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

The Moonshot Podcast is back! 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 new crop of moonshot takers exploring the next frontiers in health, biology, computing and more. From energy kites and robotic pants, to sea fuel and digital immune systems, go behind the scenes with the inventors and creators working to turn "what if" into what’s next. Available from March 25, wherever you get your podcasts.

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

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 the eighth installment of the Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive series, Astro Teller discusses the future of audio wearables with iyO Founder Jason Rugolo. They discuss the many unexpected use cases for machine-mediated hearing, what it was like to build the world’s first audio computer and how to make audio wearables “cool.” For more on the origins of iyO and the next generation of audio wearable technology, tune into Episode 9 of the Moonshot Podcast, “Supersenses”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlpF2QJNL5Y 00:00 - Introduction 02:17 - The first company Jason started at age 14 04:02 - How Jason came to X 06:40 - Jason’s earliest “fail fast” moonshot ideas 09:54 - The importance of being “the right amount too early” 12:45 - Radical idea for digital humans 14:59 - Early explorations into tele-video 18:49 - The original pitch for what became iyO 22:24 - Why designing great wearables for the ear is so hard 24:52 - Design considerations for audio wearables 29:41 - Making audio wearables “cool” 31:32 - The limitations of current in-ear devices 32:33 - The “superpowers” we’d have with machine-mediated hearing 35:30 - Building the first audio computer 36:30 - What the team’s first audio wearable looked like 38:01 - How audio wearables could help with translation 40:55 - The potential for wearables to protect from hearing loss 41:57 - The future of “hearing enhancement” apps 44:45 - The unexpected value of voice-to-audio interaction 48:34 - Astro’s “holy s**t” moment with audio wearables 52:26 - Why audio wearables need to change sound sources so quickly 55:47 - iyO’s public debut 57:23 - Surprising agentic AI use cases 58:50 - Physics conversations with the Einstein app using iyO 01:00:58 - Musical conversations with the iyO DJ app using iyO 01:01:51 - Jason’s hard-won lessons from taking moonshots

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

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

In the sixth installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive series, X’s Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller, discusses plant breeding and the future of agriculture with Agricultural Scientist, David Guerena. David works with The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) — a partner of Mineral, X’s moonshot for computational agriculture. They discuss plant breeding, the challenges facing smallholder farmers around the world, and how the tools Mineral developed are helping plant breeders grow more resilient crops. For more on Mineral’s impact on agriculture, check out Episode 4 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Feeding the World”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQS3lY6pRvY And to learn more about how Mineral’s technology is being used by public plant breeding programs in the Global South, check out The Artemis Project: https://alliancebioversityciat.org/projects/artemis 00:00 - Introduction 1:09 - Why humans eat certain plants 3:20 - How plants have historically been domesticated 4:53 - The origins of plant breeding 6:52 - The changing face of plant breeding 8:42 - Gene banks that preserve genetic diversity 10:22 - Helping small farmers with plant breeding 12:33 - How David’s career started 14:00 - The process of identifying and cataloguing plants 23:32 - CIAT and CGIAR’s partnership with Mineral 26:13 - Mineral’s technology 32:59 - Unexpected findings from Mineral’s early days 38:40 - Solving for the biggest challenges in plant breeding 40:08 - Phenotyping 101 41:06 - The impact of Mineral’s technology 44:39 - The challenges of existing breeding systems 50:10 - The future of computational agriculture 57:00 - The impact of AI on plant breeders and farmers 59:19 - A surprising insight about bean cooking time 1:01:47 - The future of plant breeding 1:03:58 - David, finally, talks about Bruno

