Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

“You learn nothing when you’re right.” 
Effective communication isn’t about having all the answers. As Astro Teller knows, it’s about finding, and sometimes fumbling, your way through the questions. As Captain of Moonshots at X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory, Teller embraces what he calls “a learning journey,” where being wrong isn’t the end, but an opportunity to discover something new. In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Teller and Matt Abrahams discuss how embracing uncertainty drives innovation, why leaders should reward learning over outcomes, and why sometimes being wrong is the best way to learn.

Takeaways:
  • Being wrong is where learning happens. Treating failure as useful information rather than something to avoid helps you stay curious, test assumptions, and discover better paths forward. 
  • Reward the habits that lead to innovation, not just the outcomes. Focusing on curiosity, humility, and experimentation creates space for people to take meaningful risks and pursue ideas that may not work the first time. 

Activity:
  • Find the failure faster. Choose one idea or project you’re confident about and identify the assumption most likely to prove you wrong. Design one small test that could challenge that assumption, then treat whatever you learn as progress.

Episode Reference Links:

Connect:

 Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (01:33) - Defining a Moonshot
  • (03:35) - Building a Learning Mindset
  • (06:15) - Learning vs. Productivity
  • (07:50) - Sharing Learning Across Teams
  • (10:04) - Rewarding Habits, Not Outcomes
  • (12:32) - Destigmatizing Failure
  • (15:12) - Moonshots in Action
  • (18:51) - Storytelling for Understanding
  • (20:11) - Using Analogies Effectively
  • (22:15) - Fostering Creativity Through Play
  • (25:20) - Hiring for a Moonshot Culture
  • (27:57) - The Moonshot Podcast
  • (29:44) - The Final Three Questions
  • (34:19) - Conclusion

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Creators and Guests

Host
Matt Abrahams
Lecturer Stanford University Graduate School of Business | Think Fast Talk Smart podcast host
Guest
Astro Teller
Captain of Moonshots (CEO) of X

What is Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques?

One of the most essential ingredients to success in business and life is effective communication.

Join Matt Abrahams, best-selling author and Strategic Communication lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as he interviews experts to provide actionable insights that help you communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact. From handling impromptu questions to crafting compelling messages, Matt explores practical strategies for real-world communication challenges.

Whether you’re navigating a high-stakes presentation, perfecting your email tone, or speaking off the cuff, Think Fast, Talk Smart equips you with the tools, techniques, and best practices to express yourself effectively in any situation. Enhance your communication skills to elevate your career and build stronger professional relationships.

Tune in every Monday and Thursday for new episodes. Subscribe now to unlock your potential as a thoughtful, impactful communicator. Learn more and sign up for our Newsletter at fastersmarter.io.

Big ideas require us to think differently
about failure, learning, and creativity.

My name is Matt Abrahams and I
teach strategic communication at

Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to this special Rethinks episode
of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

My conversation with Astro Teller
changed the way I think about what

it takes to pursue ambitious ideas.

Astro shared so many insights about
learning from failure, fostering

creativity, and making big ideas
understandable that I wanted to

bring his advice back for all of you.

And this time, we're sharing the
extended version of our conversation.

Enjoy.

The best communication is
architected for understanding.

My name is Matt Abrahams, and I
teach Strategic Communication at

Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to Think Fast,
Talk Smart, the podcast.

Today, I am really excited
to speak with Astro Teller.

Astro is a computer scientist,
entrepreneur, and inventor.

He serves as captain of moonshots
at X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory,

where he oversees audacious
high-impact technology projects.

He has written two novels and the
nonfiction book, Sacred Cows: The

Truth About Divorce and Marriage,
that he co-wrote with his wife.

He's also a new podcaster,
hosting the really fun and

insightful The Moonshot Podcast.

Welcome, Astro.

I am super excited to
be chatting with you.

I've been excited ever
since we arranged this.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Excellent.

Shall we get started?

Yeah, let's do it.

To begin, I'd love for you to define for
our audience what you mean by a moonshot.

Sure.

So we think of this as the
blueprint for moonshots.

And in order for us to have
something that counts as a moonshot,

it has to have three components.

One, there has to be a huge
problem with the world that you

can name and you want to solve.

Number two, there has to be some kind
of radical proposed solution that

however unlikely it is you could make
that thing, this is like a science

fiction sounding product or service.

