vibe shift hasn't per se changed us at all. Let me describe that in another way. From the very beginning, we've been trying to find ways to make a moonshot factory. That is, keep our audacity really high, but find ways to systematize the process. So we've been committed to that for fifteen years. And as soon as you commit to the factory part of it, not just the moonshot part of it, you are pre committing to a constant attempt to up the rigor without killing off the magic. And so we didn't need a vibe shift to get interested in efficiency. We've always been interested in how to keep ratcheting up that efficiency. That's not a new thing for us. And so that vibe shift of anything has aligned the world better with what we were already trying to do, which is, we want to be creating a great return on investment where the things that we produce are worth more than enough to justify the money we've spent and the time that it took to make ten or fifteen year period. Now it happens that Alphabet is very long term in its thinking, which it does to its great long term benefits. And you know, it has become a very large business by thinking long term and by having the bravery to place these much longer term bets, and so X has received the support from Alphabet, which I'm very grateful for. And in that context, we're continuing to do our job. How can we take these audacious attempts to find something really great for the world that is also you know, significant shareholder value production, and to do that as efficiently as possible. Understanding we're still going to be wrong ninety nine percent of the time. The question is not how do we get it so we're only wrong ninety percent of the time. The question at X is how do we discover the ninety nine percent where we're wrong as fast and as cheaply as possible. The better we get at that part of the riggor that one percent that comes through will come through more and more efficiently because we've spent less and less time and money on the stuff where it turned out not to be a great idea.

And one of the things you said was that as a manager, you don't want to be telling people I want to kill that idea. You want them to come to you proactivity and kill their own ideas.

And one of the things you said was that as a manager, you don't want to be telling people I want to kill that idea. You want them to come to you proactivity and kill their own ideas.

That's right. So if you worked at X and you're building the Teleporter project or whatever, if I believe that you can't practice intellectual honesty and work in the betterment for X and alphabet of X's overall portfolio, including a dispassionate view of your own work, at least periodically, you and I are fundamentally in antagonism with each other. You're not only not on my team, you're actually working against my team. If you're being overly partisan to what you do, then why do I even.

That's right. So if you worked at X and you're building the Teleporter project or whatever, if I believe that you can't practice intellectual honesty and work in the betterment for X and alphabet of X's overall portfolio, including a dispassionate view of your own work, at least periodically, you and I are fundamentally in antagonism with each other. You're not only not on my team, you're actually working against my team. If you're being overly partisan to what you do, then why do I even.

Have you here?

Have you here?

That's horrible. If we were an actual incubator, I would get it, because then we're just this system and you're trying to leach energy off of us to launch your thing. You're supposed to be partisan to your thing, but that's not what we're doing at the Moonshot Factory. All of us here, including you if you've joined the Moonshot Factory, are working to systematize innovation. And while I hope that your teleporter works out, I don't hope that nearly as much is that the factory works out. And if you aren't on that team, you're not going to be happy at X.

That's horrible. If we were an actual incubator, I would get it, because then we're just this system and you're trying to leach energy off of us to launch your thing. You're supposed to be partisan to your thing, but that's not what we're doing at the Moonshot Factory. All of us here, including you if you've joined the Moonshot Factory, are working to systematize innovation. And while I hope that your teleporter works out, I don't hope that nearly as much is that the factory works out. And if you aren't on that team, you're not going to be happy at X.

So you, obviously, through an iterative process, taken ideas to fruition, whether it's Weimo, Brain Wing or others. What does the iterative process of the Moonshelt Fight Tree itself been. I think he specifically you spoke about measuring or creating a balance between efficiency and magic making.

So you, obviously, through an iterative process, taken ideas to fruition, whether it's Weimo, Brain Wing or others. What does the iterative process of the Moonshelt Fight Tree itself been. I think he specifically you spoke about measuring or creating a balance between efficiency and magic making.

