CEO of Google X Labs and Stanford alum Eric “Astro” Teller ’93 encouraged students to search for science fiction-sounding solutions to world pro

‘A moonshot story’: Q&A with CEO Astro Teller

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2023-01-25 11:30:17

CEO of Google X Labs and Stanford alum Eric “Astro” Teller ’93 encouraged students to search for science fiction-sounding solutions to world problems and craft their “moonshot story” during a Q&A event hosted by the Stanford Moonshot Club on Jan. 19.

Teller is an American entrepreneur, inventor and author. He is the CEO and founder of Alphabet’s X, formerly known as Google X, a research and development company that focuses on developing new technologies such as Google Glass, Project Loon and Waymo. Teller also co-founded Cerebellum Capital, a hedge fund that uses machine learning to inform its investment strategies.

The event, attended by students and faculty, was moderated by Moonshot officers Jason Lin ’25, Kaien Yang ’25 and Nicole Segaran ’25. The talk was divided into three sections, including a query created by ChatGPT.

In section one, “Astro’s experience,” Teller touched on the qualities of a “moonshot” project. According to Teller, a successful “just shy of bonkers” proposal is divided into three steps: first, define a problem; second, propose a radical solution, some kind of science fiction-sounding product; third, test the product, and as long as you learn something during the process, consider the learning journey a success.

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