We could agree ahead of time if
you could make it, it would resolve

that huge problem with the world.

And then three, there has to be some
kind of breakthrough technology that

gives us at least a glimmer of a hope
that we could make that science fiction

sounding product or service that would
solve that huge problem with the world.

Once you have those three
things, we're not done.

That means you have a
moonshot story hypothesis.

You have a testable hypothesis.

And from there, the question is, how
quickly can we verify that you're wrong

so we can move on to the next idea?

Because anything that fits those three
criteria that I just named, exciting

as they are, it is exactly because it
is so unlikely to work that we have to

be constantly pursuing the reality that
each one of them is likely to be wrong.

So the goal is actually to come
up with these audacious ideas

and strivings, and then to as
quickly as possible negate them.

Yeah, of course, we want any
particular moonshot we come up

with to turn out to be a once in a
generation opportunity for the world.

But since most of them aren't, wanting
to win, wanting to get it to be right

each time leads to sadness after sadness,
and denial kicks in that slows up the

efficiency of being the learning machine
that we would aspire to be, verifying

which of the many that we've started
is in fact worth doubling down on.

You said several things there
I want to dive deeper into.

So you see this as learning, and
it's a learning machine, as you

said, which leads me to wonder, is
there a particular type of mindset

that you try to bring about in your
organization that looks at it this way?

Because many people don't
think of projects this way.

They start a project, they want it
to be successful, not let's start

a project and figure out all the
reasons why it won't be successful.

Can you talk a little
bit about that mindset?

Sure.

Let me give you one or two examples.

I mean, the first is, if you were
working at X, I would say, "Can we

pre-agree before you've come up with
something and then fallen in love with

it, that if it's a 1 in 100 chance of
working, it has a 99% chance of not

working?" Which means that if you tie
your sense of self-worth to getting

a yes, you're just lying to yourself.

You think that you're the 1% and you're
always gonna win, but this can't be Lake

Wobegon, where we're all above average.

So that's one way to help put
some intellectual guardrails

around what we're about to go do.

Here's another way of doing it.

Think of the last really hard
thing that you and a team did.

I'd ask each of your
listeners to think about that.

Now imagine you lose all the hardware,
all of the software, anything except

what's in your and your team's heads.

How long, once you've succeeded,
would it take for you to go back

and rebuild the solution, having
already verified what it is?

Most people say somewhere between
5 and 20% of the time that it took.

And for moonshots, it's
much closer to 5% than 20%.

Let's call it 10% on average.

What are we gonna call
that other 90% of the work?

It's learning.

Most of the work isn't
the making of stuff.

It's the learning what to make.

And the more you're shooting over the
horizon, which is what a moonshot is,

the more of the journey is exploration,
not the settling that happens afterwards.

So if you agree conceptually,
intellectually, that we're on a

learning journey, then scary as it
is to be wrong, we need to focus on

the moments where we learn something.

And when do you learn something?

You learn something when you have a model
about the world, and then in some way you

get some data that tells you you're wrong.

You learn nothing when you're right.

At best, you deepen grooves in your brain.

If you're wrong, whatever else
we wanna call it, that feels bad.

That's a failure of a kind.

If you hate failure, you will emotionally
avoid that moment, which means

you're emotionally avoiding learning.

If we just agreed we're gonna spend
90 plus percent of our time learning,

then we need to de-stigmatize
failure so we can have our learning

loops be as tight as possible.

So a moonshot mindset is really
about seeing learning as the goal.

How do you inculcate and support
that, and how do you produce

anything if, for many companies,
productivity is what's the goal?

So how do you produce the amazing things
that you've done and help people see

learning as the goal, not productivity?

It's very hard to prevent
people from chasing progress.

Even at X, there's a decent amount
of it, even though I'm constantly

going around trying to stamp it out
and redirect people towards learning.

So it's not hard for the end result
of a lot of learning to turn into

something very valuable that looks
ultimately like great progress.

During the journey, the thing that is
hardest to fight is you feel, especially

once you've done some learning and
you've found something that works, it's

so hard for you as an X-er not to feel
like, "I found it. I'm right. Now just

let me build it, and then I'll give it
to the world and we're gonna be great."

And I just have to say, we, the leadership
at X, have to say over and over again, "I

know it feels like you've found it, and
you know more about the teleporter, if

that's what you're working on, than I do.