I mean yes, and I can give you examples of that. But let me tell you about something that has evolved for us over time. We've been realizing more and more that for at least many of the things that we make, landing them outside Alphabet is actually better for Alphabet and for the project the proto company as it becomes a company. So Alphabet can still have a large minority interest in this business. But if it's outside of Alphabet and Alphabet doesn't control it, then get it can participate in market capital and get strategic partners in a way that's different than if it's inside alphabet. It can go faster in some ways for being decoupled from Alphabet, which is also a complex, very large business. So we're finding ways to sort of systematize the landing of things more and more outside of Alphabet. And that's something we've learned through the process of making these other bets. And it sometimes happens that being in a culturally, operationally and legally separate entity within Alphabet, weimo wing intrinsic these verily these kinds of things that came from X. It works. It's sometimes good for them, but it's not for all of them. And so that's an example where we've been trying to learn ourselves how we can do our job better, systematize our process and the conveyor belt for these ideas to optimize their chances of being really great for the world.

I mean yes, and I can give you examples of that. But let me tell you about something that has evolved for us over time. We've been realizing more and more that for at least many of the things that we make, landing them outside Alphabet is actually better for Alphabet and for the project the proto company as it becomes a company. So Alphabet can still have a large minority interest in this business. But if it's outside of Alphabet and Alphabet doesn't control it, then get it can participate in market capital and get strategic partners in a way that's different than if it's inside alphabet. It can go faster in some ways for being decoupled from Alphabet, which is also a complex, very large business. So we're finding ways to sort of systematize the landing of things more and more outside of Alphabet. And that's something we've learned through the process of making these other bets. And it sometimes happens that being in a culturally, operationally and legally separate entity within Alphabet, weimo wing intrinsic these verily these kinds of things that came from X. It works. It's sometimes good for them, but it's not for all of them. And so that's an example where we've been trying to learn ourselves how we can do our job better, systematize our process and the conveyor belt for these ideas to optimize their chances of being really great for the world.

I don't want to drag you into politics, but this word efficiency has obviously become very very loaded recently, and there's a kind of wider debate within the country about the value of supporting a government supporting long term science and research initiatives versus cutting waste and cutting efficiency. If you have one sort of piece of advice to another organization, be it government or another company, What would you say about what you've learned in terms of balancing those two imperatives.

I don't want to drag you into politics, but this word efficiency has obviously become very very loaded recently, and there's a kind of wider debate within the country about the value of supporting a government supporting long term science and research initiatives versus cutting waste and cutting efficiency. If you have one sort of piece of advice to another organization, be it government or another company, What would you say about what you've learned in terms of balancing those two imperatives.

Well, first of all, getting efficient is generally a good goal, but you have to know what game you're playing. In our case, because we believe that we're in the moonshot business, it's super important, as I've been describing, that the efficiency stays balanced with what we're trying to do, and there has to be a lot of exploration and a lot of being wrong. So if you propose the teleporter project, and I start with here's the thirty reasons, that's stupid. One you will never bring up a creative idea ever again. Two, it's easy to say that thirty thousand reasons why some unusual idea isn't going to work. But then we aren't going to go on any adventures, which, by the way, I don't believe in Taro cards metaphysically, but there is a tarot card poster of the fool. It's the only thing on the door of my huddle. Because the activity of setting out on a new journey is the activity of creation, and that's the job that we're all in at X, and so if you ran a widget factory, you might have a very different set of goals with efficiency, and you might do six sigma and that might be reasonable for you. Six sigma is the wrong way to think about efficiency at a moonshot factory. And you know, I'll leave it to people who are smarter than me to figure out how the government should focus on efficiency productively.

Well, first of all, getting efficient is generally a good goal, but you have to know what game you're playing. In our case, because we believe that we're in the moonshot business, it's super important, as I've been describing, that the efficiency stays balanced with what we're trying to do, and there has to be a lot of exploration and a lot of being wrong. So if you propose the teleporter project, and I start with here's the thirty reasons, that's stupid. One you will never bring up a creative idea ever again. Two, it's easy to say that thirty thousand reasons why some unusual idea isn't going to work. But then we aren't going to go on any adventures, which, by the way, I don't believe in Taro cards metaphysically, but there is a tarot card poster of the fool. It's the only thing on the door of my huddle. Because the activity of setting out on a new journey is the activity of creation, and that's the job that we're all in at X, and so if you ran a widget factory, you might have a very different set of goals with efficiency, and you might do six sigma and that might be reasonable for you. Six sigma is the wrong way to think about efficiency at a moonshot factory. And you know, I'll leave it to people who are smarter than me to figure out how the government should focus on efficiency productively.

