Fireside chat with Astro Teller, Head of Moonshots at Google, at the DFJ LP Mtg last night: “At Google X we focus on customer value creation, and the revenue opportunities follow.”
We got amazingly positive feedback on his talk. (one example: “That was literally spine tingling knock it out of the park tonight!”) Here are some of the questions I prepared for the fireside chat last night:
– Why Google X? Why moonshot thinking?
– How can big companies innovate?
– Why don’t they?
– Must they innovate outside the core?
o Adjacent markets?
o Common 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 https://www.flickr.com/search?sort=relevance&user_id=44124348109@N01&text=google robo car
– 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
o Straight to consumer benefit (and not long-distance trucking)
o New 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: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/8393817306
– 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
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