But I'm telling you from induction,
having watched this hundreds of

times now, you're not correct yet.

You have a lot to learn, and what you
think is the answer isn't the answer.

It's not that I don't
want you to be right.

It's just my experience tells me you have
a lot more to learn, so I need you to

stay in learning mode, keep your humility
and your curiosity really high for

another two or three years." It's helping
people to do that that's really hard.

I find it really interesting that
humility and curiosity are what

keep the flames going for learning.

How do you capture the learning
across the different teams?

We had Amy Edmondson on, and she talks
a lot about the right kind of failure

and learning from the failure and
the processes you can put in place.

What are some of the best practices
you've implemented so if somebody learns

something, that learning is cascaded so
others can benefit from that learning?

There's a bunch of different ways.

The truth is, some of it is just
institutional knowledge, and that's

sort of a background radiation
that's very real at X. There are

lots of things that we capture.

We actually have a document called
headwinds and tailwinds to remind

us of some of these learnings.

These kinds of things
tend to be tailwinds.

In our experience, these kinds
of things tend to be headwinds.

That doesn't mean you can't ignore one of
them if you want to or if you think it's

worth it, but these are good reminders
from the past that we've learned.

We have maybe 20% of the people who
work at X aren't on one of the projects.

They're in these central teams.

So this is like finance, legal, public
policy, some business development, a

lot of sort of hardware prototyping.

And what happens is they go over
here and they help the teleporter

team, and then they go over here
and they help the time machine team.

And so they act as a kind of vector,
transplanting interesting ideas and

learnings from one team to another.

So even if those teams don't talk to
each other very much, because they share

these central teams, the central teams
can move good ideas back and forth.

So you actually have a structural
element where there are people spoke

and hub, and the, those folks in the
hub bring those learnings across.

I find that really helpful for
other people to think about in their

organizations how they might do that.

Yeah.

It is hub and spoke from a help
perspective, but it is not as the concept

or the visualization of hub and spoke
might imply, a highly top-down process.

Discovery is mostly a bottoms-up process.

It's very hard to dictate, so you
have to create some structure and

guardrails, but then let people
be pretty free range within those

guardrails, or they won't ultimately
find things that are unexpected.

So you have to have just enough boundary
setting to keep things moving forward, but

not so much that people can't be creative.

And we've seen that a lot.

We've talked a lot about improvisation
and how that mindset helps.

In, in improv, they have some rules, and
that's what allows for that creativity.

Right.

Let me give you an example.

Obviously, we have to have a
performance management system.

It'd be weird if we didn't.

The temptation across the whole world,
so including at the Moonshot Factory, is

to have our performance management system
be one that rewards people for outcomes.

You rang the bell, you got the million
dollars or the big deal you signed.

Good for you, bonus,
promotion, whatever that is.

That is the death of radical innovation,
because if I'm asking you to do things

that have a one in 100 chance of success,
and then you get rewarded on the basis

of a yes, of a success, you will very
quickly learn to pretend you're doing

radical innovation, but find ways to get
the safety of like, "Okay, maybe it's not

as radical, maybe it's not as innovative,
but I'll dress it up so it looks like

that, and I'm pretty sure I can make
this work even if it's not that exciting.

And so I'm gonna focus on this
thing because I know I'm only

gonna get rewarded when I get a
yes." All humans will do that.

And so the performance management system
we have directs people back towards

the habits, not towards the outcomes.

What are the kinds of things like humility
and curiosity that tend to have wild

success as a long-term side effect?

And then you have to trust, and this is a
big, scary trust fall, that those outcomes

will happen when you focus on the habits.

And you have good
evidence that will happen.

It's harder from a management point of
view to measure those kind of things

versus did you ring the bell or not?

That's a very binary, easy thing to do.

So you have to have more flexibility and
openness as managers, I guess, as well.

Yeah, and this is a struggle to this
day at X. It is so much harder to train

managers to hold people accountable to
habits rather than to outcomes, that

they routinely will try to find ways to
hack the system so that they can reward

people for outcomes, or they'll gripe
about their performance management system.

I get it.

And that's an example where we're
trying to create some guardrails, let

them use some creativity within those
guardrails, but also make sure that

they're pointed, in this case, towards
the habits rather than the outcomes.

I really like this idea of rewarding
people for habits, not for outcomes.

I really wanna dive deeper into
this notion of failing fast and

looking how to kill projects.