Fair enough, coming up, what Astro tele learned from his grandfather about innovation, Stay with us, welcome back to tech stuff. Before I had the opportunity to interview Astro Teller at the Google office in Austin, Texas, I saw him on a live panel moderated by Nicholas Thompson, CEO of the Atlantic.

Fair enough, coming up, what Astro tele learned from his grandfather about innovation, Stay with us, welcome back to tech stuff. Before I had the opportunity to interview Astro Teller at the Google office in Austin, Texas, I saw him on a live panel moderated by Nicholas Thompson, CEO of the Atlantic.

At one point, Nick.

At one point, Nick.

Started to say that government had created a lot of innovation throughout the twentieth century. At one point, Nicholas Thompson started to ask a question around how government had driven a lot of innovation in the twentieth century, and Astro quickly interjected, saying, actually government funded research, which in turn drove innovation.

Started to say that government had created a lot of innovation throughout the twentieth century. At one point, Nicholas Thompson started to ask a question around how government had driven a lot of innovation in the twentieth century, and Astro quickly interjected, saying, actually government funded research, which in turn drove innovation.

It was a fascinating conversation.

It was a fascinating conversation.

You'll be able to hear the whole thing because it's going to be episode ten of the Moonshot podcast, and Astro Teller has first hand knowledge of these relationships because his grandfather, Edward Teller, was one of the key members of the Manhattan Project, the R and D project that developed nuclear weapons during World War Two. So I asked Teller, how does he think about the balance between academia and deep research, government and private labs like Google Eggs when it comes to building a future.

You'll be able to hear the whole thing because it's going to be episode ten of the Moonshot podcast, and Astro Teller has first hand knowledge of these relationships because his grandfather, Edward Teller, was one of the key members of the Manhattan Project, the R and D project that developed nuclear weapons during World War Two. So I asked Teller, how does he think about the balance between academia and deep research, government and private labs like Google Eggs when it comes to building a future.

I think it's a place for all of them. You know, there will probably from time to time always be some issues which are national security level issues, and it's rational for any government, including the United States government, to spend money to solve those things in a somewhat cost and sensitive way because it's a national security issue. The Manhattan Project was an example of that.

I think it's a place for all of them. You know, there will probably from time to time always be some issues which are national security level issues, and it's rational for any government, including the United States government, to spend money to solve those things in a somewhat cost and sensitive way because it's a national security issue. The Manhattan Project was an example of that.

You have toio granfather' not working on that, by.

You have toio granfather' not working on that, by.

The way, frequently. Yeah, there will always be a place in all countries for basic science because the raw material of training the next generation of people in all the stem fields creates this sort of rich soil from which really great new things can spring. And then obviously private organizations, either ones in history like the Bell Labs or Xerox Park, or maybe more modern things like x the Moonshot factory, I think also have a place because something has to bridge between the Silicon Valley venture world of we can see where we're going. It's kind of a ways off, but we can see it, and we just want to rush there as fast as possible. Academia, Oh my god, we found a frictionless surface, but we have no idea what this is good for. There's a big gap between those two things, and I think that moonshot factories, not just the one that we're making, but I think others out in the world could over time fill that gap really effectively.

The way, frequently. Yeah, there will always be a place in all countries for basic science because the raw material of training the next generation of people in all the stem fields creates this sort of rich soil from which really great new things can spring. And then obviously private organizations, either ones in history like the Bell Labs or Xerox Park, or maybe more modern things like x the Moonshot factory, I think also have a place because something has to bridge between the Silicon Valley venture world of we can see where we're going. It's kind of a ways off, but we can see it, and we just want to rush there as fast as possible. Academia, Oh my god, we found a frictionless surface, but we have no idea what this is good for. There's a big gap between those two things, and I think that moonshot factories, not just the one that we're making, but I think others out in the world could over time fill that gap really effectively.

