Astro Teller, CEO of X, Alphabet’s “moon factory”, where the company incubates the near-impossible, shared a look at what makes a moonshot and detailed the company’s “fail fast” mantra at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 conference on Monday.
Notable companies that started out as moonshots from the X factory are Waymo and Wing.
Teller noted that X has a “2% success rate,” meaning that most of the things the company tries don’t work, and that’s okay.
He said that X defines that a moonshine has three specific components. The first is that he must try to solve a huge problem in the world. Second, there must be some kind of product or service that, however unlikely, will make the problem go away. Finally, there must be some kind of breakthrough technology that would provide a glimmer of hope for solving this huge, real-world problem.
“If you were working on X and you ended up with a teleporter, you have a moonshot story hypothesis, I’d say, great, here’s a tiny amount of money, go see if you can prove it wrong, because it probably is,” he said. “I don’t want you to make it work. I want you to get information about whether this is truly a once-in-a-generation opportunity or not, and it’s okay if the answer is no.”
Teller went on to note that if someone suggests a moonshot, and it sounds reasonable, the company doesn’t care, because that, by definition, wouldn’t be a moonshot. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. that’s just not what X is looking for.
“If you propose something and it sounds really wild, it has these three ingredients that I just described and it’s a controlled hypothesis, for a small amount of money, we can learn something about whether it’s a little bit crazier than we thought or a little less crazy than we thought,” Teller said. “If it’s a little crazier than we thought, cool, high five, let’s put a bullet in its head and move on. And if it’s a little less crazy than we thought, great, here’s some more money. Go find the next chance to kill it and repeat.”
Teller emphasized that to make lunar shots, you have to have equal amounts of audacity and humility.
“Unless you’re really brave, you’re not going to embark on these really incredible journeys,” he said. “But if you have anything less than truly high humility, you will go bright and far on this unlikely journey.”
X starts more than 100 things every year, and while 2% of them manage to exit five or six years later, 44% of all the money the company spends is on things that graduate and are “outrageously good,” Teller said. He says this is because X “kills all the bad ideas early enough in the process.”
Teller stated that people can learn to innovate, noting that every person was creative as a child, but we end up unlearning things that are useful, perhaps even necessary, for radical innovation. However, he says it’s possible to find these things again by creating an environment where you don’t feel silly going to find them.