Can you share a little bit about that?

And you do some kind of celebration,
the Dia de los Muertos, that I'd

love to hear a bit about as well.

Sure.

We have a lot of traditions.

That's one that we, we haven't done in
a few years, but we did it for 7 or 8

years, the Day of the Dead celebration.

In order to help people feel good,
or at least not avoid failures at X,

we have to help them destigmatize it.

In order to destigmatize it, you can get
at that in a bunch of different ways.

But some of it is, it is sad to
have something that you worked

on for a long time need to stop.

And we set up a remembrance party.

So the Day of the Dead is a very
long-standing tradition for remembering

people who've gone from our lives.

And so by doing that and sort of
respecting that aspect of the tradition,

but adding to it the sadness we
have about people who've just left

X, they're not dead, they've just
left X. We're remembering projects

that were really touching to us.

We wish they could have made it, but
for a variety of reasons they didn't.

It allows us the catharsis and the
grieving, after which we can move on

from it a lot more productively than
if we're holding on to that sadness,

and often then projecting anger at
whoever made us stop doing that.

What I find really interesting in
what you said is you're really taking

care not just of the act, but also
the emotion that people feel about it.

So you worked hard on this thing, and
maybe it didn't go where you wanted

it But you have an emotion and an
attachment to that, and you're allowing

people to recognize it and express
it in a way to hopefully move on.

Even in a widget factory, humans aren't
robots, and it doesn't go super well

trying to treat them like robots.

But the more you want people to show
up in ways that are creative, that get

the most out of themselves, where they
bring the most interesting parts of

themselves to work and combine them in
an important unexpected alchemy that

turns into something like self-driving
cars over time, the more you have

to recognize the things that hold
them back are mostly here in their

hearts and down here in their guts.

Their heads are fine.

The number of people in any
organization who need to leave because

they're incompetent is very low.

The number of people who don't work out
for other reasons, most of those reasons

are style reasons, their egos are too
large or too brittle or whatever that is.

That's all about their
hearts and their guts.

It's not about their heads.

Absolutely.

I want to take a step back.

We haven't actually heard
from you an example or two of

what you guys have created.

Can you share one moonshot that
was successful so we can have

an appreciation of the different
types of things you work on?

Let me give a few examples.

Google Brain, which is one of the
places that caused the explosion of

industrialized machine learning that is
now the sort of hot topic in the world,

that came from X. That's an example.

Uh, the self-driving cars, now called
Waymo, those came from X. Uh, Wing, the

drones for package delivery, which are
actually doing almost as well as Waymo,

and people haven't caught on that it's
going to be as big a deal, that came from

X. And I will give some more examples,
but let me use Waymo as an example.

So this is now 15 years ago.

Huge problem with the world.

More than a million people a
year die in car accidents in the

world because of human error.

More than a trillion dollars is
wasted between sitting in traffic

and all of the costs of the
accidents, even leaving death aside.

Between a million lives and a trillion
dollars, that's a problem worth fixing.

Radical proposed solution: what if, just
like we got to the place with elevators

where we realized you didn't have to have
a human driving the elevator, you could

just trust the elevator to drive itself,
we can get behind the idea that if they

could drive themselves, we could get to
the place where these metal boxes, like

an elevator, take the passengers where
they need to go, and you just push a

button and say, "Here's where I want to
go," and it takes you there much safer.

And there's all kinds of benefits,
including maybe particularly the lives

that are being saved, because those metal
boxes can now take themselves there much,

much safer than a human driving the car.

So that's the radical proposed solution.

And then there was a set of, at the time,
new technologies, how to coordinate LiDAR,

radar, and cameras around a vehicle.

There'd been some evidence before we
started on what is now called Waymo from

the DARPA Grand Challenges, the first of
which in 2006 was won by Stanford here.

That car was called Stanley.

And DARPA, just so people understand,
is something that the US federal

government, it's a funding source
for creative ideas that can be

used for defense and other things.

Exactly.

And so there was this worldwide,
or at least countrywide, grand

challenge that was announced about
cars that could drive themselves.

And while even in the second time
it was run, there were three groups

that completed the 150 miles.

They were out in a desert.

It was 1/1000th of the difficulty
of what Waymo currently has to do,

but it was enough evidence that
maybe, just maybe, it was time.

I love that example, and many
people listening perhaps have

not seen a Waymo or been in one.