I wonder if you you could talk briefly about your grandfather and was that one conversation or one piece of advice he gave you from the point of view of the Manhattan Project that put you on the path through on today.

I wonder if you you could talk briefly about your grandfather and was that one conversation or one piece of advice he gave you from the point of view of the Manhattan Project that put you on the path through on today.

I mean, I'd give a few things. First of all, he liked to quote Neil's Boorr, who said that an expert is someone who's made the majority of the mistakes in their field. And I think that that is one of the things that helped me lock in on the understanding of failure is an inherent part of becoming an expert, of becoming really good at something or of learning like what anything should be to. My grandfather was a great orator, and I had a mild speech impediment when I was a kid, and I learned a lot from him by watching him speak in private settings and interviews like this on stages. I learned a lot from him about how he connected with individuals and within an audience. I really looked up to that particular skill of his and I learned a lot from it. Also the Manhattan Project. He had no real interest in bombs. That's not actually what got him at all excited. He had a great interest in physics and technology, but his single largest interest was in being around phenomenal, the interesting and creative other people, and the idea that you could get a group of people together and create a subculture somewhat protected from the rest of the world, so that you could foment some really new ideas together in a very creative kind of crucible. That is the thing I most took away from his experience with the Manhattan Project, And obviously the Moonshot Factory is pointed in very different directions, but I think I was inspired by that.

I mean, I'd give a few things. First of all, he liked to quote Neil's Boorr, who said that an expert is someone who's made the majority of the mistakes in their field. And I think that that is one of the things that helped me lock in on the understanding of failure is an inherent part of becoming an expert, of becoming really good at something or of learning like what anything should be to. My grandfather was a great orator, and I had a mild speech impediment when I was a kid, and I learned a lot from him by watching him speak in private settings and interviews like this on stages. I learned a lot from him about how he connected with individuals and within an audience. I really looked up to that particular skill of his and I learned a lot from it. Also the Manhattan Project. He had no real interest in bombs. That's not actually what got him at all excited. He had a great interest in physics and technology, but his single largest interest was in being around phenomenal, the interesting and creative other people, and the idea that you could get a group of people together and create a subculture somewhat protected from the rest of the world, so that you could foment some really new ideas together in a very creative kind of crucible. That is the thing I most took away from his experience with the Manhattan Project, And obviously the Moonshot Factory is pointed in very different directions, but I think I was inspired by that.

I love that.

I love that.

I'm sure as somebody who knows the real story. You had a bunch of issues with Oppenheimer the movie, but that sense that a group of people physically co located in a space working on a mission was very fascinating. I think it's part of what comes through with the podcast as well.

I'm sure as somebody who knows the real story. You had a bunch of issues with Oppenheimer the movie, but that sense that a group of people physically co located in a space working on a mission was very fascinating. I think it's part of what comes through with the podcast as well.

Right.

Right.

I mean, you have collected all of these people.

I mean, you have collected all of these people.

Who've been on the journey with you for fifteen years and kind of sharing stories with one another and with the public about how that drove innovation.

Who've been on the journey with you for fifteen years and kind of sharing stories with one another and with the public about how that drove innovation.

At south By Southwest.

At south By Southwest.

One of the biggest stories was the wooly Mouse, Colossal Biosciences and the gene editing project to revive the woolly mammoth, which has created the woody mouse along the way. A lot of these like science fiction type stories are becoming science factor right. AI, machine learning, gene editing, quantum has been in the news in the last couple of weeks as these platform technologies emerge around you, like, how do you think about the role of X in terms of figuring out the past interacting with them.

One of the biggest stories was the wooly Mouse, Colossal Biosciences and the gene editing project to revive the woolly mammoth, which has created the woody mouse along the way. A lot of these like science fiction type stories are becoming science factor right. AI, machine learning, gene editing, quantum has been in the news in the last couple of weeks as these platform technologies emerge around you, like, how do you think about the role of X in terms of figuring out the past interacting with them.

One of the things that's really important in the Moonshot Factor is we're playing such a long game that there's a temptation for the whole world, and it does seep into X to what I think of as kind of swarm with everybody.