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

In the fifth installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive video interview series, X’s Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with Google DeepMind’s Chief Scientist Jeff Dean for a conversation about the origin of Jeff’s pioneering work scaling neural networks. They discuss the first time AI captured Jeff’s imagination, the earliest Google Brain framework, the team’s stratospheric advancements in image recognition and speech-to-text, how AI is evolving, and more. For more on X’s AI moonshots, check out Jeff on Episode 3 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Machines That Think”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLPA8Qpc74 00:00 - Introduction 00:35 - What Jeff’s childhood was like 03:50 - The first “non-trivial” thing Jeff coded 05:02 - Jeff’s “love/hate” relationship with C++ 06:59 - The first time AI captured Jeff’s imagination 10:40 - When neural networks fell “out of vogue” 12:24 - How Jeff made a career out of “starting over” 14:23 - The origins of Google Brain 17:30 - Critical components of scaling neural networks 18:43 - The earliest Google Brain framework 19:32 - How the team first built a 100x bigger neural network 22:04 - The cat video that started it all 25:02 - Google Brain’s major progress on image recognition 26:24 - Google Brain’s major progress on speech to text 27:29 - The origins of TensorFlow and TPUs 31:56 - Three breakthroughs in understanding language models 37:41 - Where Jeff thinks the world is headed 40:07 - The shift from “making things” to designing prompts 42:38 - How Jeff uses AI to enhance his own life 43:51 - Safety, security, and privacy in AI 50:26 - The future of understanding neural network behavior 53:34 - When computers are “smarter” than humans 56:52 - Jeff’s next-five-years plan

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

In the fourth installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive video interview series, X’s Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with Andrew Ng, the founder of Google Brain and DeepLearning.AI, for a conversation about the history of neural network research and how Andrew’s pioneering ideas led to some of the biggest breakthroughs in modern-day AI. Hear about the origins of Google’s deep learning work, how Andrew’s teenage frustrations led him to pursue a career in machine learning and automation, and the work that led up to Google Brain’s infamous “cat video” paper. For more on X’s AI moonshots, check out Andrew on Episode 3 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Machines That Think”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLPA8Qpc74

00:00 - Introduction 03:30 - Andrew’s groundbreaking early theories about neural networks 08:16 - Why Andrew came to X with his ideas 10:30 - The unlikely history of neural network research 15:25 - Jeff Dean as Andrew’s “partner in crime” 17:16 - The origins of Google Brain’s neural networks 18:32 - Google Brain’s evolution in and out of hardware 22:01 - Google Brain’s innovation around transformers 24:36 - Google Brain’s earliest leaps forward in AI 28:24 - Google Brain’s graduation from X into Google 31:50 - What Andrew is up to these days 34:07 - Where the AI and machine learning field is going 35:19 - Andrew’s passion for education 36:51 - Why Andrew became interested in AI as a teenager 37:53 - AI’s democratizing effect on humanity 41:34 - How Andrew defines the term “artificial intelligence” 43:51 - Google Brain’s “cat video” coming out moment 45:51 - AI’s potential positive impact on the workforce 47:17 - Andrew’s favorite aspects of moonshot-taking

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

In the third installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive video interview series, X’s Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with Dr. Catie Cuan, robot choreographer and former artist in residence at Everyday Robots, for a conversation about how dance can be used to build beautiful and useful robots that people want to be around. Watch the video to hear how Catie and the Everyday Robots team transformed robotic motion into music, what it feels like when she’s dancing with a robot and why she’s “hyper-optimistic” about the future of robotics. For more, check out Catie on Episode 5 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Living With Robots”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUcB73KgEVs 00:00 - Introduction 00:29 - Catie’s mission to make robots more humanistic and whimsical 02:12 - How Catie came to X and Everyday Robots 03:40 - Using dance to make robots less “robotic” 07:38 - Teaching robots human social cues 11:00 - Transforming robotic motion into sound with “music mode” 15:16 - Programming robots to “flock” together like animals 18:31 - How young kids interact with robots 20:15 - Catie’s own experience interacting with her robots 22:18 - Working with experts outside the field 24:36 - Designing robots to not look like “robots” 28:44 - Helping humanity face their visceral fear of robots 32:40 - The moonshot and legacy of Everyday Robots 35:42 - Catie’s advice for moonshot-takers 37:27 - Catie’s vision for what the future looks like

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

In the second installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive video interview series, X’s Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with André Prager, former Chief Engineer at Wing, for a conversation about the early days of Wing and how the team solved some of their toughest engineering challenges to develop simple, lightweight, inexpensive delivery drones that are now being used every day across three continents. Watch the video to hear the story of André’s earliest inventions as a teenager, the surprising discovery that led the Wing team to rethink the drones’ sound, why engineering often feels like creating art, and more. For more, check out André on Episode 1 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Driving the Future”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXGnjbkFLeo

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