I have, and where I live is where
a lot of them were tested, so

I'm a little more used to it.

It is freaky to be in the back
of a car that has no driver, but

it is absolutely cool as well.

And I assume that you are seeing some
of the goals realized, like more safe

arrival, fewer accidents, et cetera.

Yeah, the evidence we have is that
the Waymo cars are at least an

order of magnitude safer than human
drivers in similar situations.

And of course, every time a Waymo
car learns anything, all of the

cars get that learning, so it's
a one-way ratchet of safety.

I have been in San Francisco, where you
literally see a fleet of them driving

people around, and it's very cool.

I want to come to something
that you just did.

You just told us not just about
Waymo, but you told us a story.

How important is storytelling in
defining and realizing moonshots?

I think storytelling is phenomenally
important, but I watch people

at the Moonshot Factory get a
little bit confused about this.

At least when I say storytelling,
I don't primarily mean marketing

or just getting someone excited.

I mean, if you worked at X and you're
proposing that we start a moonshot for

teleportation, let's say, I need from
you an architecture of understanding.

Where are we trying to go?

What makes us think we might be able
to get from where we are to there?

And how should we interpret
things along the way?

What's that set of lily
pads that you can envision?

You'll be wrong.

I'm fine with the fact that you're
wrong, but if you can't paint that

picture so that we have a hypothesis to
test, it's very hard to get behind the

idea that the upside of getting there
will be worth the risks if you can't

even paint an idealized picture of how
we would get there in a controlled way

where the costs aren't out of control,
where nobody gets hurt, et cetera.

The idea of an architecture of
understanding is what a story provides,

and the outcome of the story for you
that's important is a hypothesis that

can be tested, and that's a really unique
way, I think, of looking at storytelling.

You are very good at telling stories.

I'm wondering, do you reflect often
on how to tell stories better?

I noted in the Waymo story one
tool you seem to use is analogies.

You talked about self-driving
car being like an elevator, and

that makes it very accessible.

I might not have been in a
self-driving car, but I've

certainly been in an elevator.

Talk to me about your own internal
process for the stories you tell.

What do you think about?

I think I understand the world mostly
through mechanisms and call it the

gross high-level systems thinking.

That's just how I understand the world,
which makes it easy for me to find two

things that feel related because they have
similar mechanisms, like I just did in

this example between Waymo and elevators.

Now, I can sometimes get caught.

Let me tell you an
example where I was wrong.

I mean, I wasn't intellectually wrong,
but I was wrong as a storyteller.

For quite a long time, I used as an
analogy to help people understand about

what we're trying to do at X. And I
would say, "We are not the gamblers of

innovation. We are working really hard
to be the card counters of innovation."

If we go back to that conversation
we just had about habits versus

outcomes, whether you win or not,
let the statistics take care of that.

I want you to focus on playing the
odds, those are the habits, correctly.

So you can see the analogy
with card counting.

Only I've discovered more recently
that a lot of people would nod along

with me when I said card counting and
used that as an analogy to what we're

trying to do to systematize radical
innovation at the Moonshot Factory, only

to discover more recently, most people
don't really understand card counting.

Am I right that that's a good analogy?

Maybe.

But as a storyteller, I'm failing if I'm
using analogy that doesn't really connect

with people because they don't understand
the mechanism of, of card counting.

So whatever tools you use to tell
a good story, you have to make

sure that they're doing their job.

And that required you to do a fair
amount of reflection because most

people just tell a story and move
on to the next story rather than

reflecting, is it really working?

So that reflective piece is important and
not surprising because a lot of what it

sounds like you do is reflect and learn.

Can we dive deeper into creativity?

You've given us some ideas, focus
on habits, failure is essential.

Are there other things you have
found really help spark and

not just spark creativity, but
foster it and keep it growing?

One of the things that people struggle
with is the reality that creativity's

wellspring is almost entirely humor.

Being serious and being creative are
nearly impossible to do at the same time.

Creativity is a willingness to scramble
your understanding in some maybe

random or not random way And that means
there's a looseness that has to happen.

The idea of seriousness
is a tightening up.

It is an organizational imperative.

That's what the idea of serious is.

So you hear from people, "Are you
playing or are you working?" Because

we think fundamentally that work is
serious and that the alternate when

we're having fun, that's not work.

But creativity, as I just described,
only happens in the play state.