One of the things that's really important in the Moonshot Factor is we're playing such a long game that there's a temptation for the whole world, and it does seep into X to what I think of as kind of swarm with everybody.

Else skate towards the perk core.

Else skate towards the perk core.

Well, yeah, I mean, but I'm interested in like the pucks that other people aren't watching by the time everyone is like over fixated on a puck and everyone is rushing towards that puck as they are right now with llms and generative AI, I mean, a lot of value will be created over time, a lot of goodness for the world through these foundation models and what we can do with them. The world does not need us rushing at that. Everyone else is rushing at that. And you know, we were one of the groups that set off that sort of ripple effect because of Google Brain. Because of Google Brain, our job now should be what can we do today that thirteen or fifteen years from now is as important then as the effects of Google Brain are today. That's our real job is to be working on things that when you looked at them, if you came and looked at our earliest stuff, you should say, I don't know, there's probably nothing, and you'd be mostly right, but not entirely right. And that's our job is for one and a hundred of those things. To turn out to be Google Brain level important and we don't know ahead of time which one is it'll be.

Well, yeah, I mean, but I'm interested in like the pucks that other people aren't watching by the time everyone is like over fixated on a puck and everyone is rushing towards that puck as they are right now with llms and generative AI, I mean, a lot of value will be created over time, a lot of goodness for the world through these foundation models and what we can do with them. The world does not need us rushing at that. Everyone else is rushing at that. And you know, we were one of the groups that set off that sort of ripple effect because of Google Brain. Because of Google Brain, our job now should be what can we do today that thirteen or fifteen years from now is as important then as the effects of Google Brain are today. That's our real job is to be working on things that when you looked at them, if you came and looked at our earliest stuff, you should say, I don't know, there's probably nothing, and you'd be mostly right, but not entirely right. And that's our job is for one and a hundred of those things. To turn out to be Google Brain level important and we don't know ahead of time which one is it'll be.

And that takes like.

And that takes like.

Constant bravery and creativity and open mindedness paired with humility. We're wrong most of the time. How can we get the evidence that verifies this isn't one of those things? So we can stop doing it?

Constant bravery and creativity and open mindedness paired with humility. We're wrong most of the time. How can we get the evidence that verifies this isn't one of those things? So we can stop doing it?

And I mean, I'm sure that you have to be very sensitive in terms of what you share publicly, but are there any early signals you're getting from interaction with the real world about things that you're working on today that maybe you know in season ten of the of the Google x podcast, the Moonshot Factory podcast will be featured ten years from now.

And I mean, I'm sure that you have to be very sensitive in terms of what you share publicly, but are there any early signals you're getting from interaction with the real world about things that you're working on today that maybe you know in season ten of the of the Google x podcast, the Moonshot Factory podcast will be featured ten years from now.

I'm increasingly confident by watching the experiments that we've done and this has been This isn't a single project.

I'm increasingly confident by watching the experiments that we've done and this has been This isn't a single project.

This is a range of them.

This is a range of them.

That biology is moving and a decent clip from being a science to being an engineering discipline.

That biology is moving and a decent clip from being a science to being an engineering discipline.

What does that mean?

What does that mean?

What that means is it is already true today that you can go into ecoli or yeas to bacteria cell and reprogram it. You can change its d you can change its environment and ask it as best you can to do something other than what it would normally do. Let's say to produce a lot of a thing it's not used to producing, but that would be useful for people. That might be an enzyme that goes into laundry detergent for breaking down things when you put it in the wash. That could be a human milk sugar that you want to produce so it can go into baby formula. There's universe of things you might ask these self replicating carbon negative machines that biology has invented for us to make the problem is you don't know what it will do when you reprogram it. There is no simulator where you can test it out. So it was incredibly like trial and error. If you're a strain engineer, you just have to make some change in the code of this little tiny factory to sell and then stick it into a Petri dish and watch it and like, well what does it do? That caused very slow inovation in this space. But if you could try this in a computer, you would be going thousands, tens of thousands of times faster and discovering stuff. So we're seeing more and more evidence that that's going to be a thing. I think that's going to turn out to be really important for humanity. For healthcare, sure, like making of drugs. Almost anything that you wouldn't call manufacturing could be the domain of biology to make. So the clothing that we're wearing, like, there's no reason biology couldn't be producing this stuff, turning plastics back into the raw materials, or making those raw materials in the first place so that we don't have to burn fossil fuels in order to make plastics. There's no reason biology couldn't do that. Yes, medicine for people, there's trillions of dollars a year that humans produce in various kinds of what look like factories or refineries that we do in a very industrial way today because we know how to mechanically make things. We have some facility to chemically make things, but we haven't figured out how to program biology to make those things. So I see that as a big shift in during the twenty first century.

