The Moonshot Podcast

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

Will Biederman, microelectronics expert behind Project Iris who helped enable modern continuous glucose monitors. Kathryn Zealand, physicist who co-created Skip’s powered movewear to boost everyday mobility. They discuss powered pants as an “e-bike for walking,” on-body sensors and AI for intuitive movement, noninvasive tear-based glucose sensing, packing compute into tiny wearables, and how these moonshots pivoted toward real-world healthcare impact.

A preview of new moonshot projects in health, biology, computing and more. Conversations about high-risk, high-reward ideas and the urgency to act on them now. Reflections on messy creativity, embracing failure, and the joy of building bold new inventions.

In the ninth installment of the Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive series, Astro Teller and Emily Ma explore how to solve humanity’s food waste and hunger problems. They discuss how Project Delta built an “air traffic control” system for the world’s surplus food. They also discuss the origins of Chorus, X’s moonshot to give every object a voice which is now focused on optimizing global supply chains using advanced sensors and orchestration software. For more on the future of food waste, tune into Episode 6 of the Moonshot Podcast, “Trash to Treasure”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgRASA92Dco Video Segmentation 00:00 - Introduction 01:38 - The origins of Emily’s passion for food waste 04:07 - Why food waste is such a big problem 07:09 - How Emily wound up at X 10:24 - Google Glass in early food waste prototypes 12:06 - Emily’s “waste audit” sifting through physical trash 15:08 - How food is wasted in every phase of the production process 20:36 - An “air traffic control” system for the world’s surplus food 23:54 - How X’s food waste technology helped tackle that surplus 29:25 - What the team learned by working in the field 30:40 - Food waste “nodes” to reroute surplus food 33:34 - Applying X’s food waste technology outside the U.S. 35:41 - The team’s early vision for a supply chain moonshot - Chorus 39:56 - How Chorus evolved from the Delta team 41:26 - How Delta graduated to Google 45:06 - Emily’s fondest moonshot memories 46:54 - The importance of play when taking moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a captivating discussion, Jason Rugolo, Founder of iyO and former researcher at X, dives into the groundbreaking world of audio wearables. He shares insights on the unexpected applications of machine-mediated hearing and the challenges of designing stylish, comfortable audio devices. Jason unveils the possibilities of real-time translation and hearing protection, as well as the innovative technology behind the first audio computer. With a focus on merging functionality and fashion, he explores how to make audio wearables appealing to the masses.

In this installment of the Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive series, Astro Teller explores the origins of Google Glass with designers Ivy Ross and Isabelle Olsson. They discuss the unexpected design and tech challenges the team faced creating such a bold new form factor, the surprising ways people ended up wanting to use Glass, how their backgrounds in art influenced their approach, and the importance of timing when creating new technologies. For more on Glass’s early days, tune into Episode 9 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Supersenses”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlpF2QJNL5Y 00:00 - Introduction 01:43 - How Isabelle wound up at X 03:37 - How Ivy came to X 07:25 - The big challenges Glass was solving 11:04 - The origins of the Glass Explorer Program 11:43 - Glass’s public debut 14:46 - Ivy’s earliest memories of Glass in action 18:37 - How art influenced the design of Glass 22:19 - Glass’s second generation design 27:20 - From sunglasses to monocles: Early design debates 31:30 - Surprising “fringe” uses of Glass in industry 34:33 - Reinventing Glass for industry 35:47 - Why timing matters 41:45 - Memorable team traditions 44:50 - When Glass moved from X to Google 47:41 - Early explorations with the Google Watch 49:37 - Lessons learned from taking moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Guerena, an Agricultural Scientist at CIAT, shares insights into the future of agriculture and the vital role of plant breeding. He discusses the historical journey of plant domestication and the challenges faced by smallholder farmers, particularly relating to climate change. Guerena emphasizes the impact of technological advancements in phenotyping and how these innovations help enhance crop resilience. The conversation also highlights the importance of preserving agricultural biodiversity and adapting modern tools to support small farms worldwide.

In this conversation, Jeff Dean, Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind, shares his journey from childhood coding to revolutionizing AI. He recounts the moment AI first fascinated him and the origins of Google Brain. The discussion dives into the team's groundbreaking advancements in image recognition and speech-to-text. Jeff also explores the significance of neural networks' scaling and reflects on the creation of TensorFlow and TPUs. With insights into the future of AI, he emphasizes the importance of design over mere production in technology.

Andrew Ng, AI researcher and entrepreneur who founded Google Brain and Coursera. He talks about the early days of neural networks and the scale-driven ideas that sparked Google Brain. He recalls the famous cat video discovery, hardware choices like GPUs and TPUs, transformer roots, and how foundation models enable many new applications.

Catie Cuan, a robot choreographer and former artist in residence at Everyday Robots, seeks to humanize robotics through dance. She discusses how movement can make robots appear less mechanical and more relatable. Catie shares her insights on teaching robots human social cues and how transforming robotic motion into music nurtures emotional connections. She also emphasizes the importance of designing robots that don't look overtly robotic, aiming to alleviate humanity's fears and foster a future where robots enhance daily life.