The Moonshot Podcast

By X, The Moonshot FactorySociety & Culture Documentary Science Technology

The Moonshot Podcast episodes

June 03 The Moonshot Mindset with Adam Savage and Sergey Brin
In this final and very special episode of Season Two of The Moonshot Podcast, we're zooming out on what it means to have a Moonshot Mindset, and how The Moonshot Factory has been systematizing radical innovation over the last 16 years.
We turn the tables, with Astro interviewed by TESTED host and king of experimental curiosity, Adam Savage, to talk about what innovation is, how you can really drive it, and how we can all be more innovative in our lives.
Next, Astro sits down with Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin, to discuss where the inspiration for The Moonshot Factory came from, and reflect on some of their favorite moonshots to date.

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53 min
May 27 Underground Potential
In this episode of The Moonshot Podcast we're diving deep—literally!—below the surface to uncover the ground's immense, untapped potential, which could unlock solutions to some of humanity's greatest challenges.
Astro sits down with Kathy Hannun from Project Dandelion to explore the breakthrough efficiency of geothermal heat pumps for home heating and cooling.
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Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 16 years of Alphabet’s moonshot factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.
If you want to take your own moonshots, we've developed a certificate course with MasterClass on how to take bold ideas and translate them into real world impact. Check it out here: https://www.masterclass.com/certificates/breakthrough-innovation-strategy-from-bold-idea-to-business-impact

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19 min
May 13 Neurons and Networks
This episode of The Moonshot Podcast explores what the mind can teach us about technology and how technology can help our minds.
First, Astro is joined by Sarah Laszlo from Project Valkyrie to discuss how looking at biological brains, such as that of a fruit fly, might unlock the key to more energy-efficient supercomputing.
Next, Astro speaks with Obi Felton who led project Amber, a moonshot that attempted to build a more affordable EEG device that could detect and measure mental health diseases like depression and anxiety.
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Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 16 years of Alphabet’s moonshot factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.
If you want to take your own moonshots, we've developed a certificate course with MasterClass on how to take bold ideas and translate them into real world impact. Check it out here: https://www.masterclass.com/certificates/breakthrough-innovation-strategy-from-bold-idea-to-business-impact

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1 hr
May 06 The Digital Trail
This episode of The Moonshot Podcast explores two ambitious moonshots focused on bringing "visibility" to the world's most complex and opaque digital and physical systems.
First, Astro is joined by Mike Wiacek, Stephen Gillett, and Shapor Naghibzadeh from Chronicle to discuss how they built a digital immune system for cybersecurity, using Google-scale data analysis to detect anomalous activity and combat a global economic threat.
Next, Astro speaks with Steven Chen and Suresh Vishnubhatla from Chorus, a moonshot focused on indexing the physical world to address monumental supply chain waste and inefficiency.
0:00 - Intro
01:25 - The "A-ha" moment that started Chronicle
03:35 - Rethinking the future of cybersecurity
05:17 - Building a "Digital Immune System"
11:35 - The terrifying scale of cyberattacks 10 years ago
13:08 - Understanding the 3 tiers of cybercriminals
15:46 - How Chronicle differed from other cybersecurity tools
19:27 - The “Coming Out” party: taking the tech public
21:12 - Returning to Google
23:23 - Memories and lessons learned from their time at X
24:53 - Enter Project Chorus: Meet Steven and Suresh
26:11 - Solving the supply chain’s biggest blind spot
29:41 - From idea to execution: How Chorus took flight
31:07 - What Chorus offers today
34:26 - A deep dive into the tech
36:46 - The evolution of Chorus
40:27 - How Chorus achieves “System-Wide” visibility
44:17 - Why every item in the supply chain matters
46:07 - Behind the scenes: Funniest project moments
47:28 - How Chorus could fundamentally change the world
48:55 - Final thoughts
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Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 16 years of Alphabet’s moonshot factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.
If you want to take your own moonshots, we've developed a certificate course with MasterClass on how to take bold ideas and translate them into real world impact. Check it out here: https://www.masterclass.com/certificates/breakthrough-innovation-strategy-from-bold-idea-to-business-impact