What that means is it is already true today that you can go into ecoli or yeas to bacteria cell and reprogram it. You can change its d you can change its environment and ask it as best you can to do something other than what it would normally do. Let's say to produce a lot of a thing it's not used to producing, but that would be useful for people. That might be an enzyme that goes into laundry detergent for breaking down things when you put it in the wash. That could be a human milk sugar that you want to produce so it can go into baby formula. There's universe of things you might ask these self replicating carbon negative machines that biology has invented for us to make the problem is you don't know what it will do when you reprogram it. There is no simulator where you can test it out. So it was incredibly like trial and error. If you're a strain engineer, you just have to make some change in the code of this little tiny factory to sell and then stick it into a Petri dish and watch it and like, well what does it do? That caused very slow inovation in this space. But if you could try this in a computer, you would be going thousands, tens of thousands of times faster and discovering stuff. So we're seeing more and more evidence that that's going to be a thing. I think that's going to turn out to be really important for humanity. For healthcare, sure, like making of drugs. Almost anything that you wouldn't call manufacturing could be the domain of biology to make. So the clothing that we're wearing, like, there's no reason biology couldn't be producing this stuff, turning plastics back into the raw materials, or making those raw materials in the first place so that we don't have to burn fossil fuels in order to make plastics. There's no reason biology couldn't do that. Yes, medicine for people, there's trillions of dollars a year that humans produce in various kinds of what look like factories or refineries that we do in a very industrial way today because we know how to mechanically make things. We have some facility to chemically make things, but we haven't figured out how to program biology to make those things. So I see that as a big shift in during the twenty first century.

You're talking at south By Southwest about turning trash back into treasure. And there was a big Dickens fan growing up, and Dickens is always writing about kind of hunting through trash heaps to find these miraculous pieces of treasure and stuff. It used a phrase that I've never heard before, but that I'd love you to expound on, which is moonshot compost.

You're talking at south By Southwest about turning trash back into treasure. And there was a big Dickens fan growing up, and Dickens is always writing about kind of hunting through trash heaps to find these miraculous pieces of treasure and stuff. It used a phrase that I've never heard before, but that I'd love you to expound on, which is moonshot compost.

Yes, so I mean let me unpack both a little bit so that the difference is clear. When I say turning trash into treasure. What I was talking about was humanity spends sort of, depending on how you count, five or six trillion dollars a year making stuff, and then the leftovers, which again reasonable people could disagree, but it is arguably worth at least a few trillion dollars a year goes into landfill of various kinds. This is plastics, this is e waste, like leftover computers. This is things like we break down a building like the one we're in, and all of the rubble, all of the metal, it all just goes to landfill. We reuse this stuff terribly. Think how hard we worked to get this metal out of the ground in the first place. It's already refined, but we don't quite know how to reuse itself. Just all goes to landfill. If we could make it profitable to take that several trillion dollars a year of stuff that right now is going to landfill and turn it back into the raw material for humanity. One there's a ridiculous amount of money to be made doing that, but two, it would actually cause human existence on earth to be much more circular. We could stop trying to be so extractive from the world and be more circular. So that's what I meant by turning trash into treasure, And there's lots to be said about that separately. Metaphorically, we think about the exact same thing at X. So if you work on the Teleporter project, you're just passionate about it, you decide that it's not as good as you thought, we're going to end the Teleporter project. Congratulations, Good for you, high five that you're doing the right thing. Here's a bonus for you and for your whole team. Now you have a few months where you can sort of explore the factory and find out what your next thing at the factory is. We don't have to throw away the people. We don't have to throw away the code that you wrote. We don't have to throw away the patents that you filed. We don't have to throw away the partnerships that you built or the hardware. There's so much that might get reused in some way from what you did, even if it's in surprising, very alternate uses, and so the process of reminding ourselves over and over again. Just because we stopped the project, it doesn't mean there isn't a lot of value here. That's what we mean when we say Moonshot compost. It is the reusing and the sort of second and third lives of all of this knowledge creation that because it stays in the factory, it's frictionless for us to reuse it. And that also makes it easier when you stop a project to know that it isn't just like zeroed out, that it's back in the dirt and it's going to come back in some interesting new forum.

