Astro Teller at the DFJ LP Mtg: “At Google X we focus on customer value creation, and the revenue opportunities follow.”

Here are some of the questions I prepared for the fireside chat last night:

X
-Why Google X? Why moonshot thinking?
-How can big companies innovate?
-Why don’t they?
-Must they innovate outside the core?
oAdjacent markets?
oCommon processes (e.g., machine learning)
-Does it take special governance protections to transcend short-term thinking?

Loon
-OK, was the name chosen to disarm critics? =)
-How did you get permission to do fly overs?
-Is there a framework for when one can “seek forgiveness vs. permission”?
-What are the goals of Loon?
-Wow, this could enable a world where governments can’t censor their people or cut off communication (like Turkey recently tried to do with Twitter). This sounds like a really good idea to everyone except repressive regimes, yes?

Autonomous Cars (my three rides)
-OK, so what’s up with the Hello Kitty cute look? =)
-What do we expect the timeline to be? Might our kids never need to drive?
-What is the long-term future of transportation?
-It must be a fascinating exercise to think about how one sequences the market entry
oStraight to consumer benefit (and not long-distance trucking)
oNew entrants can be bold (versus automotive incumbents who want to incrementally improve cruise control)
•Isn’t it interesting that the two most innovative automotive companies are new entrants in Silicon Valley?

Glass
-What was the original enthusiasm for Glass? Augmented reality? As a possible future of search?
-How has that thinking changed?
-Is it primarily a social research tool so far?

Contacts
-Is this like the Dick Tracy watch… 20 years before its time?
-Take Glass to the masses?
-How do you decide when to partner for joint development?

Wing UAV
-Will you bundle this with a Prayer? Ha!
-Does the fixed wing approach solve the battery life problems of drone delivery?
-What was the brainstroming process that led to Wing?
-Is this part of a family of products?
-What does this enable? (Just-in-time resource sharing.)

Makani / Kite Power
-Why is Google engaged in energy projects?
-How do you stage gate a project like this? (does it need to hit certain targets of competitiveness to keep going?)
-How do you think about build vs acquire? Internal projects vs. ecosystem outside

Photo by my partner Josh