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51 min
April 29 Silicon Horizons
This episode of The Moonshot Podcast explores how X is reimagining computer chip design to power the next generation of AI.
Computer engineer Tammo Spalink joins host Astro Teller to discuss Project Positron and their radical decision to build "positronic brains" for robots that prioritize real-time response over raw throughput.
Astro then speaks with Raj Apte about Project Bodger, a moonshot that uses AI to design the hardware of the future. By moving away from traditional, hand-drawn architectures and toward "inverse design," the team explores how computers can create chips that are faster and more efficient than anything humans could design on their own.
Finally, the conversation looks toward the future of automated chip design and its role in accelerating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). From personalizing healthcare to solving complex climate challenges, Astro and Raj discuss how these breakthroughs are ensuring the "silent, beating heart" of technology can keep up with our biggest ambitions.
Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 15 years of Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
37 min
April 22 Ocean Fuel, Desert Rain
This episode of The Moonshot Podcast explores two moonshots that investigated very different ways to use water: harvesting it from the air and transforming it into fuel.
Astro Teller first chats with Neil Treat and Claudia Truesdell from Project H2E (“Hydration to Everyone”). The H2E team explored whether it would be possible to improve access to safe drinking water by harvesting water from the air.
Next he sits down with Kathy Hannun from Foghorn, an X project that found a way to pull carbon and hydrogen out of seawater and combine it to create a new type of carbon-neutral fuel. The team successfully created fuel using this method, however they weren’t able to do so at a cost competitive with gasoline.
0:00 - Intro
00:58 - Meet Neil Treat and Claudia Treusdell from H2E
01:48 - The crisis: Global water insecurity
04:14 - The location of water-stressed communities
06:17 - The "Magic Box": Harvesting water from the air
09:00 - Defining H2E’s "Kill Criteria"
09:25 - Mechanics: How the H2e device functioned
11:24 - Engineering the internal air flow
12:51 - Material science: Selecting the right desiccant
14:29 - The "Mule": Prototyping a moonshot
15:24 - Early H2E prototype evolution
16:59 - Surprising engineering hurdles
18:48 - Sharing H2E’s results with the world
20:12 - Could H2E’s moonshot become a reality today?
22:12 -What the H2E team are up to today
24:01 - Project Foghorn: The fuel from the sea
24:49 - The origins of Foghorn
27:09 - Why Foghorn pursued a carbon-neutral fuel for combustion engines
28:59 - The process: Extracting CO2 from seawater
30:35 - Chemistry: Turning ocean water into methanol
33:01 - Foghorn’s "Kill Criteria" and testing
39:13 - Why the project was wound down
42:21 - Lessons learned
43:18 - Remembering Matt Eisaman
44:33 - Conclusion
–
Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 16 years of Alphabet’s moonshot factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.
If you want to take your own moonshots, we've developed a certificate course with MasterClass on how to take bold ideas and translate them into real world impact. Check it out here: https://www.masterclass.com/certificates/breakthrough-innovation-strategy-from-bold-idea-to-business-impact