And so constantly trying to inculcate
a sense of wonder, silliness,

experimentation without concern
for looking silly, for example,

looking dumb, is absolutely required
in order to be really creative.

And yet people resist
that push for playfulness.

So I find that's one of the things that
we have to keep coming back to at X is

I'm not asking for silliness because I
disrespect the journey that we're on.

I'm demanding silliness and playfulness
because the journey we're on is so serious

in its goal and can only be seriously
pursued through a non-serious attitude.

What are some things that you
specifically do to bring silliness

and playfulness into work?

Well, as we were talking
before we started, I live

on my rollerblades at work.

One, it's just fun for me, frankly.

Two, I get around a little bit faster.

I probably save eight
or nine minutes a day.

It's a fairly big building.

But three, it sends a signal to people
not to take me too seriously, not

to take themselves too seriously,
not to take the work too seriously.

And when they see me doing that, I don't
need them to wear rollerblades, but

unconsciously it's one of 100 signals
that we send each other at the Moonshot

Factory to keep ourselves from tightening
up into the rigidity of seriousness.

When you interview people to come on
and be part of the X team, give me an

example of an interview question you
would ask that helps you get insight

into if this person will fit into the
culture and perhaps help prepare them

for what the culture would be like.

I mean, one of the main interview
questions I ask, but it's not a trick,

so you can't prep for it really, is
if you come to work at X and you don't

really understand what we're trying
to do, 'cause you just think it's

cool from the outside, like watching
someone jump out of an airplane, but

when I have you at the door of the
airplane and I'm asking you to jump, it

might not seem like your jam anymore.

And I reserve the right, we reserve the
right, to torture you if you're at X and

you're not actually down for the thing
we're trying to do, for those habits.

So this is not an interview.

You and I should be failing fast together.

If we can possibly discover
that you're not right, that's

definitely in my best interest, but
it's also in your best interest.

And I know some part of you wants
to believe that you guys, your job

here is to trick me into hiring.

But look at me, I am serious.

I will torture you if you do that.

You will not be happy on
the other side of this.

You and I want the same
thing in this moment.

So let's spend the next 45 minutes
trying to fail fast here, verifying

why you won't be happy at X.

Wow, that's like an experiential
interview on steroids, where it's,

you wanna have that experience of
failing, and you wanna be comfortable

that that person is okay with it.

Number one, if somebody isn't comfortable
doing that with me, then they're

probably not gonna fit at X. But if
they are comfortable doing that with

me, then I'm getting what I want, which
is for us to have a real conversation

about why it might not work out.

I can only imagine people come away
feeling that experience was special

and unique, and you probably end up
bringing someone on who works out.

Your success rate is much higher, likely.

It is quite high.

It's certainly not 100%.

I would also say that our success
rate is as good as it is partly

because we're very flexible.

If I was hiring you to come on, I would
say, "I do not have a perfectly shaped job

for you here." You might suspect what it
is, but let's be honest, if you're coming

in, I'm gonna be running naked and so
are you, and we're gonna basically invent

your job on your way in and probably for
the first year or two you're with us.

And if that's not your jam, please don't
come, because all of X is like that.

It's just gonna drive you crazy.

But if you're up for that, we have
a better chance of winning because I

don't have to be right ahead of time
about exactly what your superpowers are.

We can design a job
around your superpowers.

It sounds like that's a perfect
example of what you talked

about earlier about setting some
boundaries, but not being rigid.

Allow that flexibility.

So you've added podcast host to your
list of titles and accomplishments.

What do you think about the hosting gig,
and what motivated you to start the show?

I listen and I love it.

I've learned a lot.

It's really cool for me to be
in person with you after having

listened to you in my headset.

What brought it about?

First, if people are interested,
they can just look up Moonshot

Factory, Moonshot Podcast.

We were turning 15 years old, and at
least one of the things was we're trying

to get a little bit less secret, and
we wanted to start exposing some of how

we work and what we've done, what we've
learned, partly because we want to empower

other people to take their own moonshots.

And giving them that learning
opportunity hopefully gives them a boost.

Rather than me just blah blah blah-ing
about moonshot taking, what we've done is

we've sliced it up into about 50-minute
episodes, 10 of them in the first season,

where we've given people who've come
through the Moonshot Factory a chance to

tell their stories, what they've learned.

