The Moonshot Podcast

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

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

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

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

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