Yes, so I mean let me unpack both a little bit so that the difference is clear. When I say turning trash into treasure. What I was talking about was humanity spends sort of, depending on how you count, five or six trillion dollars a year making stuff, and then the leftovers, which again reasonable people could disagree, but it is arguably worth at least a few trillion dollars a year goes into landfill of various kinds. This is plastics, this is e waste, like leftover computers. This is things like we break down a building like the one we're in, and all of the rubble, all of the metal, it all just goes to landfill. We reuse this stuff terribly. Think how hard we worked to get this metal out of the ground in the first place. It's already refined, but we don't quite know how to reuse itself. Just all goes to landfill. If we could make it profitable to take that several trillion dollars a year of stuff that right now is going to landfill and turn it back into the raw material for humanity. One there's a ridiculous amount of money to be made doing that, but two, it would actually cause human existence on earth to be much more circular. We could stop trying to be so extractive from the world and be more circular. So that's what I meant by turning trash into treasure, And there's lots to be said about that separately. Metaphorically, we think about the exact same thing at X. So if you work on the Teleporter project, you're just passionate about it, you decide that it's not as good as you thought, we're going to end the Teleporter project. Congratulations, Good for you, high five that you're doing the right thing. Here's a bonus for you and for your whole team. Now you have a few months where you can sort of explore the factory and find out what your next thing at the factory is. We don't have to throw away the people. We don't have to throw away the code that you wrote. We don't have to throw away the patents that you filed. We don't have to throw away the partnerships that you built or the hardware. There's so much that might get reused in some way from what you did, even if it's in surprising, very alternate uses, and so the process of reminding ourselves over and over again. Just because we stopped the project, it doesn't mean there isn't a lot of value here. That's what we mean when we say Moonshot compost. It is the reusing and the sort of second and third lives of all of this knowledge creation that because it stays in the factory, it's frictionless for us to reuse it. And that also makes it easier when you stop a project to know that it isn't just like zeroed out, that it's back in the dirt and it's going to come back in some interesting new forum.

That was Astrotella Alphabet's Captain of Moonshots. Check out the Moonshot podcast wherever you get your podcasts for tech stuff, I'm oz Voloshin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Victoria Domingez. It was executive produced by me Carrot Price and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Novelle via our Podcasts. Nomad Sound recorded this interview. Jack Insley mikesed the episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. Join us this Friday for tech Stuff's We Can Tech. We'll run through the headlines and hear from four or four Media's Joseph Cox about a tool that allows one ICE surveillance contractor to scrape over two hundred sites, apps, and services for data on targeted individuals. Please rate, review, and reach out to us at tech Stuff podcast at gmail dot com.

That was Astrotella Alphabet's Captain of Moonshots. Check out the Moonshot podcast wherever you get your podcasts for tech stuff, I'm oz Voloshin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Victoria Domingez. It was executive produced by me Carrot Price and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Novelle via our Podcasts. Nomad Sound recorded this interview. Jack Insley mikesed the episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. Join us this Friday for tech Stuff's We Can Tech. We'll run through the headlines and hear from four or four Media's Joseph Cox about a tool that allows one ICE surveillance contractor to scrape over two hundred sites, apps, and services for data on targeted individuals. Please rate, review, and reach out to us at tech Stuff podcast at gmail dot com.

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We really want to hear from you.