So you get to hear in the
first person what it was like

to be taking those moonshots.

And these are some people who are now
luminaries in their field, Sebastian Thrun

or Andrew Ng or Jeff Dean and others.

And how did we get to
something like Google Brain?

How did we get to something like
Waymo, the self-driving cars?

And when you hear from them the mistakes
they made or those initial things that

gave them the faith to start, that,
that seed crystal that they thought

was worth building on, I hope it then
helps other people not only understand

us and the moonshots we take, but
inspire them to go do some of their own.

It's very inspirational, and
it's really cool to hear in their

own words what they've done.

And there are learnings that come.

I have listened and thought
differently about ways I team with

people and the ways that I think
about the decisions I need to make.

So I'm excited that you're doing it,
and I'm excited to listen to season two.

Before we end, I ask all
my guests three questions.

One I create just for you, and
then the other two are similar.

Are you up for that?

Sure.

I'd be very curious, what's a
current moonshot you're working

on that has you really excited?

We started this about eight years ago.

This is very typical of
the moonshots we take.

They seem crazy when we start them,
and then at least occasionally, much

later, they turn out to be in the
right place at the right time, is

a moonshot for the electric grid.

It turns out that everyone would like to
make software that helps the electric grid

get better, including us, and you can't.

You can't until somebody has a
circuit diagram for the grid itself.

If you don't have a digital twin for the
grid, where every wire is, where every

inverter is, where every transformer
is, no software on top of that will help

you manage what you have or plan for
the future or optimize it in real time.

And so what our team, Tapestry, did
over the last seven years was build out

the tools for taking in a wide variety
of data, including the very noisy and

imperfect data that grid operators
have about their own grid, 'cause they

don't have a map of their own grid.

And then using lots of different sources,
Street View cars, drone data, satellite

data, lots of different inputs, we can
then use induction and deduction to do

the detective work and back out the exact
grid that a particular grid operator has.

And then we can help them manage
the grid they have, plan for

the future of their grid, and
optimize their grid in real time.

So it's as if you've decoded
the genome for the grid, and

now we can do some work with it.

That sounds very useful and
hopefully very beneficial.

Question number two, who is a
communicator that you admire and why?

I enjoy giving public talks,
and so oration has always

been very interesting to me.

And I have watched a wide variety of
public speakers, not because I'm going

to be any one of them, but to understand
how each of their patterns functions.

You know, Martin Luther
King Jr., great speaker.

His preacher style, there are
things you can learn from that.

James Baldwin, amazing speaker.

Not a preacher.

Somewhat professorial, but with
a calm angriness because of the

specifics of the life that he led.

Barack Obama, very professorial.

My grandfather, Edward Teller,
actually was another great public

speaker, and I learn a lot from
watching each of these people.

Yeah, they each bring a really interesting
approach that you can then synthesize.

And by the way, your TED Talk is
one that everybody should listen to

because you deliver it very well and
it's very exciting to learn from.

Final question, what are the first
three ingredients that go into a

successful communication recipe?

I personally don't love the
start with a personal story.

I would encourage people to
get real, as in honest, get

specific, and you can be human.

So when we tell a story, like in our
podcast, we use visuals from the field,

from the actual people who are doing it.

We explain what we were trying
to do and how where we actually

ended up wasn't that, getting real.

We show people how we harvest value
even from being wrong, and can have

fun in the process of learning.

And when you get a cycle of those three
things, while that doesn't feel like Mary

Jane in Idaho, start of the sort of New
York Times article, it is deeply human.

You can feel what it feels like
for these people to go through it.

It's exciting, it's meaningful,
you can see yourself in it, it's

memorable because of those things.

So that's how we try to do it.

Be real, be specific, be human,
and all of that allows you

to connect through emotion.

And I appreciate that recipe.

And I appreciate this conversation, Astro.

This was fantastic.

You've talked about architecting to
understanding, and you certainly did

that for us, and I hope all of us can
build these habits and reward ourselves

for these habits and not just outcomes.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

That was a lot of fun.

Thank you for joining us
for another episode of Think

Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

It was great learning from Astro.

Among the many ideas he shared, the one
that stands out most to me is that being

wrong isn't something we should avoid.

It's often where the most important
learnings happen, and embracing it

can help us move forward faster.

To learn more about creativity and
innovation, please listen to episode 70

and 120 with Jeremy Utley and Tina Seelig.