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
47 min
April 15 Breaking New Ground
This episode of The Moonshot Podcast explores how X, The Moonshot Factory, is reimagining a better way to plan and make smarter, faster building decisions to address the global housing crisis.
Host Astro Teller is joined by architect Michelle Kaufmann to discuss the quest of making sustainable, high-quality homes accessible to everyone through the power of prefabrication and AI. They look back on how the team developed a first-of-its-kind software system that could iterate hundreds of building designs in seconds—essentially creating an "intelligent clay" that calculates costs and structural requirements in real time.
Next, Astro talks with Adrian Walker and Julia Ling about their new venture, Anori. They discuss how generative AI and data-sharing are finally digitizing the construction industry, allowing developers to de-risk projects and optimize for health and sustainability from day one.
Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 15 years of Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
37 min
April 08 Chasing the Wind, Storing the Sun
This episode of The Moonshot Podcast explores X's pursuit of radical solutions to drive energy abundance and resilience for humanity.
Host Astro Teller is joined by Fort Felker to discuss the untold story of the Makani Moonshot, which sought to harvest wind energy in a radically different, lightweight way, using a tethered, kite-like aircraft.
Next, Astro and engineer Raj Apte discusses Project Malta and the idea of creating a "time shifter for energy," exploring innovative ways to store energy until the grid needs it.
Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 15 years of Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
37 min
April 01 Coding The Natural World
This episode of The Moonshot Podcast dives into the future of biology, exploring how to harness life's "tiny factories" to solve humanity's biggest challenges.
Host Astro Teller sits down with Brad Zamft, CEO of Heritable Agriculture, to talk about programming plants to dramatically increase yield, pest, and drought resistance for a more sustainable food system.
Next Astro speaks with Relly Brandman from project A-Life about unlocking the manufacturing power of biology, using AI to create a "virtual cell" that shifts biomanufacturing from slow trial-and-error to a predictable engineering discipline for making materials like medicines, fuels, and textiles.
Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 15 years of Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
40 min
March 25 Supercharging Human Health
The Moonshot Podcast is back!
In the season 2 premiere, X’s Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller explores how three X projects developed technology to transform the future of healthcare.
He first sits down with Kathryn Zealand and Anna Roumiantseva from Skip to hear about how the world’s first “e-bike for walking” evolved from their team’s mobility moonshot at X. They recount how an early prototype of Skip’s powered pants helped carry a colleague to top of the Salesforce Tower, and share how the product has developed since spinning out into an independent company (Astro even tries a pair on for size to see their progress firsthand).
Microelectronics expert Will Biederman then joins Astro for a conversation about the origins of Project Iris, a computerized contact lens designed to help measure diabetes risk, which laid the foundation for the continuous glucose monitors that millions of people use today. Finally, Astro chats with Verily CEO Stephen Gillet to hear about his mission to make precision healthcare accessible to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
0:00 - Intro
1:08 - Meet Kathryn Zealand and Anna Roumiantseva, Skip
1:57 - An “e-bike for walking”
2:35 - Why mobility needs a moonshot
3:42 - Limitations with current mobility solutions
6:19 - Criteria for the world’s first “movewear”
7:37 - Understanding the complexities of human motion
9:13 - How much weight Skip’s pants can carry
9:40 - Racing to the top of the Salesforce Tower
13:54 - Skip’s partnership with Arc’teryx
14:40 - The “kill criteria” for Skip’s moonshot
17:29 - Astro tries Skip’s pants on for size
18:55 - Meet Will Biederman, Project Iris
19:26 - Can a computerized contact lens help prevent diabetes?
20:19 - The potential worldwide impact of glucose monitoring
20:52 - Can tears help measure glucose?
22:50 - How to put a computer into a contact lens
24:11 - Project Iris’s early findings using glasses
25:20 - Fitting the “world’s smallest batteries” onto a contact lens
26:18 - A close-up view of the Project Iris contact lens
28:55 - How Project Iris transformed continuous glucose monitoring
31:18 - The origins of the Dexcom 7
32:08 - How glucose monitoring could lead to other health breakthroughs
32:55 - The future of everyday medical technologies
33:42 - Liftware’s “robot in a spoon” to counter tremors
34:16 - Meet Steven Gillett, Verily CEO
35:09 - Verily’s mission to democratize precision healthcare
36:30 - How Verily can aggregate a person’s entire medical history
39:05 - How Verily’s technology keeps private data secure
39:43 - Steve’s vision for how Verily can change the world
41:17 - What needs to happen in order to reach autonomous healthcare
42:27 - Conclusion
–
Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with creators and inventors trying to find radical solutions and breakthrough technologies to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories of innovation from 16 years of Alphabet’s moonshot factory.
The Moonshot Podcast is a Pique Action production for X, The Moonshot Factory, produced in association with Blanchard House.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
45 min

About The Moonshot Podcast

From the publisher's feed

The Moonshot Podcast chronicles the untold stories of innovation - both highs and lows - from inside Google’s Moonshot Factory. In Season 2, Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with a…